A glimpse into Amazon's post-Bezos future.
 | By Eleanor Barkhorn Staff Editor, Opinion |
It's a big week at Amazon. Jeff Bezos, the company's founder, is stepping down as C.E.O. Bezos announced he'd be doing this back in February, so we've had a few months to think about who we wanted to reflect on his legacy for The Times. One person was obvious: Brad Stone. |
Stone has written two books on Amazon and along the way has gained insights into Bezos and his company that few other journalists have. |
In an essay for us, he identifies what he calls "the Bezos paradox": "As the fortunes of the company and its founder have increased, their public images have taken a beating." |
I've certainly noticed this in my own life. Thanks to dogged reporting by my Times colleagues, I'm aware of the harrowing working conditions at Amazon's warehouses and corporate offices. But I also use countless Amazon products, from Prime delivery for diapers to Prime Video for episodes of "Catastrophe." |
Stone says the root of both Amazon's ubiquity and its declining reputation are "byproducts of Mr. Bezos' personality — his towering intellect, along with a notable deficit of empathy and fear of stasis." |
What does this mean for the post-Bezos future of Amazon? Perhaps an opportunity to finally exhibit some empathy. As for Bezos's post-Amazon future, Stone writes, "He is likely to apply the same roaming curiosity and intolerance for stasis to his life outside Amazon that he did for his career inside it." |
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