Did you actually deliver on time and on budget?
It should be no surprise that he's pissed that that amount of investment isn't starting to pay dividends.
In contrast, Amazon's protest resulted in an injunction because the judge determined it was likely Amazon would prevail in trial.
DoD couldn't care less about Bezos' mansion or HQ2's impact on the city's economy.
And running a newspaper that continuously annoys a President doesn't really fit the apparently popular idea that Bezos is spending money to get favourable treatment from politicians.
Especially when that politician you're annoying is known to have a somewhat vindictive streak and doesn't quite grok the difference between being entrusted money and power to use on behalf of a country and owning money and spending it in his own interest
How do you know that?
At least from outward appearances, most of the ruling class and permanent government isn't particularly fond of the current President.
Try continuously. Every problem is someone else's fault, and every success is solely because of him.
Also the swine flu was much less of a problem for the US: the CDC reported less than 13,000 deaths in the US over a one year period vs stats today of over 34,000 for COVID-19 in just a few months — despite the extra precautions taken.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentration_of_media_ownersh...
Still, it seems to me that the Trump administration originally clearly wanted to go for a 'herd immunity' strategy and changed it due to political rather than practical considerations. I'm quite sure that if it had the relationship with the fifth estate that, say, the Biden campaign enjoys, there would have been very little political fallout as a result. The press has managed the truth far more aggressively for other administrations.
It seems he had a mix of reasons, he says. No doubt now that it's a functioning entity he has an added bonus. I remember at the time though most people thought he was throwing good money after bad.
[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/stephaniedenning/2018/09/19/why...
If he bought it to gain political influence, which seems to me the only reason that makes any sense whatsoever, or for any other reason that would put him in a bad light, he would not in a million years come out and say that openly.
Amazons share price has grown 136,000% in the past 23 years or 36.8% per year. That is far above S&P 500 returns and the exact case for when you want a company reinvesting in themself instead of paying out dividends.
Leaders like Bezos don't have to write down a memo to make sure people carry out their will.
You're wildly underestimating how rebellious newspaper editors are. If someone was messing with the reporting, everyone in DC would know, and you'd see remarkably detailed reporting on it throughout other parts of the press.
There is a mindset that dominates academia and carries on into the media.
It is reflected in the political donations of journalists.
And the distribution of the story bias.
It perhaps one should say "stunning lack of anything resembling a distribution".
All news has bias, but some are more biased than others, and that bias varies from personal and ingrained to organizational and intentional. It's important to be able to separate the wheat from the chaff, as it were.
Project Veritas is a right-wing, extremely partisan organization with a shady history. They are not an organization that I would trust.
My awareness of him is from several "stunts" where he "went undercover" and interviewed his targets surreptitiously and then dishonestly edited the results to support his ideological narrative.
I associate cable news with general incompetence, corporate shilling and whatnot, but generally a "noisy" signal. PV, on the other hand, is driven purely by right-wing ideological goals.
I've experienced copious carpet bombings for deviations from the Received Truth, however mild and documented.
Maybe if he bought and renovated an apartment building. Held events in a top floor space. Transformed the lobby into a community business and tech center.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/01/24/pentagon-...
https://theintercept.com/2019/06/03/amazon-defense-departmen...
https://searchcloudcomputing.techtarget.com/news/252467312/D...
I also wonder to a certain extent why additional ceiling was not added under the current vehicle to do this if AWS was the preferred solution. MOUs signed, dollars routed, etc seems to be the easiest route rather than a massive procurement for something like this. It doesn't make any sense unless they're awarding an entirely new data center.
It also sounds like there's a disagreement about a core requirement / availability definitions which significantly impact storage costs, which obviously would change one's bid? https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252480585/AWS-hits-out-a...
DoD IG Report on the process: https://www.scribd.com/document/456555063/Report-on-the-Join...
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/07/the-d...
... and AWS GovCloud [0].
---
[0]: https://aws.amazon.com/government-education/government/
I'm not picking on you as an individual, but there's great justice in Microsoft suffering this.
playing dumb and conflating what Microsoft did with "every dominant giant company ever" only serves to whitewash a (well-deserved) reputation that they themselves have had to work to disavow (both in word, publically, and in deed) for years. incidentally, this feels quite similar to how the Bill Gates Foundation whitewashes its eponymous benefactor's legacy having been the driving force behind said ruthlessness.*
* please don't make me put in a disclaimer about how people / companies can change, etc.-- we all know-- this is about preserving the past, not casting aspersions on these entities in the present
That's only because as times changed so did the US mostly lost interest in punishing or even investigating its own companies (that's subjectively understandable, nobody wants to hit their own). Voices say they're trying to change this, we'll just have to wait and see.
On the other hand I'm sure you agree that "U.S. federal court" is not the global standard in justice. And since the EU has no "home player" bias their courts did not shy away from investigating and fining big-tech monopolies like Google or Facebook.
"Playing dumb" and conflating Microsoft with exclusivity in the abuse of market position doesn't do this discussion any service. Your comment is strongly undermined by this clear bias.
- fair enough point, i agree that it is debatable whether Microsoft was "particularly deserving" of this reputation because of the limited scope and interest of the justice dept., etc., though on balance i still _personally_ find it most likely that they stood out in their bad-actor-ness in some way
- wtf is a "global standard in justice"? the existence of that is news to me. unless it is rather just "whatever court makes the kinds of judgments i agree with"? if the EU judicial process (to determine whether the EU should fine some exogenous bag of money an enormous amount of money) is so impartial, then why was their biggest upshot to put Margrethe Vestager, a maximally-ambitious politician, on the map? i know you're just trying to suggest an alternate judicial authority, but come on: you picked one that is even less likely to have been a "global standard in justice", whatever that is. and that all is to apparently exonerate Microsoft because a couple other companies, that grew up in Microsoft's shadow, used the same playbook later on?
- though i appreciate the argumentative tone / parallelism thing going on here, i think it's a biit of a stretch in this case-- i don't really feel like i'm conflating them at all. the valence of my comment is definitely that "Microsoft deserves to stand out here", not that they are uniquely guilty of this by any measure.
and, re bias: ultimately, insofar as i am "biased" (an affliction that actually affects everyone, regardless of opinion :^) it is because they (Microsoft) hurt my feelings by doing a bunch of mean things to technologically-related stuff that i loved during my techno-formative years. so, yeah--their abuses of market power stood out more to me than they may have to others, and are clearly grounded in a personal, subjective value judgment. the world still revolved then, and still continues to revolve-- there are more important abuses of power to be truly exercised about in the world, etc., etc.
They even destroyed companies they weren't even competing with, but thought they _might_ want to later! All MS needed to do was issue a vague press release that they were working on a competitor to [some successful software product] and all the customers would hold off on purchases until the original (successful) company went bankrupt. Many times MS never ever released anything, leaving everyone worse off.
So yeah. They seem nicer now, but they climbed over a lot of dead companies to get here.
Which also points to why we are in today’s predicament, having abandoned antitrust entirely.
Google didn't release the first version of Chrome until 2008, 10 years later.
Cutting all the politics and legalities, is n't AWS superior to Azure? I guess Azure's major revenue is still from MS-office subscriptions, but AWS is more battled hardened, more reliable and has more variety of services than Azure. At least, that's my perception.
Even assuming the accusations against Amazon are true as well: what's worse? (a) A vendor gaining unfair advantage and overcharging by 10%? Or, (b), the President using the power of the federal government to punish journalists for criticising him?
The Washington Post was, by the way, the newspaper that uncovered that the Trump Foundation had spent their complete budget at Trump properties or for personal expenditures such as the famous painting.
This was several million $, all donated by members of the public, ostensibly intended to help veterans. These accusations lead to a court case, which the foundation lost, requiring it to be shut down and his children being barred from serving on non-profit boards in the future.
So, to answer the choice from the beginning: if you choose (b) and allow the WashPo and other media to be pressured into silence, you'll lose the free press and still get the corruption.