Jeff Bezos buys the Washington Post

Top reporters still do important work, and hopefully Bezos will find a way to profit from it that's better than selling unpersonalized ads in a dying medium.

Amazon is basically becoming the Standard Oil of consumer products. Although Standard Oil was profitable much sooner.

Ok here's something I don't understand: Bezos pays $250m to the Washington Post Company for the Post and other properties, and WPO stock goes up by $31+/share, which times 7.4million shares is around $250 million. But it's not like the company just gained $250 million out of thin air, they sold assets that were arguably worth that amount, if not more.

WPO can reinvest the $250m money in Kaplan which is a profit-making business, unlike the Post. They've cut a loss-making arm that wasn't relevant to their core business and can now put more money into (i'd guess) expanding test prep and colleges in China.

First act of Bezos (retrospectively, via time machine): prevent Richard Cohen from writing about the time he was cheated on.

Hurting I know that you know that stock prices (can) go up on speculation, and the speculation (I guess) is that dropping off bad assets can increase the future value of shares (in the eyes of some investors.) And also, not really sure if it's wise to speculate on the exact amount of increased share value based on one day of trading but certainly there are buyers at the end of the day who are making decisions based on market cap.

That Cohen column is mind boggling.

Also: http://www.jackflack.com/2013/08/06/parsing-jeff-bezos/

xp

I hate MG but this is interesting:

http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/05/bezos-not-bozos/

I had always known precisely how I would react if she cheated on me. The relationship would end, swiftly, coldly, even sneeringly. My goodbye lines would be scathing, worthy of someone intending to make his living with words

That techcrunch article doesn't amount to much more than "Bezos is really smart, so he must know what he's doing with this." Maybe he just thinks the Washington Post is undervalued. Buffet thinks newspapers are undervalued too. Bezos doesn't happen to have any special knowledge of the newspaper industry, afaik, he's just making a bet. He might be right or wrong, but I don't see how it plays into some grand strategy (particularly as it's Bezos himself buying WaPo, not Amazon).

Bloomberg story on Jeff Bezos

• Boss lacks empathy, creates billion-dollar corporation, doesn't know or care about real dad who abandoned him.

• Weird to see Walmart as the underdog taking a loss.

• These door desks, if there is a scourge of the 90s, it's these whimsical ideas about work culture - from bouncy balls in the hallways to these door desks. I don't even like casual Fridays, so maybe I just hate fun.

• Former president of my company used to send me ? emails. I sent him back replies that said ?? a couple of times. Then again, he wasn't Jeff Bezos either.

The door desks are, hypothetically, "frugal" and are not particularly whimsical. There's really very little whimsy here. Compared to Google offices which generally seem to be described as expensive playgrounds for programmers.

The laugh is definitely distinctive and disturbing though, even experiencing it from a distance at one of those KeyArena Q+As.

whimsy's not the right word, but the whole Think Different by doing goofball shit.

even frugal is questionable--i thought i remembered reading somewhere that they effectively break even after the necessary mods

iirc the desk doors are a monument to frugality, but normal cheap desks would be waaay actually more frugal.

its ostentatious underconsumption

lol yeah that sounds about right. It's not like Seattle doesn't have an Ikea.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C1aajuNUcAEZwj1.jpg

omg

What's the estimate on the number of WaPo staff members currently cleaning out their desks?

I'm missing something here.

thats the dude symbol in the cover. it has a penis. the womens symbol has a plus.

lol epic fail

hahaha

got it!

I was looking for a typo.

haha my goodness

at least they made it pink

Since November the Post has been by far the place I've read the most anti-Trump articles, far more than NYT

If WaPo is anything like NYT, its never had as strong a subscription campaign as the Trump victory.

Somehow, I suspect Trump will also be paradoxically good for Prius and Tesla sales. "We can't depend upon Fed incentives anymore"...

has anyone made that cover blunder into the prince manwoman insignia yet

Hand to heart, I've been wondering the same thing. And also wishing that they'd made that mistake instead.

There's remarkably few stock images for "female symbol crowd". On the other hand, there's plenty of image taken of this Filipino assembly for Int'l Woman's Day, 2014.

http://www.usasianpost.com/wp-content/uploads/women.jpg

Bezos eats an iguana

https://www.instagram.com/p/BiVjJ7RgJlq/

https://uproxx.files.wordpress.com/2015/11/the-freshman-komodo-dragon-2.jpg?quality=95&w=600

lizard person is cannibal

Bezos eats an iguana

oh goody! with a bit more digital magic we can have him eating whatever we want right out of our hands.

https://addictedtohorrormovies.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/dream-device.jpg

On the top of the WaPo website, just beneath the bona fides, there's a little row of clickbait stories. They're horrible, but usually at least one looks passably interesting. Today, though, they reached their nadir:

Tucker Carlson John McCain Drug tunnel Cancun 'Free range' parents Yoga ball White males Therapy ducks Hurricane Lane Robin Leach Urban Meyer Kyrie Irving

that unit pretty routinely begs for copy-pasting

John McCain Drug tunnel Cancun

brooklyn's got a winning team

British politician sex

Good to see some of Jeff Bezos' money trickling down to...David Geffen

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-02-12/bezos-sets-record-with-165-million-beverly-hills-home-purchase

Bought a 2nd house in DC too, plus buying art. Trump’s personal and corporate tax rates are working well for him. He pays nothing

well someone's getting Aerosmith back

pic.twitter.com/TVBnIYPtyL

— Ken Klippenstein (@kenklippenstein) June 10, 2021

just checking to see if democracy has died in the dark yet

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E3ju6TRWUAADR02?format=jpg&name=large

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Megan McArdle

lotta people upset about the "Libs of Tiktok" lady getting "doxxed" today! I forget, is freedom of speech bad now?

#wiegeled

Seems like an overreaction

perhaps. but also perhaps karma for the worse things he's tweeted

nevertheless, i have no idea how FS continues to work in that environment

welp

WaPo has fired Felica Sonmez. https://t.co/nT6ch0lIsc

— Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) June 9, 2022

Damn, they suspended Weigel for that? Whatever happened to the whole “retweets are not endorsements” thing?