reading the washington post. millions of americans whether they know it or not are interacting on a daily basis with amazon founder and ceo jeff bezos. jeff bezos has said the way you live, eat and work he wants to make it cheaper and he wants to make it more convenient. and thus far his track record is pretty extraordinary. bezos is an affable self described super geek. but behind the trademark booming laugh is a relentless and some would say ruthless drive. everyone s impacted by the strength of amazon. they have enormous power over the retail eco system. even consumer products companies are worried about that. that ambition has catapulted bezos to staggering heights but has also made him the target of scathing criticism. and bezos most high profile critic has been donald trump. he owns amazon. he wants political influence so that amazon will benefit from
by late 2016 jeff bezos had built his empire far beyond the borders of his online retail giant amazon.com. among his vast array of venturers was amazon studios, space travel, computer services and the washington post. he was also squarely on the radar of a certain republican candidate for president. so he uses the washington post for power and he thinks that he s going to get the politicians to co-what he wants. and he probably will. but me i couldn t care less. bezos hit back on trump s swipes at the post and the press in general. we live in this amazing democracy with amazing freedom of speech. and a presidential candidate should embrace that. when trump won the election,
have an empty building and wondering if you would want to use that. to bring families inside. the company didn t stop there. amazon has offered to build us a forever home. in their downtown headquarters. having a shelter in a corporate headquarters is unprecedented. bezos is also building on a mission he s been pursuing for almost two decades at blue origin. space exploration. this is the most important work i m doing. i have great conviction about that. blue origin work follows the vision bezos out lined way back in high school. preserving the earth by moving industry to space. i don t want a plan b for earth. i want plan b to make sure plan a works. you go fo space to save earth. blue origin landed its first rocket in 2015.
washington post, which he bought in 2013, as a political weapon against him. the washington post, which i call a lobbying tool for amazon. the president has called the media the enemy of the people, and it is not. but it is not the friend of any politician. if the media is doing its job it is asking tough questions. donald trump believes that media exists to serve the interests of its owners. he doesn t believe that an owner could just believe that it is important to have a well-funded free press. and so after a particularly damaging article that was published about him in the washington post he took to twitter and called out jeff bezos by name. bezos basically laughed off trump s tirade with a tweet of his own. but what bezos didn t know at the time was that this was only
transporter. and you can do amazing things with it. i spins in place. in 2001 amazon led all e retailers with $3.1 billion in sales. a huge shift in consumer habit was beginning. online shopping rocketed past department stores and by 2017 was raking in three times as much in sales. faster, better, cheaper. consumers like all three of those things. and jeff was able to do it in scale. pick what i want. it comes in two days and don t have to worry about parking and crowds. i do all my shopping online. i do amazon. but bezos had much bigger dreams than conquering retail. thanks to his characteristicic secrecy almost known knew thno bezos was getting serious about space. when blue origin was first founded in 2000 it was really