All language subtitles for The.Billionnaires.Who.Made.Our World.S01E03.Jeff.Bezos.1080p.ALL4.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.H.264-BTN

This is the original sign
that I made for Amazon.com.

Blue spray paint
on white posterboard.

The footage of the early Jeff Bezos
with the Amazon.com

spray painted on the wall

shows this person
who looks completely different

than what the man looks like today.

One of the people I really like,
Thomas Edison,

here's a model
of his original light bulb.

He is famous for saying
1% inspiration, 99% perspiration.

HE LAUGHS

Just this nerdy guy
in this scrappy company.

But decades later, when you think
about the scale and the power

Jeff Bezos has, it's enormous,

and I don't think we've ever
seen that in humanity.

His end goal is not the money,
but his place in history.

Like, he wakes up in the morning
and he thinks,

"You know, I'm king of Earth."

And he has now become a king.

JOURNALISTS SHOUT

The transformation of Jeff Bezos
has been extraordinary.

Jeff, in the corner, please.
Jeff, in the corner, please.

Bezos has become a caricature
of what it's like

to be worth ¤200 billion.

Blast off into space.

A tabloid divorce.

Mr Bezos!

Jeff's ambition
was to be number one.

Power reveals who you really are

and he revealed himself as somebody
who was extremely ruthless.

Why on earth would they compare
your company to a drug dealer?

I completely disagree
with that characterisation.

If Jeff Bezos were here right now,

I'd say,
"What's the matter with you?"

You're raised to have this
American dream.

You go to work, you work hard,

become rich one day,

and then you live this
lavish lifestyle.

But then you realise
that's just not true.

I have twins.
One boy, one girl.

They're nine years old now,
but at the time they were small.

I wasn't making that much money,

so having the opportunity
at Amazon,

that was more convenient
for me and my family.

My name is Chris Smalls.

I worked at Amazon
for nearly five years.

I worked hard, got promoted up
in less than a year

to assistant manager.

My job required to pick
the customer's items

in a timely manner at a rate
at about 400 items an hour.

These warehouses hold anywhere
between 3 to 6,000 people.

It's very stressful on your body
physically

and of course mentally, as well.

I've seen good people get fired
for no reason.

I've seen good people quit
for no reason.

I've seen a lot of injuries.

I always stood with the workers
at entry level.

I think management saw
that as a threat.

But I'm not going to allow this
company to just crush me

and get away with it.

Amazon is, you know,
one of the powerful entities

of modern-day history.

My message to Jeff Bezos is simple -

it's going to be Amazon
versus the people.

Today, Amazon is one of the biggest
companies in the world,

giving Jeff Bezos a fortune
of over ¤120 billion.

He's currently the third
richest man on earth.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Thank you very much.

You are a captain of industry -
Amazon.com,

private spaceflight with
Blue Origin,

The Washington Post,

levels of, you know, fame and wealth
that are hard to comprehend.

One thing, what would you say is
your favourite part

of having me
as a little brother?

LAUGHTER

Jeff did an interview
with his brother, Mark,

and this was the most in-depth,
revealing, personal talk

that I've ever seen Jeff do.

When I am with my brother,
I just laugh continuously.

And his brother is not afraid
to take the piss out of him.

I've gone through and taken
the liberty of pulling together

a bunch of family photos.

Mark wasn't above sharing
an embarrassing childhood photo.

This is what I grew up with.

LAUGHTER

They went as lady-killers.

Chicks loved that.
They loved that.

We were very successful
in high school.

MARK CHUCKLES

In Albuquerque, New Mexico,

my mother was pregnant with me
in high school.

And believe me, in 1964,
it was not cool to be pregnant,

to be pregnant in high school.

His biological father disappeared
when he was the age of three.

His mum remarried, and I would say
the rest of his childhood

was somewhat conventional.

My dad's name is Miguel.

He adopted me when I was four.

He was 16 when he came to the US
from Cuba by himself.

These hard working, resourceful
and loving people made me who I am.

In loving photos across
his social media,

Bezos proudly displays his family
and idyllic childhood.

Jeff values resourcefulness.

He used to spend his summers
on his grandfather's ranch

in South Texas.

He worked at McDonald's.

He actually perfected the art
of cracking an egg with one hand.

That's actually very Bezos.

Like, he will study something
and he optimises for it.

The gifted student attended
Princeton,

graduating with
electrical engineering

and computer science degrees.

In the late '80s,
he went to Wall Street.

Then he rose to the ranks
quite highly.

He worked at a quantitative
hedge fund.

Yet Bezos was unlucky in love,

as his brother forced him to admit

in this surprisingly candid
interview.

He can't hide from his brother.

Brother knows everything.

I decided I wanted to get married

and I had all my friends
setting me up

and I went on dozens
of blind dates.

And it turned out I kept
meeting people

who were professional
blind daters,

and I sort of became
a professional blind dater.

That changed when Bezos
met his wife,

aspiring novelist MacKenzie Tuttle.

A year after their wedding,
Bezos made a big decision.

And he discovered that this thing
called the World Wide Web

was growing at an exponential pace,

and very kind of rational,

he started to think about
what new businesses could you start?

I mean, this was 1993
when he uprooted his life.

He actually ended up driving
across the country with his wife.

The couple headed for Seattle,
a hub for technology

and the birthplace
of companies like Microsoft.

They set up in this suburban garage.

Who are you?
I'm Jeff Bezos.

And what is your claim to fame?

I'm the founder of Amazon.com

and I picked books as the first best
product to sell online.

As the internet exploded,

Bezos's online bookshop
grew quickly.

This news report was able to capture
the geeky founder's business acumen.

The company claims to be the biggest
bookshop on earth.

What makes us different is
vast selection, convenience -

we deliver right to the desktop -

and also the fact that
we're the broadest discounters

in the world.

Four years after launch,
Bezos earned his first billion.

But what got this
documentary's attention

was his big personality.

You generally hear him
before you see him.

JEFF LAUGHS LOUDLY

It's the ear-piercing laugh
of billionaire Jeff Bezos.

Now, I've heard a lot
about your desk.

It's a door with four-by-fours.

Come on.

This flattering interview
portrayed him as a goofy guy

who'd made it big.

What are these things on the floor?

JEFF CHUCKLES
Well, these are...

These are, you know, sticky balls.

Remember, this man is
a titan of our time.

A giant.

The report breathlessly dubbed Bezos
a tech titan at just 35 years old.

The media have always,
had perpetuated this image

of Jeff Bezos as this kind
of goofy guy selling books.

But it really misses so much
of the picture.

Jeff Bezos comes from Wall Street.

He's built this empire to make
a whole lot of money.

He had that in mind all along.

Jeff's ambition
was to be number one.

There was no being number two.

In 1999,
when I first met Jeff,

I was extremely intimidated

because of his intellect.

Come on up.

I'm going to introduce...

This is... This is Robert.

Robert, you're an alum. Yes, I am.

And Robert's been with us
for quite a while.

How long have you been...?

About three and a half years.
Three and a half years.

We've been to Japan together.

We've been through several trials
together.

OK, thank you, Jeff.

Hello, everybody.

This unique footage of
a university lecture

was able to capture the closeness
of Bezos and his protege,

hinting at their vision
for Amazon's future.

So, we wanted to define a product,

and that product is the ability
to create your own store

on your own website.

Jeff was an amazing innovator,
a visionary.

Straight to the centre here.
Thank you.

It was his laugh.

It's what endears him to
a lot of people.

But once he's done laughing
and you're being analysed,

it can be a scary experience.

Bezos had a reputation of
being intimidating,

staring down employees in meetings.

There are points in time
where he's just like...

And he just stops.

It could be intimidating

and I think that there is
a certain amount of realising

this person's different.

I will always remember
from a meeting...

..if you happen to say
the wrong thing

like this particular person did,

he would stare them in the eye
and say, "This is a tough problem.

"We just need to apply
human intelligence to it."

And it's a subtlety to actually say
that you weren't intelligent enough

to be the person to actually
tackle that problem.

Weeks later, that person might not
be in the company any more.

PRODUCER: It sounds quite Darwinian.

It is very Darwinian.

He is a relentless operator
and he will sort of do anything

to make his company successful.

So whether he's smart or seems nice
when you first meet him,

sure, but like, you know,
power reveals who you really are

and he revealed himself as somebody
who was extremely ruthless.

"Easy for almost anything to occur.

"Even if we've scraped the sky,
we can be rubble.

"Ground zero.

"Is it possible to get lower?"

Not a lot of for-profit
presses publish poetry.

When we started the company in 2001,

we were the top-selling poetry book
of the year.

My name is Dennis Johnson.

I'm the co-publisher of
Melville House Publishing.

We sold books to Amazon the way
we would sell books to any account.

They were seen as
the cutting edge of retail.

But the precise problem
of modern publishing

is that it is
a very traditional business

being confronted
by radical change.

That radical change was Jeff Bezos.

He shook up publishing by pioneering
the electronic book,

whereby millions of titles
could be accessed instantly.

Amazon brought a lot of

good things that we almost
take for granted right now,

like the idea that any book
is available

and not out of print
is pretty remarkable.

It's funny to think that the work
that we did was so ground-breaking,

and I'm really proud of that.

My name is Jon Reily and I worked
in Amazon for three years.

Jeff definitely feels
like he's changing the world

and that drive really gets
people excited

and they really want
to be a part of it.

Let's welcome the biggest
kid in the room,

CEO of Amazon, Mr Jeff Bezos.

CHEERING

Welcome, everybody.

It's great to have you here.

We're here today to celebrate kids.

We're here today
to celebrate innovation.

And we're here to celebrate
the combination

of those two things - toys.

And we're here today
to have some fun.

His long-term goal is for Amazon
to be THE store

where you buy
everything at Amazon.

Gradually, that's becoming
more and more our lives.

If we look back, say, ten years,
you go to the store,

you get the things that you want.

Now you have the ability to have
somebody else

bring it to your house.

I sort of jokingly refer
to that as the Amazonification

of expectations.

If it isn't going to show up in my
house in two days, I don't want it.

One good question is whether
Jeff Bezos has changed the world.

The answer is obviously yes.

From a consumer perspective,
Jeff clearly has changed the world

by having changed the way a billion
people think about buying stuff.

But critics say that Bezos
built his empire

by being a ruthless businessman.

Back in the mid-2000s, he set out
to squeeze the book industry.

Bezos came into a meeting with
a lot of his book executives

and basically said,

"We need to negotiate
with these publishers

"and booksellers much more harshly."

Publisher Dennis Johnson had
had a textbook deal with Amazon.

They get a certain discount
and then it's their book,

and if they don't sell it,
they can return it to us,

and it was just kind of
standard deals.

The first time we became aware
of the danger that Amazon posed

was when we were called
by our distributor,

who said he had had a meeting
with Amazon

to discuss the next year's contract

and it was like having dinner
with The Godfather.

He said, "They want 4% of sales."

They called it marketing costs,
but that's bogus.

I had a very Brooklyn guy kind
of reaction,

which was,
"Fuck you, bring it on."

And I thought,
I'm going to stand up to this.

You don't get to strong-arm me.

And I went to the media.

After we went public,
we paid the price.

They removed our books
from the website.

As one reporter said to me,

I was the only one foolish enough
to go on the record.

Why were people afraid?

Well, it's a thuggish company,
isn't it?

In response to allegations
of intimidating behaviour

in order to increase fees,

Amazon has previously said that
they disagree with this account.

Well, we actually had a kind
of a confrontation around the time

of what was then BookExpo America.

And two young men
in black suits came up to me

and said, "Are you Johnson?"

And I said, "Who are you guys?"

And I looked at their nametags,
and they were both from Amazon,

and they said, "When are you going
to get with the programme?"

And I thought they were kidding,
you know, so I laughed.

And then I realised
they weren't kidding

and I said, "You want to leave now."

And they did.

What's the Gazelle Project?

Jeff Bezos instructed his staff
to think of independent publishers

like Melville House
as wounded gazelles

and his people were the cheetahs.

It tells you a lot about
the company, doesn't it?

They think that
we are their victims.

Bezos later said he didn't recall
the comment,

but his relationship with the book
industry was acrimonious.

I think Jeff Bezos looked
at that industry and said,

"I'm a fighter. I can take them."

It was his way or you were...
You were out.

Over the coming years,

Amazon would go on to sell thousands
of different products.

Bezos dramatically increased
the fees it took

from most small businesses.

Today, that's up to ¤34

of every ¤100 that a third
party seller makes.

Last year, Amazon took
in ¤121 billion in fees.

This is extraordinary.

PHONE RINGS

Excuse me. It's my mother.

Wassup?
LAUGHTER

These PopSockets do make me
want to dance.

They make me want to dance
too, Mum.

# Ah, yeah, we hustle all day
All day

# Yeah, we're workin', yeah,
we're workin', then we play... #

I'm David Barnett, the CEO
and founder of PopSockets.

It's a company that makes
mobile accessories.

For most small businesses,

it's taken as a given
that you need to sell on Amazon

because of the dominance
of their marketplace.

You have to be very careful
with Amazon.

They've got all the power.

There were a number of factors
in our decision

to leave the relationship.

One did have to do with
counterfeits.

It was a painful, painful experience
seeing literally thousands

of listings for fake products

and having Amazon do little to
stop these listings from popping up.

After maybe a year of this,

Amazon finally agreed to verify
the authenticity of products

being listed on our product pages

in exchange for roughly
¤2 million of marketing funds.

It's illegal to sell fake product
on the marketplace

in the first place.

But I was at breaking point,
so my honest reaction was,

"Great, I will spend ¤2 million
to eliminate a far worse problem."

But I'm tired of the strong-arming,

I'm tired of the bullying,
veiled or not veiled threats,

so we triggered a clause
in our agreement with them.

After Barnett tried to negotiate
better terms with Amazon,

he says they retaliated.

They removed all the listings.

Over the course of the next year,

we lost roughly ¤10 million in sales
on the Amazon platform.

What happened to PopSockets
is absolutely Amazon's playbook.

They go around these companies
that are really dependent on them

and say, "Yeah, you're going
to have to pay up.

"And if you don't pay up,
we're going to cut you off.

"You're going to lose most
of your revenue."

The myth of a kind
of lone genius

who came along and had an idea
and changed everything...

..really misses the very predatory
and monopolistic strategy

that has always been part of Amazon.

Amazon's control over commerce

gives it a position to pick
the winners

and losers of business.

Usually it picks itself.

January 2019 was
this remarkable moment

in the life and the image
of Jeff Bezos.

He and his wife at the time,
MacKenzie,

sent out a tweet announcing
that they have agreed,

after 25 years of marriage,
to divorce.

And it was a shock because
he had really cultivated an image

as a devoted husband,
as a family man.

Then the next day, things got
actually even stranger.

The National Enquirer divulged
that Bezos actually had been seeing

a woman named Lauren Sanchez.

It was quite salacious.

The pair had been seeing
each other for many months.

Here he was, kind of leading
an alternate life.

They played every angle
and tried to embarrass Bezos.

They had actual text messages,

and that was the real incendiary
piece of it.

"I want to breathe you in.

"I want to hold you tight.
I love you.

"I'm in love with you."

It's kind of sweet
when you think about it.

And frankly, it was, you know,
I think unfortunate

and kind of embarrassing.

The affair took a turn when Bezos
published National Enquirer emails

alleging they had yet
more material on him.

The really explosive threat
was that The Enquirer

had what they were calling
euphemistically

a below the belt selfie.

And the editor seemed
to be threatening that he had it

and that he would publish it.

So the media post that he wrote...

..a remarkable essay...

..is basically saying,
"These guys are extorting me."

And he really turned
the tables on them.

And it raised the question,
how did they get them?

Had Bezos's phone been hacked?

Had Sanchez's phone been hacked?

It was a great mystery.

Jeff raised the possibility that
it was an international conspiracy,

that maybe the Trump administration
or the government of Saudi Arabia

had provided the information

to The National Enquirer.

Bezos was by now the owner
of The Washington Post newspaper,

which was key to his theories.

The Post had been punching Trump
in the face

since the moment he took office,

and so there was a lot
of enmity there.

So Bezos suggested that somehow
The National Enquirer

was doing Trump's bidding,

a punch back
at all the critical coverage.

But in the end, Bezos came
to a very different conclusion

of who was responsible
for leaking the texts.

He accused his girlfriend's brother,
Michael Sanchez,

who denied the allegation
and sued Bezos, if unsuccessfully.

The National Enquirer was a dumpster
fire on every single level.

That was, I think, a great example
of the metamorphosis

that he has gone through.

He's going through, you know,

what could charitably be called
a midlife crisis.

Bezos has become a caricature

of what it's like to be worth
¤200 billion.

He's accumulated homes
in Los Angeles, in Washington, DC.

He's buying cars
and he's constructing

one of the most lavish
sailing yachts in the world.

Mr Bezos!

He's living the life, man.

He's the rock star.

Lauren Sanchez's aspirational
social media posts

depict Bezos's new life.

He's not that nerdy little guy
sitting in a cubicle any more.

He's looking like he's on
The Mod Squad or something.

Why are you wearing sunglasses?
It's night.

My dad always used to say there
are only two people in the world

that wear sunglasses at night

and that's jackasses
and blind people.

Well, you're not blind.

My friendship with Jeff
is based on mutual respect.

I've never had an opinion
about wealthy individuals

that want to do extreme things.

Truthfully, many of them
are friends of mine.

My name is David Concannon.

I am an explorer.

I led the Apollo F-1 project
for Jeff Bezos.

The journey to find the engines
that launched men to the moon.

It's one small step for man,
one giant leap for mankind.

This was to find something
that had fallen from space.

They didn't know where they were.

This was his dream.

This was his plan that
was set in motion.

Bezos wanted to secure this passion
project a place in history.

He even commissioned this ambitious
documentary about the mission,

styling himself as an explorer.

It's hard to find something
more profound as an engineer

to object than the F-1 engine.

Apollo 11, I was five years old

and it really was a seminal
moment for me.

I remember watching it
on our living room TV.

I had the excitement of my parents
and my grandparents.

Little kids can pick up
that kind of excitement.

They know that something
extraordinary is happening.

The National Geographic-style
film showed the huge scale

of the operation and the shared
passion the two men

had for the mission.

When you explore, you're doing
things that nobody has done before

and things can always go wrong

when you're doing something
for the first time.

If you look at the film that we did,

he's somebody who
is intensely curious,

intensely passionate,
hardworking.

We haven't always agreed or seen
eye to eye on certain things,

but he gives you the space
to succeed.

The word impossible either
doesn't exist in his lexicon

or is spoken very infrequently.

If Jeff were to say this is
impossible,

he would qualify it and say,
"This is impossible for now."

This wasn't the only space-themed
passion project that Bezos

had ploughed his billions into.

A lot of people who go to space want
to tell us more about the universe.

Jeff Bezos is very unassuming.

To me,
he's like a friend, a brother.

I'm Lori Garver, and I was
the second in command of Nasa.

Garver championed
private space travel,

such as by Bezos's company
Blue Origin

and Elon Musk's SpaceX.

We have the billionaires willing
to put their own money

into some of these vehicles.

Jeff Bezos has told me he did it
because just growing up,

his favourite thing was space
and rockets.

T-minus ten, nine, eight, seven...

To great fanfare, in 2021,

Bezos got to test
his very own rocket.

Blue Origin's excitable
footage painted him

as a real-life astronaut.

..has cleared the tower,

on our way to space
with our first human crew.

Go, Jeff, go!

Of course I watched.

It was very exciting to see.

Ah! Ah!

He was like a little kid,
just enjoying himself.

Oh, fantastic! Is it everything you
thought it would be?

Yeah, well done!

But he knows it's not universally
loved by everyone.

Space billionaires have
become the butt of jokes.

Some watching over-the-top
Blue Origin promos like this

had one observation about
the shape of Jeff's rocket.

Good. LGS check, good.

The design of that was interesting.

I mean, it looked like a penis.
Everybody knew that.

Why would you do that, right?

CHEERING

And a lot of people have made
some very funny spoofs.

The funniest I saw was a guy
from Seinfeld plays Bezos.

Do you know in 1961 we sent
the chimpanzee into space?

But not in a dick that looks
like my dick.

Not enough. Not short enough!

Not wide enough!

Not enough!

A lot of people view the Blue Origin
launch as a little bit of a joyride.

It's an immense personal expenditure
for not a lot of public benefit.

The spoof left no doubt
as to who benefited most

from the billionaire space race.

One small step for mankind,

one giant leap for me personally.

People are struggling with,
you know,

what's the value of just going
to space for ten minutes or so?

CHEERING
These are controversial people.

Footage of Blue Origin's
post-flight press conference

proved most controversial.

I want to thank every
Amazon employee

and every Amazon customer,

because you guys paid for all
of this.

And every Amazon employee,

thank you from the bottom
of my heart.

I didn't watch him go to space.

I heard what he said.

He thanked the workers for paying
for all of this.

And, you know,
that right there was

another slap in the face
to the workforce.

This man used to buy half a billion
dollar yachts off of our backs...

..and then pretty much disrespect us
by thanking us for paying for this.

Jeff Bezos was making ¤13 billion
a day in the height of the pandemic.

It was a lockdown outside,

but we also didn't sign up to work
in the pandemic, as well.

Chris Smalls had been in dispute
with Amazon

when he was repeatedly
passed over for promotion.

But relations worsened when Smalls
accused them of failing to provide

adequate PPE in the warehouses.

Workers were sick, vomiting,
dizziness, fatigue.

As a supervisor,
when I raised concerns,

it kind of fell on deaf ears.

I was labelled insubordinate,
labelled as a troublemaker.

I had to take further action
leading a walkout.

They said I violated
social distancing policy.

That's when the company
terminated me.

After Smalls was fired,
he gathered Amazon workers

to protest their working conditions.

We all protested in front of every
Jeff Bezos penthouse or mansion

that we could find.

We went down to DC and
we went out west to Beverly Hills.

This is where I held one
of the first protests ever

in New York City,
right here at this very spot.

Currently, we're in front
of Jeff Bezos' many penthouses

and mansions.

Once I went public with everything,
Amazon saw me as a threat.

It kind of put a target on my back.

After Smalls blew the whistle
on warehouse conditions,

Jeff Bezos fought back.

In Seattle, a meeting was called
among the members

of the senior leadership team,
which Bezos presides over.

There was a discussion about Smalls.

Leaked to the media was
a meeting memo

describing Smalls as unintelligent.

"He's not smart or articulate,

"and to the extent the press wants
to focus on us versus him,

"we should spend the first part
of our response strongly laying out

"the case of why the organiser's
conduct was arguably illegal.

"Make him the most interesting
part of the story."

Obviously the things that they said
in that meeting were disgusting

and definitely a stigma
in the black community,

calling me not smart or articulate.

Jeff Bezos was present
in this meeting

and signed off on pretty much
what they call a smear campaign,

which explains
a lot about his character.

We're talking about the richest man
in the world at the time

crushed somebody who already
lost their job.

There was an outcry when
the transcript was leaked.

Smalls happens to be black,

and the comments were seen
as kind of racially tinged.

Right here. Right at that spot.
CHEERING

Amazon have previously denied
they knew Chris Smalls was black

and that the comments
were in response to Smalls

endangering Amazon workers
after exposure to Covid-19.

It had the effect of really
increasing Smalls's public profile.

I'd say, "Jeff, when you're out
on your yacht,

"I want you to think
about the workers."

This was an attempt to discredit
and malign Chris Smalls.

It's of a standard Amazon playbook,

and this is how they deal

with workers who speak up
against them.

It's how they deal with
small businesses that try

to speak against them.

It's how they deal with suppliers
that try to stand up to them.

It's when you have the power
to bully other people

and get away with it.

Amazon doesn't have a union
here in America.

Amazon spends millions of dollars
trying to stop

these union campaigns.

I watched this company hire
and fire people every day.

I could have done two things.

I could've just faded away
or I could really try to create

something that's going to change
the culture of Amazon.

Smalls planned to form the first
ever worker union at the company.

Workers were to vote on the plan
in March 2022.

Don't give in!
CROWD CHANT

Workers are currently voting
up until tonight.

We're hoping that this
will spread like wildfire.

When you talk about billionaires,

in order to become something
like that,

you had to exploit
a class of people

and that's what Jeff Bezos has done.

And now you're seeing
the tides change.

CROWD CHANTS: ALU!

April 1st, 2022,

was a momentous day for former
Amazon worker Chris Smalls.

To the first union
in American history.

CHEERING

We went for the jugular
and we went for the top dog,

because things have changed.

We're going to unionise.

Today's monumental.
It's historical.

One of the most historical
campaigns in the country.

This is a catalyst for hopefully
a revolution.

Jeff Bezos should be quite afraid
of what is going to happen

when the people come together.

This is just the beginning for us.

Smalls has been up against one
of the world's most powerful men.

Jeff Bezos, the biggest
man on the planet.

That's a funny thing to consider.

Where you go from being this,
you know,

nerdy computer guy to being
the king of the castle, as it were.

It appears that his humility
has somewhat dropped in terms of,

"I can do whatever I want."

The majority of the time
people think of Amazon,

they think of the retail business.

They don't necessarily consider
the other business units of Amazon

which support that.

Amazon became one of the largest
trucker brokers in the country.

Amazon is one of the largest
airlines in the world.

But Bezos created one behemoth
that dwarfs all others.

Amazon Web Services, AWS,

controls about 40% of the world's
cloud computing capacity globally.

Cloud computing company AWS
services hundreds of thousands

of businesses worldwide.

There are ridesharing applications

using AWS, game companies,

device manufacturers,

your Fortune 500 companies,
powered by Amazon.

AWS is so powerful that even
government agencies use AWS.

As well as America's FBI and CIA,

UK government departments
rely on AWS,

including MI5, MI6 and GCHQ,

with the Home Office signing
a £120 million deal.

AWS is so large that economies
are based upon the way

in which they use the Amazon
services for their country.

That makes Jeff Bezos
super powerful.

All of those tentacles that
reach out into all of those areas,

what it means is that he has a kind
of godlike view across the economy.

This is a corporation that embodies
his vision more so

than any other founder
and corporation out there.

It's really unlike anything
we've ever seen

in terms of monopoly power.

The political power that comes
with is tremendous,

and that is why they're able to get
governments to dance to their tune.

But 2019 was really a turning point.

Lawmakers in Washington finally
took action against Amazon.

Congress launched
a major investigation

into the tech industry's alleged
monopoly power.

Their ability to dictate terms,
call the shots,

upend entire sectors,
and inspire fear

represent the powers
of a private government.

Our founders would not bow
before a king,

nor should we bow before
the emperors of the online economy.

I don't know whether or not people
are afraid of Jeff Bezos,

but they ought to be very,
very angry

about the business
practices of Amazon.

In 2007,
Mr Spence received...

Central to the investigation
was Amazon's relationship

with small businesses.

Our witness is David Barnett.

He's founder and CEO
of PopSockets LLC.

So today I want to talk
about two challenges

that we've had with Amazon.

One involving counterfeits,
the other involving bullying.

Barnett went public with allegations
that Amazon threatened

ever greater fees.

Another threat might be, "We've got
too much inventory on our hands,

"so we're going to ship it
all back to you.

"You're going to pay for all
the fees.

"So really, we need the money."

He spoke about the horrific
behaviour of Amazon

that attempted to bully him into
providing more revenue to Amazon

with no justification.

I think Mr Bezos in particular
is very unaccustomed

to having to justify any
of his conduct

and was not interested
in coming before Congress

and answering questions under oath.

For two months,
Bezos refused to appear,

but was forced to
under threat of a subpoena.

He addressed PopSockets' allegations
that Amazon demanded ¤1.8 million

in order to remove fake products.

What is your explanation
for that business practice?

If those are the facts,
that is unacceptable

and I will look into that

and we'll get back
to your office with that.

Jeff Bezos said that he would look
into it and get back to Congress.

To my knowledge, he hasn't.

Many small companies
have told us

during this year-long investigation
that they were mistreated,

abused and tossed aside by Amazon.

So, Mr Bezos, this is one
of your partners.

Why on earth would they compare
your company to a drug dealer?

Sir, I have great respect
for you in this committee,

but I completely disagree
with that characterisation.

Isn't it an inherent conflict
of interest for Amazon to produce

and sell products on its platform
that compete directly

with third party sellers,
particularly when you, Amazon,

set the rules of the game?

No, I don't believe it is.

We have, we have...
The consumer is the one ultimately

making the decisions.

They're making the decisions
about what to buy,

what price to buy it at,
who to buy it from,

and our...what we try to do...
That's not the question, Mr Bezos.

The question is, is there
an inherent conflict of interest?

Mr Bezos, did you personally sign
off on the plan to raise prices

after Amazon limited
its competition?

I don't remember that at all.

I found Jeff Bezos interested mostly
in getting out of the hearing

without answering the questions.

Please raise your right hand.

Do you swear or affirm under
penalty of perjury...?

The hearings took a dramatic turn

when an Amazon executive
took the stand.

Let me answer... Can I remind you,
sir, you're under oath? Yes.

Thank you for your question.

We use data to serve
our customers,

and to clarify my question,
we don't use individual seller data

to directly compete with them.

And again, similarly, with respect
to some of the... Do you use...?

Let me just... Do you use consumer
data to favour Amazon products?

Amazon repeatedly told Congress,
on the record,

we do not give
preference to our own brands,

and that is the lie that Congress
caught them in.

It is not against the law
to preference your own brands.

It is against the law to lie
to Congress about it.

Thank you very much,
Congressman.

Cicilline accused Amazon
of criminally misleading Congress

and took the unprecedented
step of referring it

to the Department of Justice.

An untruthful statement
is a very serious matter.

If the Department of Justice makes
a determination that a witness

was untruthful,
they can face a jail sentence.

Amazon denies it lied
to the committee

and the attorney general
is still investigating.

But not long after he appeared
in front of Congress,

Bezos resigned as Amazon CEO.

I don't think it's a coincidence
that Amazon asked Jeff Bezos

to step down after
that testimony to Congress.

It's pretty clear that they wanted
somebody else

to be the face of the company.

As well as record layoffs
at Amazon in January,

employee protests are spreading.

In the UK, workers are striking
for the first time,

demanding better conditions...

..and Chris Smalls is pushing to
create more unions in the US.

We're hoping that we'll be able
to expand into, you know,

all across the nation.

Chris Smalls stood up to Amazon

and he's won a major battle
in that fight,

at the same moment that
we have Congress moving

towards passing major
tech legislation.

This battle between
the big tech companies

and those that are trying
to bring real change here

is the battle of David
and Goliath.

We all have to be David.

You know, it's not just one David.

All the workers coming together.

So this is not an easy fight,
but it's a fight we're going to win.

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