it s the home of amazon prime video, exactly. the worldwide vice president of prime video, amazon s video streaming service. i m just a man who came up with that idea? to create the video? jeff said, what if we licensed a bunch of content and made it available at no additional charge to prime members? and everyone sort of looked at each other and looked at him and thought, okay, that s an interesting idea. people may come for the shopping but stay for the entertainment. is the goal to win oscars or sell more paper towels? delight customers. people who engage with prime video convert from free trials to paid membership at a higher rate, renew their memberships at a higher rate and shop more. did you know it was going to work? of course, not.
it was 2013 and one of the country s leading newspapers was in serious trouble. the 2008 financial crisis was devastating. we d been through a lot of recessions, but we d never seen anything like this. the washington post had been owned by the graham family since 1933 but now it was struggling to survive. i was trying to figure out how a newspaper that had been successful in print could be successful in the digital world. so don graham, chairman of the post at the time, talked to everyone he could in silicon valley. i talked to steve jobs. i talked to gates. i talked to mark zuckerberg. i talked to the founders of google. i talked to jeff. over and over again.
it s also a pretty different heat shield, if a liberal newspaper is not if favor of antitrust against bezos, it s just a fantastic way to put sheep s clothing around a wolf. and over the next five years, bezos invested even more in the nation s capital. purchasing the largest home in the city. choosing its suburbs for amazon s second headquarters. and spending more on lobbying than any other tech company so far this year. amazon is one of the single most influential companies in washington. do you think owning the washington post has given bezos more clout among the political class here in washington? no. as the owner of amazon, jeff could hardly have more clout if he wanted to exercise it. but i see no evidence that jeff is using the washington post to advance any political interest.
right thing. by confronting this this abusive media power. i think it was handled brilliantly. i think there s a reservoir of good will toward jeff bezos because he s been seen as a responsible steward of the washington post. i think his personal reputation has probably never been stronger. the medium post that surprised everyone with very serious allegations of blackmail. i m interested if that has affected amazon at all or changed at all how he leads amazon. it hasn t changed how he leads. jeff is as engaged as he s been for years. this ideas are just as clever. i watched him give messages to our teams, all-hands meetings, smaller group messages, the messages are spot-on. aligned with culture and leadership principles. he s the same jeff i worked alongside for 20 years and i hope he stays the same jeff.
obsessive compulsive focus on the customer as opposed to obsession over the competitor. when you look at amazon and jeff, they re always that is so paramount and, you know, transcends almost all other things so you learn from that. has he affected the way you run your bank? oh, sure. we had a bunch of products and services where you click on it, you have to wait a second. and we didn t really think about it very much until i was reading something about amazon. i said, my god, we re just we got to be much faster. we re too slow. we re too slow. that exacting culture has brought amazon extraordinary customer satisfaction, it has also brought on harsh criticism from some of its workers. the culture is competitive and cutthroat, i would say. mt. everest, 29,029 feet. antonio pettit worked on a seven-month contract for amazon s alexa team. not a lot of care seems to be