>> i'm jeff bezos. >> what is your claim ame? >> i'm the founder of amazon.com. award-winning prodof "the facebook dilemma". >> richest guy in the world. >> narrator: frontline investigates amazon. >> is amazon takinover the world a good thing? >> narrator: questioning those who run the company... >> what would you say to someone reo feels as though humans increasinglyeing treated like robots? >> that's not the ence that i had in setting it up. >> narrator: and those no longer there. w >> most peopld assume there's a pretty high safety standard on amazon. and that assumption would be incorrect. >> the tools are not what i call

battle tested. >> some people asking if amazon is a monopoly. >> the question for the widemocracy is, are we okath wione company essentially ingca talism? >> how do you and jeff think about the call to break yoguys up? >> simply because the company's been successful doesn't mean it's somehow too bi >> narrator: now on frontline... >> domination was very much the idea. >> narrator: "amazon empire". >> frontline is madeble by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. and by the corporation for public broadcasting. major support is provided by the john d. and catherine t. macarthur foundation, committed to building a re jus verdant and peaceful world. and by the ford foundation:g workth visionaries on the frontlines of social change worldwide.on addi support is provided by the abrams foundation, committed to excelle journalism. the park foundation, dedicated to heightening public awareness of critical issues. h the john aen glessner family trust.

supporting trustworthy journalism that informs d inspires. the heising-simons foundation: unloing knowledge, opportunity, and possibilities. and by thena frontline josm fund, with major support from jon and jo ann hagler. and additional support ura debonis and scott nathan. >> jeff bezos has already conquered the retailrontier. now he's got a plan to colonize the planets. >> bezos is laying out his plans for colonizing space. >> bezos is known for going big, and now he's literally shooting for the moon. >> narrator: in may of 2019, jeff bezos, the richest person on the planet, unveiled his latest invention. >> this is blue moon. moon, this time to stay.the again that the most importantr work he's doing is work in space. what he's built in amazon is really important and really

interesting, and it's, it' revolutionized commerce. but it's only revolutionized commerce. >> narrator: bezos's plan is to chart a new course for the fure of humanity. >> manufactured worlds rotated to create artificialty with centrifugal force. these are very large structures, miles on end. and they hold a million people or more each. >> narrator: it's an idea he's had since he was a teenager. >> this is me in high school. and i want to highlight this quote: "the earth is finite, and the world economy and population is to keep expanding, space is the only way to go." i stl believe that. >> the way jeff bezos sees is it is that consumerism is an example of how today's societyve better than our parents did and our grandparents. and he wants, you know, future generations to continue to have an increasgly better lifestyle. >> these are beautiful.

people are going to want to live here. >> narrator: bezos ud his extra-terrestrial plans at a time of growing concern aboutth empire he's built here on earth. >> amazon is thereat disrupter, from books to retail to grocery stores. years, jeff bezos has been5 srupting and transformingal most every aspect of our modern lives. >> once you start connecting the dots, you see that amazon is building all of the invisible esinfrastructure for our f. >> amazon announced a healthcare partnership... >> amazon is helping t.a. build a secure cloud... >> how much of the internet do you run? >> that's a good question, um, it's a lot, though. i >> narrator: brecent years, amazon-- and bezos-- have come under scrutiny for thr aggressive tactics and expanding power. (bezosaughing) >> everything that is admirable abouamazon is also something that we should fear about it.

>> narrator: for the past year, we've be investigating how jeff bezos built his empire-- and at what cost. >> and so think about this. big things start small. ♪ >> narrator: jeff bezos's empire has its roots not in silicon, valleyt on wall street. graduate went to wk in thenceton early 1990s, at a secretive hedge fund called d.e. shaw. >> david shaw was thone who revolutionized wall street by introducing data. and i think jeff really embraced that, that idea that, ey, if you have data, ultimately, you win." things that david

shaw asked jeff bezos to do wasn to go and vestigate new businesses, and in particular this new thing in the rly '90s called the world wide web. (dial-up modem connecting) >> we all know that a communications revolution isth underway i country. >> what is the internet? >> it's sort of the mother of all networks. i s information highways. >> it'kind of like your remote >> narrator: bezosas quick to see the untapped potential of the new digital landscape and was determined to get in on it. >> igame across this startlin statistic that web usage was growing at 2,300% a year. so, i decided i would try and find a business plan that made sense in the context of that growth, and i pick books as the first best product to sell online. ♪ becae books are incredibly unusual in one respect, and that is that there are more titems inhe book categon there are items in any other category by far. so, when you have that many items, you can literally build a

store online that couldn't exist any other way. >> narrator: the store he was imagining didn't exist, so he decideto build it himself. ♪ >> the reaction to jeff's idea thto start selling books o internet was pretty incredulous, lot of therom people close to him. his mom tried to convince him to just do it at night or over the weekends. she didn't want to see him gives upob. >> jeff called, and he told me that he and mackenzie were quitting their jobs, and they were moving to seattle and starti aompany. i said, "great, well, what are you going to do?" he said, "we're going to sell books." i said, "nice." he said, "on the internet." i said, "oh. jeff, why will anybody buy anything from you?" and he said, "well, we're goingv tomore books than anybody else." >> narrator: one of the first names bezos coidered for his newebsite was relentless.com.

>> why "relentless?" >> relentless meant, "we move on no matter what." he ultimately, obviously, decided that "rentless" wasn't quite the right fit. amazon, earth's largest river, was. amazon means gigantic. >> in terms of relentlessness, stopping at nothing, that's, is that an apt description of jeff? >> no. it's not that jeff stops at nothing, it's that when jeff sets his mind on a goal that he thinks he can achieve, he won't stop until he's proven wrong or until he achieves it. ♪ en >> jeff and mae had rented a house in bellevue. and then we moved to a small, second-floor office in the south part of seattle. amazon employee nune, onewas ofine former amazon insiders

who agreed to talk on camera. an >> what the cois now was nowhere in my wildest imagination. could have the-theoft that it position in the world that it has now, i had no clue. >> narrator: in july 1995, amazon.com went live. >> it was an incredible novelty, it was tiny and obscure, and it's very hard to imagine, but the entire universe that amazon now dominates did not exist. >> amazon.com, this virtual shop claims to be the worls largest bookstore. >> narrator: it didn't take long for bezos's vision to prove prescient. >> what makes us different is vast selection, convenience-- we deliver right to the deskt. if our catalog were printed on paper, it would be the size ofn sew york city phonebooks. ♪ >> narrator: the compauickly outgrew the garage and soon had

more than 50 employees. in 1996, james marcus applied to be number 55. >> there was a very palpable citement in the air at this place, and of course at this point jeff bezos was the first person to interview every prospective employee. so i was ushered into his office. he wted to see how fast you were on your feet. he also always wanted to know your s.a.tscores. >> he wanted to know your s.a.t. scores? >> every time, yes. >> how old were you the time? >> i was 36 or 37. >> this is the original signr that i made foazon.com. o blue spray pain white poster board. >> jeff wasn't aigure out folklore at that point, he was not the-the wealthiest man in the world. >> here's my computer, n.azon.com up on the scree "hello, jeff bezos." >> he was a small, nondescript, a y-haired man sitting at a desk with quite rge and ertive laugh. m

(laughing inultiple scenes) >> but he wasn't threatening, he was a normal guy to a sort of >> hal 9000 hat, vimportant.d hal share a birthday, we're both born on january 12.u >> it belied, ow, an enormous, napoleonic ambition. >> one of the people i really like, thomas edison, here's ais model of hriginal light bulb. he's famous for saying, "one percent inspiration, 99 percent perspiration." (laughs) it turns out ideas are the easy part, executiois everything. >> domination was on jeff's mind from the beginning. s one of hist of second-in-command people said to me, "you have to understand that jeff wants to sl many more things than books. and jeff's idea is that in the near-distant future, you could buy a kayak from amazon. and ifand after you brout the kayak, you cou figure out good places to kayak and buy travel services from amazo"

so, those ambitions were very a clear,nd this was very early. on but he was clearly thinking in those terms from the get-go.ow >>id that ring to you at the time? >> a little bit exciting and a little bit nutty. >> amazon.com, very good websit you should really try it. (bezos laughs) >> if you signedn to work at a-a kind of futuristic bookstore, and the guy who owned it was suddenly talking about selling, you know, every object in the universejust weren't sure how seriously to take it. ezos laughing) (bezos screaming playfully) >> narrator: though his publicn image was ofteserious...es >> that was awome! ar >>tor: inside the company, bezos was a hard-charging manager relentlessly foced on the principle that would make amazon one of the most trusted brands in the world: the customer always comes first. >> this culture of customer

obsession... obsessive focus on customer... obsesses over our customers... totally obsessing over the custer experience. >> we used to call it customer ecstasy. it means building, delivering, focusing on your customer. and we did it, you know, in the very, very early days at every stage. >> narrator: jennifer cast was there in the early days and is one of six top amazon executives the company put forward to speak to us. >> customer obsession was our north star. erd so, you know, it was a place where we knew wea part of something that was new, the internet there was an excitement that we were doing something that hadn't beenone before. it was exhilarating. we were all aligned around building for customers. >> hey, you guys. >> hey. (bezos laughs) >> i've heard there was an empty chair that would often be put at meetings. >> yeah. >> who was in the pty chair? >> yeah, so that empty chair was

there to remind usll to understand the customer, hav empathy for the customer, understand the details of the customer experience. the customer isn't there, we have to bring forward the voice of the customer. (phone ringing) >> thank you for calling amazon.com. >> narrator: and bezos quicklyar d that in this new online world, he could understand exactly how customers were behaving. >> all orders do need to be placed online. >> it was made clear from the beginning th data collection was also one of amazon's sinesses. all customer behavior that flowed through the site was recorded and track. and that itself was a valuable commodity. >> have you visited our bsite? >> we could track how a customer navigated through the site. so we could see what you lood at, we could also see what you paused at, we could see what yoa put in youet but didn't order, we could see what you put in your basket and did order. so that's when we started realizing, "man, this is rich., this is rich, rich." and so we've used it for everything.

>> what do you do with that formation? >> that's the data that allows us to predict, or try to predict, what books that you would like that you haven't discovered yet. >> narrator: bezos treated the site as a laboratory, where he studied customer behavior along with his chief scientist andreas weigend. >> i was shocked to see how predictable people are. if you take the time of the day into account, if you take maybee whenwere last on the site, how long they were on the site last time, howonthey're on the site today, you know what they're falling for. >> whoever owns, collects, the data, if you have access to it and rights to data, then youre king. it's all about the data. everything. >> one of the most fascinating kind of ols we have at our disposal is the ability to do active experiments.

it's, you know, it's kind of this huge laboratory. >> we did not think about it asx oiting, we thought about helping people make better decisions. that was less resp toward that the conser, who was, after all, supposed to be our god, the person whose ecstasy was our very reason for being. and it was closer to getting a cow into a milking stall and extracting as many pails asur possibleg each visit. and that felt a little more but that was the business of amazon. >> amazon has added 880,000 new customers... >> narrator: while bezos was using these insights to bring more and more customers into. amazon.. >> the number of customers who use the wee has increased fourfold... to >> nar there was one thing he hadn't done yet. >> the company's never made a profit. >> that's right. >> now, why... how does that... why... how does that...? >>t seems like a new math, doesn't it? >> it does. >> narrator: bezos would spend years losing money trying to

beat his competition, and he convinced investors to go ong with i ne >> of jeff bezos' greatest ability to get walstreet tos accept the fact the firstma 20-some years,n wasn't going to be very profitable. and that's okay because they're buildi infrastructe that will cate huge opportunities for them to gain scale and gain customers and gain business. to >> nar he spelled it out in a letter to shareholders after the company first went blic: "it's all out the long term," he wrote, rather than short-term profits or wall street reactions. >> he essentially says, "we are going to forego profits in order to take market share. that our straty is to lose money, which enables us then to put other companies ouof business who can't afford to lose money." >> narrator: that strategydn wo sit well with critics like stacy mitchell, who

advocates for small businesses. >> in essence, at the very beginning, he's signaling to shareholders, "i have tegy to monopolize the market, and that's going to reward you, but it's going to be far down theou road, and willome along with me?" and they said yes. >> narrator: investors also recognized bezos' essential vantage over physical stores,ic had to charge their customers sales tax, unlike online businesses. >> so, not collecting sales tax gave amazon a big leg up over bricks and mortar retailers. and that was central to their early strategyf gaining market share as quickly as they can. >> what bookseers were saying to me is that, "this is driving my customers to amazon. they'll come into the stor they'll browse, they find what they want, but then they'll go buy it on amazon, because theysa ve that saletax." >> so it was a very irksome, early, big issue for the book vendors, first of all, they were kind of the canaries in the mine, so to speak, and then lots of other retailers. ♪

>> amazon has added thousands of warehouse workers and three million square feet of space. zo >> narrator: aman's sales-tax advantage would be central to its success as it expanded beyond books, into other products. selection of things you can look at. electronics and then of course toys yeah, thank you, here is, we've got have the friendly pokémon. this is mo than ten times the selection that you will find in a typical, physical world ftware store. >> narrator: but bezos was still a long way from his goal ofhe amazon beinglace where you could buy everything online. (drills whirring) and he saw a way to achieve it. walmart of the internet.ome the >> narrator: there were thousands of businesses eager tn sell o bezos offered them a way to do it. g >> amazon is transforminitself om an online bookstore to an online mall. >> narrator: he transformed amazon into a retail platform ere anyone could sell their

goods to his customers and businesses to be a part of it. >> it's the easiest place r anybody, small or large, whoet wants top shop online to sell online, because they can access our 12 million-plus customers. utybody, all comers. >> we're talking hundreds of thousands of companies with literally tens of millions of products. >> narrator: name-brand stores started selling on bezos's platform, and so did tens of thousands of small entrepreneurs. >> everyone knew amazon.co the only people that knew superduperhoops.com were the ones that were searching to buy a sketball hoop and saw ou name on an advertisement. to us it was really a no-brainer. we knew that we would, you know, increase our sales. fit year we did 100,000, next year we did a million, we did two million, four million, we were doubling every year in the early days. >> narrator: it was great for the companies-- aneven greater

for jeff bezos. >> amazon has become the mostle recogn name in e-commerce. >> narrator: not only would he take a cut of everything other businesses sold, he'd also keep his own store on the platform, competing against everyone else in the marketplace he owned and controlled. >> he owns the main street. he has the main reet real estate. not just one building on the corner, the entire main street. ♪ wield its power over the onlinek place would eventually become a question for government regulators, but early on, ere were indications.th first to see them were book publishers. >> amazon took over a large market share of the publishing industry very, very fast.e they wry quickly in a position to demand concessions. you knink that was a moment where publishers started to realize, "oh, wait a minute,

like, we... they're r partner, but they now have the beginnings of a boot on our windpipe." >> narrator: inside the company, they had launched a strategy that some calledthe gazelle project," because they'd heard bezos wanted tm to pursue publishers the way a cheetah pursues a sickly gazelle. >> well, you don't go after the strongest. it's like the cheeh. the cheetah looks for the weak, looks for the sick, looks for for.small, that's what you go so don't start with, you know, start with number er. publisher and then number six publisher, and by the time yoube get to nthree, two, and one, the noise has gone, gotten back to them. they're going to know this isan comingchances are you may be able to settle that without a full-on war. >> we were just this littlep mom and blishing company, publishingoetry books and translated fiction. >> narrator: in the early 2000s

thmber of books dennis johnson was selling on amazon had been rising steadily. then one day, he got a phone call. >> our distributor cus up to talk about our amazon contract. and he said, "i went out to dinner last night with amazon, it was like going out to dinner wi the godfather. they want a kickback." that's the word he used, kickback. and he said they wanted four percent more of our sales. >> was that unusua >> it was... in our experience, it was totally unprecedented, yes. >> narrator: randy miller ranro the an book team and says he saw nothing wrong with amazon's tough tactics to challenge publishers on prices and profit margins.de >> in to bring them into line, we would actually take them out of automatedme handising, take their prices up to list price; we would put refences on the product page their product page, saying, "you

want it cheaper, you want this book for, on this topic for a way cheaper price? click here." and we'd send them to whoever we thought their worst competitor was. w th how amazon forced their vendors to-to comply. (stammering): but that's an old walmart trick, i mean, it wasn't like amazon created that. and it made, it made a difference. and, you know, jeff kind of got excited about it. >> narrator: when dennis johnsou still d to give in to amazon's terms, heays the buy button on all melville house booksuddenly disappeared, making it impossible for customers to purchase them on amazon. >> i mean, this is the company that referred to little publishers like mes wounded gazelles, i believe? that's how they think, that's how he thought from the beginning.y and we eventuad to pay what at the time i called a brib and our attitude toward amazon was, you know, "render unto caesar that which is caesar's."n

then carry on as best as you can. >> jeff bezos may say haat amazon comes along an given publishers like yourself access to a huge distribution channel for your books. has amazon been good for your business? any bookseller that sells our. books is good for our business.a so, i'm not coing that amazon is selling our books. i'm just complaining of the way that their tactics are hurting the industry i love. >> narrator: in addition to granting interviews, amazon ioresponded to written que. regarding dennis johnson's characterizations, itold us, "amazon disagrees with this account." >> were you uncomfortable with that sort of ruthlessness ever? >> well, no, 'cause i was in retail-- i mean, people think that's ruthless. you know, i look, and some people at amazon, "wow, that's kind of mean," and i'm like, "oh, a retailer and a supplier having a disagreement? stop the presses!" it happens all the time.

i mean, you know, look, you've got a finite mgin, and somebody's going to have to give. and-and a lot of times amazon wasn't the one giving. >> kindle is a purpose-built reading device. >> narrator: the tension between amazon and book publishers would ramp up even further with the unveiling of the kindle, which onlped t industry transi to the digital age, but gave amazon more power to set prices lower. >> and new releases aronly $9.99. >> narrator: around that time, barry lynn, an advocate for broad antitrust enforcemt, was growing increasingly concerned by what he was hearing from publishers.do >> if th was open, the publisher would say, "hey, you terrific customer, they're our biggest customer. ey buy the most books, ty sell the most books. we love them." then you close the door, and they say, "amazon isestroying our business model, they're destroying our business, they ve way too much power, we

must do something about them." >> narrator: lynn wanted publishers to speak up publicly and thought federal antitrust regulators might investigate whether amazon was a monopolyillegally abusing its market dominance in anticompetitive ways. >> and they'd say, "no way, i'm not going to talk about amazon i'm not talking about them on capitol hill. they will take retribution against me." >> to which you responded? >> "ll, that's why we have to do something about it." >> narrator: jennifer cast ran amazon's books division in its formative years. >> we've had a difficult time in some ways getting publishers to ta to us on camera about amazon. in part, it seems the reason is that they're afraid. how do you react to that, that publishers find it uncomfortable toalk about amazon publicly? >> i don't know, mean, i-i haven't seen that. >> yeah.>> haven't been in your shoes.

i'm sure they have... i mean, he you're saying that they y n't talk negatively about us, i mean, i know tve a lot of good things to say about us. um, you know, i-i don't know why they wouldn't speak their minds. we certainly value speaking our minds. >> there is this a well-knocdote about cheetahs and gazelles, this do you know about >> i don't. >> we've talked to former amazonians about it, where jeff had said, "we should basilly try to negotiate with book publishers and try to get better terms and treat the smaller publishers as a cheetah would go after a wounded gazelle." >> i didn't hear the cheetah and gazelle example, but what we were looking for was people that were willing to move away fr the old model of bricks and mortar to a new model, which was, you know, a-a virtual store that had many different types of irportunities to present t books to customers.

>> i want to talk a little bit about how we think about innovation at amazon.com. >> narrator: amazon woulbegin to accumulate even more power in 2005, when bezos qetly rolled out a revolutionary new program: amazon prime. >> now they have somet called the prime shipping program. >> amazon prime-- we only launched this a we ago-- you pay $79 a year, and you get two-day shipping for free. >> narrator: it was a risky bet, and it paid of >> the lynchpin, or the glue, if you will, and probably the seminal mome in amazon's business history, was the introduction of what has become the most successful membership program in history, d that's prime. >> many ofou in this audience will already be amazon prime members, bless you. this is very much appreciated. >> it changes the way you shop. >> narrator: eventuallmore than 150 million people would sign up for the free shipping-- ortremdoxpense for amazon. but to bezos, itth it.

>> the prime program at amazon drivers of amazon's growth.t when you go on and look to buy a produc and it's available in o days, delivered to your door anywhere in e country, that amazon prime program becom a mechanism th keeps bringing you back as a customer to keep buying and keep searching for new productsn amazon. >> narrator: two-day deliveryre anywn the country was a big promise for a company that, at the time, had less than ten warehouses. so bezos went on a buildg spree. ♪ across the country amazon warehouses began to spring up, filled with millions of products being sold on bezos's. platfo he'd call them fulfillment centers, and they'd create hundreds of thousandof jobs in pces hard hit bthe great recession. >> ten percent of pennsylvaniapl residents uned...

>> job market is in complete disarray. >> nartor: like allentown, pennsylvania. >> at that time, it was tremendous news that an employer was coming and actually opening versus, you know, gutting half the staff. >> nrator: spencer soper was business reporter for the "allentown morning call" when amazon opened in the area in 2010 he began hearing stories about working in the warehouse.ar >> people basically in this big, sprawling warehouse that's stocd with goods in very random fashion. and they have scanners that tell them which things to get.pe anople are walking maybe ten, 15 miles a day. so people just kind of crisscssing this big warehouse all day long. >> narrator: as workers told hii about the puing pace to meet the daily quota ofackages, and the intense heat, soper and hiss colleagurted to investigate further. >> people really felt like amazon was playing fd loose with their, with their health.ra

>> nr: soper discovered there had been numerous complaints to authorities at the occupational safety and heth administration, osha. >> they actually had a complaint from an emergency-room doctor who called their hotline one day saying, "listen, you might want to check out this amazon place. i've had, like, people parading through my emergency room to bee treated fo stress." there was a security grd who worked in the facility who sent a complaint to osha saying that he saw pregnant women suffering heat stress in-in the facility. and so there's just, like, these red flags right and left. >> narrator: after an investigation, osha said amazo needed to keep the temperatures in the warehouses lower. in a statement at the time, the company said it installed new industrial air conditioning and pledged that worker was its number-one priority. >> amazon shrewd businessople, shrewd businesspeople know when they have leverage. and when you'rthe only shop hiring people in town, you can push them a lot harder than

you can when-when they've got alternatives. >> narrator: over the following years, amazon would hire hundre of thousands of workers and become one of the largest jobs creators in the country. at the fulfillme centers, bezos experimented with new techniques and technologies to boost productivity.ne >> willi to experiment is the key to be able to do new things. so we , you know, hundreds of experiments every day in our fulfillment centers to get a little bit better. kind of like incrental invention. ♪ >> narrator: when a company call kiva perfected a warehouse robot, amazon bought the whole company. >> amazon has acquired kiva systs. they make shipping robots. the work environmen amazon'sform warehous. >> when i first showed up at amazon in 1999, i led our global operations team. >> narrator: jeff wilke created the amazon fulfillment center

system and is one of two c.e.o.s under jeff bezos. >> as we've added 200,00 robots, in that same time frame since 2012 we've added 300,000 people in our fulfillment centers. so what happens is the rots change the work, so they allow us... people don't have to walk as far, which is a complaint that we've heard in the past. they make the job safer,hey make them higheruality, becauswe present a smaller set .of options to-to employe and that's all good for customers, a it's good for employees too. >> narrator: but at the same time, complaints have persisted. >> people who've worked in warehouses for decades say, "this is different. this is not the same." we're here today because we want to make sure that these workers know about their rights in the workplace, especiallyea around h >> narrator: sheheryar kaoosji is an advocate for warehouse workers in the san bernardino, california, area-- an amazon hub, with ten fulfillmt centers and over 1000 emoyees. >> because of the way that amazon operates, because of the

way that they set their rates for producvity, it's a lot harder work physically but also psychologically. >> narrator: we sat down with a group in san berrdino who'd recently worked at amazon. >> when they first got here, iou t it was exciting. like, for me, i was thinking maybe i could find a-a place where, you know, i'm going to set roots of a good job, you know, move up in-in thplace. but after being there for a while, i was like, "there's no way." >> it's like, "okay, this is where i can probly make a career." but once you worked there for a just like, it's just not realistic, how they expect you work. >> narrator: like dozens of workers we've spoken tound the country, they say they've struggled to keep up with the rate amazon expect them to pick and pack items. >> how realistic are the ratethat they're giving you? i mean, what's... >> not realistic at all. >> not-not realistic? >> no. there's absolutely no way to make rate, you know, you got to find little ways to-to cheat it, because once you hit rate,

by the end of the week, theyis it, they bump it up ain. cause they start seeing, "hey, people can hit those rates, can hit those numbers, hey, let's push them a little harder." every week it seemed like it was going up. ♪ >> you have security cameras right behind you at all times, that are looking at youev 24en. and if you don't meet standards or the rates, you're out the door, you're just disposable. >> every worker has a scanner at all times that basically track exactly where you're at. >> and they have a little blue line at the bottom of the screen, and it has, like, how many secondshat you have to have idone by the time it hits zero, and it puts you into panic mode. >> and pretty much you can't talk to people, you can't be in the same aisle as them, youst onstantly have to sit there scanning like a robot all

day long.h if they cau not scanning, you get a write-up. >> and what they're doing is they're producing thass of data that they are using to be able to analyze the entire workforce. >> we're not treated as human beings, we're not even treated as robots. we're treated as part of the data stream. >> it's the incentive at any warehouse, on any assembly line, to get the most out of any worker. >> yes. >> to make rates, to-to be as efficient as possible, to be aproductive as possible. so, i don't see exactly what's different about amazon as opposed to any other warehouse. >> amazon is the cutting edge. other warehouses are starting to adopt these technologies, other interested in doing what amazon is doing. data collection could become basically the standard for all workers, and that the's... you're never good enough, you're never able to keep up. ♪ >> narrator: amazon told us work

rates are not baseon individual employee's performance, and that the scanning devices workers use are not for tracking people but inventory-- a common practice in the warehouse industry. >> we've talked to workers around the count, both current and former workers. they've descrid the pace of work as being really grueling. in the early thinking about tes and how far you coul push human beings in terms of their productivity, whatas the thinking about that? >> well, obviously if the rates are too high, you're not going to havpeople showing up for work. so, we have 600,000 people att the company, m them are in the fulfillment centers, and they-they come to rk every day, they st for years. these are considered gre jobs in the hundreds of communities where we have fulfillment and in the u.s. we almostd, every state has an operation in it, and ople come to work because these are great jobs. they're safe, we pay double the minimum wage, the national minimum wage, we have terrific

benefits. the benefits for the folks that work on the floor are the same benefi that my family has access to-- our family leave is like 20 weeks. t , the rates are set so t can accomplish what we need to, ich is get orders to customers in a-a reasonable time and in a high-quality wayand that creates a workplace that people want to come back to, and they do. >> narrator: amazon wouldn't tell us how long fulfillment-center workers stay on the job or how often they're injured. but workers we spoke tsay the rates are higher than other warehouses-- and that the company rebuffs attemp unionize. >> we do not believe unions are in the best interest of our most importantly, ourolders, or associates. >> narrator: this is a clip from a video the company says it used in the past to teach managers about employees' rights and labor laws.>> he most obvious signs would include use of words associated with unions or union-led movements like "living wage" or

"steward." >> early on, amazon took a sition to basically be anti-union. why was that decision made? >> i don't think we made the decision to be anti-union. we just feel that all of theha thingsthat unions would-would want tto get us to do, we've already done. >> what-what about setting rate, though? do you not see that there's a little bit more leverage in th hands of management in this enario than there would be in a uniozed environment? >> i don't know, it's hard to speculate on that, but-but i do think that we ha the obligation to set rates that are, again, going to encourage people to seek the jobs and deliver for customers, you know, what we've promised. >> what would you say toso one, though, who's, who's worked in-in your fulfillment centers that feels as though there's been... that-that humans are increasingly being treated like robots? 'cause it's someing that we've actually heard, and i don't sense it's hyperbole. >> well, that's not the experience that-that i had in

setting it up or that i've. se it's, it's certainly true that-that these jobs are not fob evy, and there-there may this kind of work.'t want to do >> narrator: amazon executives also stress the company has orcome an industry leader in training its wor for career advancement. >> we ju aounced a pledge recently to spend $700 million to upskill, which is basically creating career opportunities employees., 100,000 of our we pay 95% of tuition to go to-to college to get a skill that isn't about amazon, that's about creating options for the employees, and i would expect those people to take advantage of that, work for us for a couple of years and then go do somethg that they would much rather do, and that's okay. >> there will be people th will hear what y'all are saying, and they'll say, "well, you signed up for physical labor, a job is a job, there were benefits, and they are w vesting $700 million to

do retraining for other types of jobs. what's the real grievance? what is there to complai about?" i actually used to think that i first started, whoever i heard complaints from, i was like, "well, it was in the job description, and you signed up for it." the part they don't talk about is the safety rules that you have to ignore to make rat it's not just you go in, okay, and u-you do your job, and that's it. >> so, you're in, you're in a weird bind. rate while following all theeet safety procedures. >> a complaint that'v heard from workers in terms of the sort of automation of their work as humans, some of them telling us that, yes, there these fulfillment s, buts in that in order to make rate, they're having to cheat thean rd a little bit. >> well, i would say that's not okay. so i, from the moment that i arrived 20 years ago, i made it very clear to our operations teams that we will not

compromise the safety of our employees to do anything else. re, we have, we have a cul that if-if we are asking people to do something thats, that they have to do too fast to be safe, they can raise their hand and say, "this isn't right," and-and we'll fix it. (phone vibtes) >> narrator: for years, amazon business and its worce. its ("give a little bit" by supertramp playing) >> ♪ give a little bit ve a little bit of your love... ♪ >> even in amazon's commercials, the people are almost like shadows and silhouettes. it's all about boxes, and there's just like happy boxes singing and bumbling their way to.our door, like, oh, no, >> ♪ there's so much that we need. ♪ >> hello. >> hey. think about how they do this. they just want you to be wowed and, "oh, how'd th, how'd this get here?" >> ♪ i'll give a little bit of l e to you. ♪ >> they wanted people to just think, "whoa, magic!"

♪ >> narrator: and magic was a big part of bezos' marketing strategy, with an emphasis on the company's miraculous level of innovation and growth. n we started amazon prime 2005, but then something very extraordinary happened. this. in 2011, the slope of that grap changelot. >> narrator: as amazon grew, he want his top executives to think about the kindmpany it was becoming. he wrote a memo titled, "amazon.love." copy of it was obtained by >> the memo is another example of jeff being very prescient about the future. it's jeff grappling with the idea that t all big companies are loved. that there is something that we get uncomfortable with when we

talk about very big companies.ot "rudeness isool. defeating tiny guys is not cool. risk taking is cool. nning is cool. polite is cool. defeating bigger, unsympathetic guysol. inventing is coo explorers are cool. conquerors are not cool." >> some businesses, you can tell when you go in ve meetings with th, they have a conqueror mentality. and there's a big difference between being a conqueror d being an explorer. and i think in, yoknow, this very inventive space that we're in, it pays to explo ♪ watching amazon'growth, the company was falling short of that ideal, and taking steps to make sure nothing got in its way. ♪ in 2013, amazon was moving to create its own delery system

and made a key decision: rather tan hire its own drivers, built a network of indendent business to deliver packages. >> they weren't just going to dabble here and dabble there. they were going to go and create a system that would rival fedex or ups. >> narrator: propublica reporter patricia callahan, in conjunction with buzzfeed, has investigated the system amazon set up. >> they figured out a way to get around regulation. the cargo vans they choose are big enough to stuff with hundreds of amazon packages, but they're small enough that they're not regulated by the federal government. >> an 84-year-old woman strucked and kiy an amazon delivery truck. >> a woman hit and killed in a parking lot. >> narrator: propublica and buzzfeed found that drivers are under intense pressure to deliver packages. >> after striking him, the van maneuvered around salinashi andog. >> narrator: and they documented

more than 60 crashes, including 13 deaths, since 2015. >> an infant critically injured in a car crash has died. >> when it came time to figure would always say, "it's aazon contractor, it's not our responsibility." >> now you've been able13 to fineaths. and that's over the course of several years.at is that tically significant given all of the any day or any given year? in >> i don't pretend to claim that there's only 13 deaths and i just found enough to show that this is happening around the country. with ups, there's a record. there's a federal record you c look at how many serious injury and fatal accidents they have. with aman, that doesn't exist.no no one the safety records of all of amazon's contractors. >> narrator: amazon disputed the propublica report.

it would not release any data on crashes involving its driver network but told us it "better than average" safety record and that nothing is me important to them than safety. >> any accident is one accident too many, so just as we were focused on safy in the fulfillment centers and product safety, we are... we set very hise standards with all of t partners for safe performance. id we have trainings for the third parties that work with us to help them understat we expect in terms of the drive, we ve mappi software that we use to help them find the right routes. every one of our dvers is required, including the third parties, are required to have comprehensive insurance, including liability insurance, so that if there is an accident that the person who's inred is covered. >> amazon wants to get prime members their packages even faster... >> narrator: in the last year,

amazon announced ahange to the way it handles prime deliveries. instead of delivering packages in two days, they promised to do it in one. >> free next-day delivery all.. across the u.s >> it's impossible for me to imagine a world 20 years from now where a customer comes upsa to me and ys, "jeff, i love amazon. i just wish your prices were a little higher." or, "i love amazon. i just wish you delivered a little more slowly." the delivery netwo being time set up, amazon was also rapidly expanding its product offering inviti more sellers onto the site. (computer plays tune) including those om china. >> it basically makes it to where it's super-easy fothese companies, who are maybe not as careful with adhering to the law, where they're able to just start a business up on amazon, import some stuff, sell it, cause some problems, and then disappear. >> narrator: rachel greer worke in product saf amazon, and

worried that the site was being flooded with untested and potentially unsafe products. >> are there proper warnings? has it been safety-tested for durability? if a child chews on it, will thpaint come off? is that paint leaded? >> most people would assume that there's a high safety standard on amazon. >> and that assumption would be correct. >> narrator: she says that's because amazon, like other tech companies, takes the position that it's not legally harmed by products sold by third parties on the site. i someone buys something that causes harm at waart orsu at target, a cr can sue walmart or target. >> right, 'cause no one's forcing you, when you come into walmart, to enter the doors of walmart. they aren't making you sign away your rights. >> but when do you sign that when you go on amazon.com? >> when you make your account. when you accept the terms and conditions.

>> narrator: people have beenle chalnging amazon's terms and conditions in court. some have even been successful. >> ultimately, who's on the hook when a customer buys a dangerous product on amazon? who takes ultimate responsibility for that? >> well, in the rare case where that, where something like that happens, if it's a third-party sell, the sale is by a third-party seller, and it is the seller's responsibility to, t sell a legitimate produ a customer, and then, when amazon is the retailer, and we sell a product to the, to a customer, then it's our wligation to make sure th understand the manufacturer and the supply cha for that product and its, and its safety. >> but when her sellers are selling in your store, you're not responsible for it ultimately, if they're selling your customer a defective or dangerous product? >> i think the way things work in the u.s. is that the seller of record is the person who is

setting the price and who is purchasing the product, and forl things notby amazon-- and it says on the detail page, it'll tell you who the seller-- t's the seller's responsibility for those things, and for us, it's very clear. it says amazon.com whenever we sell it. >> do you audit yourll s in terms of whether they're actually providing safe pructs to your customers? >> we do... you know, some of our sales... so about, almost 60% of oursa s are by third parties, and those sales, some of them come directly from the trd party, so we're not involved at all. >> but you take a cut. i mean, it's on your infrastructure, it goes through amazon.com, soan... >> well, it's on our infrastructure in terms of the weeite and payments, but we not... >> and fees that, you know, you're taking a cut of the sale, right? >> sure, sur and we're providing, you know, traffic that, that... you knowit's kind of the way they think about marketing is

why they would pay that fee, but... it's harder to, before an experience, inspect that, that product. th >> a sarolina woman who bought hair dryer on amazon said this happened. fire is coming out of t hair dryer. >> narrator: amazon's approach has had consequences. >> a hoverboard caused a fire that destroyed their home. >> narrator: dangerous products were flagged by authorities in washington state. >> ...found dozens oschool supplies that had high levels of toxic metals. >> narrator: and recent report found thousands of banned, unsafe, or mislabeled products. >> i'm having a hard time understanding something, which ishat, that... is about the customer, right?nd >> yes. >> oh, i reminded themf this over and over again. >> you reminded them of what? >> i said that no customer wants to buy an unsafe product. no customer wants selection that harms their child. customer wants to buy something that burns down their

house because it looks cool and it's the lates coolest thing. >> sitting here today, are yoable to basically say that the products that you sell on amazon.com are safe? >> what i can say is, we work really hard to make sure that they're safe. we have... we've spent $400 million in the last year on systems that seek out things that are not safe, k and, yw, there are millions of sellers and hundreds of millions of products, and our job is to, as fast as wen, eeout the ones that don't belong on our site. we're going to have to be vigilant as a retailer and aa technology company, and were definitely dedicated to, to protecting the safety of ourer cust >> narrator: we heard that concern for the customer over and over in our interviews with amazon executives. >> customer trust in a company like amazon, it's sort of foundational. customer obsession is t first leadership principle, and it, it's not a corporate slogan. >> we try to stay really focuseo on crs.

>> very focused on, on delivering results for our customer >> providing a great customer experience that customers want. >> delivering that, that customer delight. >> narrator: this commitment to the customer, and to keeping prices low, had anothebenefit: it helped them avoid running afoul of regulators who enforce the nation's antitrust laws. >> it's important to understand sort of that there's two fundamental philosophies oft, antitrf anti-monopoly law. you know, there's the traditional philosophy, in which you, you want to break up all potential concentrations of power that you can. but for the last 30 years, there's been this change in how we do antitrust. and this is the idea that the only purse of antitrust should be to drive prices lower, to serve the interest of the consumer. >> narrator: lynn had been urging regulators to take a moro tradl approach and

examine whether the company was gaining market power in exploitative ways: stifling fair competition, but keeping prices low for consumers.a >> we live iciety of consumers, though, and tseemingly there is some benefit to all of us when prices are low. so, what's wrong with that view of things? >> it's obviously good for people to... for all people if w can drive down prices, have lower-priced drugs, if we have books that anybody could buy. that's a good thing. it's a good thing for society,oo and it's athing for us as consumers. but we're not only consumers, we're also citizens. we're also producers. p we're alple who think and who make things and who growin , and we want to have access to open markets. >> nrator: once again, the tension was most pronounce with book publishers. amazon was selling around 40% of all new books in america

trd two-thirds of all elecic books, thanks to the success of the kind. then, one of the world's largest publishers, hachette, decided to push back. franklin foer was one of its authors. o>> hachette and amazon s to renegotiate their e-book contract and hachette said, "no, we don't accept the terms of your contract." and amazon basically said, "to hell with you, hachette. we're going to stop deliveringks your b if somebody searches for a hachette title, we're going to redirect them another blisher." at amazon's battle with hachette and the authors achette publishes is heating up. >> nrator: as bezos's virtua blockade dragged on for months. >> a bitter, seven-month standoff... >> narrator: thousands of authors, including bestsellers like douglas preston, weremi caught in thle. >> some authors were losing 50% to 90% of their sales from amazon. it was absolutely devastating

to first-time authors. it actually destroyed their careers. >> did you see sales plummet? >> i did, yes. i saw my sales plummet tremendously. >> narrator: in frustration, preston penned an open letter on behalf of all authors. it was published in "the new york times" with more than 900 signatures. >> we authors have lovedmazon. we have enthusiastically supported it, and this is how they treat us? this is t right. >> amazon has been accused of doing everything from raising prices to deliberately delaying shipments. >> is this what happens when jeff bezos decides to flex his muscles?ar >>tor: while hachette and amazon were at an impasse, douglas preston, franklin foer, and other authors went to washington, and askee obama administration to op investigation. >> i went to the justice department and i went to the federal trade commission with the authors guild, and we tried to explain to them why this

power was so dangerous. we pointed it out of all the ways in which amazon was bullying the publishing indust. >> the department of justice listened to us. and their answer was essentially this: "amazon is one of the most popular companies in the country. (camera clicks) they have brought tremendous services to consumers, and they've brought lower prices." and that we hadn't given them any kind of reason to open an antitrust investigation. >> narrator: eventually, chette and amazon would settle their dispute, with amazon allowing hachette to set its own prices for e-books, but offering it incentives to keep themow. >> it's great to be here a amazon. (crowd cheering) >> narrator: azon would thrive anduring the obama years, eventually account for nearly 40% of all online commerce in the country. >> last year, during the busiest day of the christmas rush,

customers around the world ordered more than 300 items from amazon every second. >> narrator: but the complaints about its tactics would continue, with retaile of all kinds concerned at amazon had become the online-shopping gatekeeper. >> you've got to be on amazon. you have to be there, becausehe that's eveone is. that... 100 million primes. subscrib they are the de facto e-commerce channel in t united states period, end of list. >> amazon executives have told us that there are many other options out there. there is walmart, there is alibab as a seller, you've got optionsv >>heard that response from amazon executives before, and we d that, we were listed, we listed allf our products on ev.y other online marketpla but it's a testament to justis how good amazo all of the others that were non-amon combined did about

ten percent of what we were doing on amazon. small have been aclatingbig and complaints about amazon's ho on them. >> on amazon, the customer belongs to amazon-- it doesn't belongo the third-party seller. you're basically renting the amazon customer.>> arrator: james thomson used to recruit brands to come onto amazon and now advises them on how to do business with the company. >> i represent brands today that face a number of challenges with amazon. narrator: among those challenges, businesses say that amazon has access to their valuable data, which gives it an unfair advantage. they also complain about increasingly higher fees to stay on the platform, and pressure to use amazon's warehouses and shipping services. we spoke to numerous name-brando anies, but none would share its grievances on camera. >> my accounwas suspended. >> narrator: some small businesspeople have been

talking about their experiences-- good and bad-- online. >> when you're selling on amon, you're playing in someone else's playground. >> who gets placedhere, whether or not your product shows up in the search results... >> they suspended my account without warning. >> these are all this that are governed by amazon's rules. and if there's a dispute within that arena, if you feeare mistreated, you know, the judge and jury is amazon. >> they don't care, they'll just kill your account like that ord susp... >> there are all sorts of crazy stories about why people get their accounts shut down on amazon. and it could take a week, it could take months, it could be never before you're back online again. amazon has the upper hand d e ability to basically take your business away from you at any given moment. >>.elling on amazon, take o >> narrator: amazon said third-pay sellers account for t mon half of everything sold on the site. >> i sell mini-longboard skateboards. >> i sell mineral water.

th is what i do. >> narrator: and it's committed to its sellers success-- proactively contacting them when their accounts are atp risk of sion and offering an appeals process to resolve disputes. >> you already have great products. scale up... >> narrator: but in the eyes of some businesses, amazon has essentially become like the railroads at the turn of the last century that controlled the flow of commerce across the oduntry. >> start selling. >> do you see yourself as being kind of like the rails for e-commerce, that sellers bring their goods to mket on your rails, through your marketplace? >> i don't think of it that waye an's why: the, the vast majority of stuff that's... well, all of the stuff that's sold is manufactured, ght? so it's manufactured, meaning there are brands and factoriesce that protuff and then sell it. we're one rcent of retail heles in the world, about. >> well, you are biggest marketplace online, right? >> no, so, again, i, i don't...

the idea that there's an online, stinct for brands to sell their stuff and distinct from physical, just doesn't make sense to me, and we're far from the largest retailer. so, i, i describe this as retail, and we're competing against walmart and target and costco and carreur and alibaba and tmall and all kinds of folks who are, are now selling both physical stores and online. >> arrator: in addition to pointing to other large retailers, inside the company employees have been schooled in how to talk about its size and power. >> when i worked at amazon, we had training specifically on the use of terms like "monopoly." we were not allowed to use a term like "market share." h amaz what's known as "market segment share." what is market segment? what is market segment share? i don't know, but i know that the lawyers at amazon feel those termare,re much safer than using terms like market share.

>> so market share was something they were really concerned about.>> learly somebody with the necessary legal training or pr training recognized that amazon was growinvery quickly, and when we were asked to use the term "maet segment" and "market segment share," in essence it's a polite way of saying, "i'm not going to talk to you about how b we are."ra >> narr: since leaving amazon 20 years ago, shel kaphan has been watching the company with increasing concern, and he's speaking about it for the first te. >> i think that th characterization of amazon as being a ruthless competitor is true, and under the flag of customer obsession, they can do a lot of this which might not be good for people who aren't their customers. >> i know you're not a legal scholar, but are you basically concerned that amazon is a monopoly? >> i'm, i'm concerned that it

has that type of power. i think it, u know, whether you technically can call it a monopoly or not, i don't know. ♪ >> narrator: that question hasoo continued toover amazon. >> i think that amazon is looking out, and the existential threat that they may face isom going to be overnment. it's whetherr not policymakers are going to step in and intervene and say, "you have too much power." >> narrator: for years, bezos has been ramping up amazon's prile in washington. >> amazon has been lobbying the f.a.a. to lift... >> trying to cozy up to politicians,o that they will give him the biggest tax breaks around... >> narrator: spendg millions a year on lobbying. >> amazon lobbied more government entities than anych other ompany. >> narrator: and hiring as itsma press secretary jarney.e house >> you've got an army ofyi los, many of whom have revolved in and out of

government, including yourself. what are you hoping to get for all that lobbying spend and all that influence? >> one of the things we discovered is, because of the visibility of oucompany, but also the range of businesses that we're in, we need subject-matter experts on food safety, on transportation, on droneson privacy. so and alwe can be a resource, an information provider to licymakers and regulator it's not lobbying in the traditional sense, in terms of trying to persuade somebody to do sometng, it's just answering questions an and providing data and information. >> narrator: bezos himself would also become a presence in thend capital,ventually buy the largest private residence in town >> jeff bezos never really showed much interest in politics, but as he's cemented himself in the city, he's started to acquire this physical presence. he bought a mansion, then developed it into a place that is explicitly designed to be

social. i t has a big ballroom, i mean, it is designed to create a real presence for him in the nation's capital, where can hobnob with the people who make decisions. >> narrator: he'd even bought the hometown newspaper... >> jeff bezos sent a thunderbolt through the media world this week... of a billion dollars to rescue the struggling "washington post."ev >> i do belithat democracy dies in darkness. i think that the capital city t united states of america needs a paper like "thesh gton post." >> i got to say, you know, full credit to him, he hasn't intervened in any of the coverage of the paper. and he's invested in the paper. every dollar of profit that the paper makes is plowed back into making it a better paper. >> bezos allowed the "post" to hire, to restock its newsroom, he reversed what had been atmosphere of sort of decline. i'd say "the washington post"

has really flourished under, under bezos's ownership. ut >> let'shis digital ribbon. >> narrator: at the time, critics saw a more cynic motive. >> perhaps he's buying "the washington post" to buy some sort of protection.ly >> preci >> this deal could give him more influence over politics. >> nobody hangs ouin washington, dc, just to go to the free meums. you buy a home in washington, you buy a newspaper in shington, because it is the hest influential city in t world, and you want to lay youre hands on that ♪ >> narrator: bos saw a business opportunity there, as well. the obama administration planned to modernize the federalme gove by embracing cloud computing. bezos had been quietly building a revolutionary oud computing business. he called it amazon web services. >> it's basically computing power in the cloud, but really

it's amazon's server farms arnd the world that give people access to the kind of technology services they need. >> narrator: to keep amazon running, bezos had developed an unprecedented digital infrastructure. he realized he could rent parts of it out, not just to businesses, but also to the government. >> our infrastructure is built standards of the murity risk-sensitive organizations. >> he's already got a hugedge over the other big competitors in it. so he wants to take th lead and capture the u.s. government. >> narrator: in 2013, he got a major boost when iwas revealed that amazon web services had designed a computing cloud for the c.i.a. >> amazon web rvices was awarded a ten-year contract for pi00 million. >> amazon is hel the c.i.a. build a secure cloud computer network... >> the c.i.a. contract was

probably one of the best things that happened to amazon's cloud business. it lifted all doubts about the security of the cloud and on ether you cod trust amazon with your most precious data.he >>essage to the world is, "if the c.i.a. trusts amazon with its data, then maybe other companies and governmentio inst can, as well." >> narrator: and they d. >> experience it witexpedia. >> narrator: a.w.s. became by far the world's leading cloud-computing platform. >> on cbs. >> narrator: today, han a million businesses, as well as pbs, pay amazon to store and manage their data. >> narrar: bezos had again anticipated the next frontier in technology, and had made himself indispensable to it. >> what jeff bezos is after is really creating a company that is the infrastructure, that owns the infrastructure for how commerce is do. and that's an incredibly powerful place to be. ♪ >> please welcome chiefr

executive offi amazon web services andy jassy. >> narrator: andy jassy created and runs a.w.s. he credits the service with making it easier to do business and sparki innovation throughout the economy. >> look at what a.w.s. hasen led with regard to change in our society. look at, netflix changed the way that we consume digital content, and airbnb changed the way that we get aommodations, and hola and grab and lyft and uberth changed the wa we get transportation. a.w.s. has enabled, has been a part of enabling all these huge innovations and changes in consumer experienc that have, have made life better for people. >> and we're the cloud with the most capabilities, the most innovation, the most customers.n >>arrator: the division generated $35 billn in sales last year. >> amazon web services. >> yes! >> build on. >> narrator: the success of

a.w.s. gave bezos billions to a expazon from a company that sells everything to a company that does ever. a top priority... >> to boldly go where no man has gone before. >> narrator: ...was to create the sci- future he'd fallen in >> gentlemen, this computer has an auditory sensor. it can, in effect, hear sounds. >> narrator: a world of artificial intelligence, in which computers can think and dke decisions for humans about humans. a >> jeff bezos ig fan of "star trek." he, he admits that that was on his brain when he came up withid th that amazon should be pursuing a little disk that you can bark commands into. >> stop. >> this is his "beam me up, scotty" fantasy realized. >> we started working on this

device. and our, our vision was, in the, long tt would become the star trek computer. >> when it first arrived fromdi amazon, 't know what it was. >> narrator: in 2014, bezos's talking computer, the amazon echo, hit the market. >> is it for me? >> it's for eryone. >> narrator: the voice known as dalexa would embed amazonperin to the lives of millions of people. >> alexa, what do you do? >> i can play music, answer questions, get the news and weather. >> they call it a personal assistant, and just that term implies this intimate connection that we then begin to develop with amazon. >> alexa, sing the abc song. >> ♪ a, b, c, d, e, f... >> i believe that when we think about the future and the future with artificial intelligence, given where we currently are today, alexa in some ways represents the moment that itam becomes ssly interwoven

with our lives. >> ale, how many teaspoons are in a tablespoon? >> one tablespoon equals three teaspoons. >> oh, okay. >> and the pblem is that we forget that it's there. >> alexa, lights on. >> okay. >> narrator: but alexa is also listening-- and she's learning. >> i'm answering questions and learning more. >> narrator: and that helps amazon in the race to dominate artificial intelligence. >> alexa... >> every time you ask alexa something, you're making the alexa algorithm beer. it's one of the reasons why amazon, having had a head start, is able to kind of pree that head start, because they've got the most data of anyone. >> alexa is one more way for amazon to gather extremely valuable data. and this data collection is extremely important to this business model. it'sxtreme hard to do, and you know, convincing people to just deploy something like thist inir home is a brilliant trick. >> nrator: dave limp is amazon's head of devices.

convinced tens of millions of isople to put what is essentially a, aning device in their homes? >> well, i, i would firstsa ee with the premise. it doesn't, it's not a the, the device inore is... it has a detector on it. we call it internally "wake-word engine." and that detector is listening-- not really listening-it's detecting one thing and one thing only, which is the word you've said that you want to get the attention of that echo. >> narrator: once the vice is awake and the blue light is on, it's recording. and last year, it was revealed th amazon employs thousands of people around the world to those recordings to help train the system. jo do you think that you did a good enougof disclosing that to consumers? that, that there are humanslv in in listening to these recordings? we, we try to articulate what

we're doing with our products as clearly as we can. but if i could go back in time, and i could be more clear, and the team could be more clear, on l w we were using human beings to annotate a smrcentage of the data, i would, for sure. what i would say, thou that once we realized that customers didn't clearly understand this, and within a o uple of days, we added an opt-out feature,at customers could turn off annotation if th, if they so ose. and then withia month or two later, we alwed people to auto-delete data, which they also asked for within that, within that time frame.yo know, we're not going to always be perfect, but when we make mistakes, i think the key is that we correct them very quickly on behalf of customers. >> narrator: but even one of the founders of amazon web services approaches his alexa devices with caution. do >> wheou turn off your alexa? >> i turn off my alexa when i know for a fact that the conversation that i am going tor haveor whenever i just

want to have a private moment. i don't want certains conversati be heard by humans, conversations that i know for a fact are not things that should not be shared, then i actually turn off those particular listening devices. >> we have had an incrediblear the team has invented a lot on behalf of customers, and iho cannot wait toyou what we have. >> narrator: so far, limp and his team have made alexa compatible with more than0 100,products.>> cho frames allow you to get done more around you and be morr esent in the everyday. re >> now theoing to know more about you than anyone knows. ey're trying to move as intimately as possible and as quietly as possible into everyday life. >> echo loop is a smart ring, w packh ways to stay on top of your day. >> amazon wants to have the

entire environment essentially miked. >> alexa, start my running playlist. >> they nt your walk in the park, they want your run down the city street. amazon to bring yoall-new with echo auto. >> they want what you do in your car, they want what you do in your home. alexa, bake forminutes at 350 grees. (oven beeps) >> all these intimacies, all this insight is being inteated, analyzed and integrated. >> alexa, alarm off. >> that is an extraordinary kind of power that has never before existed. >> narrator: after alexa, amazon would go on to spend nearly a billion dollars to buy ring... >> hey, bud, the police are on the way. >> narrator: a doorbell camera and app that amazon bes as "the new neighborhood watch." >> hey, get away! >> get out of there! >> narrator: to promote it, amazon has enlisted the help of

hundreds of local police departments. >> it's a enomenal tool to assist detectives. >>arrator: they give them access to a portal to request footage and have given free cameras to hand out- >> this system is ple to use... >> you have amazon inne pahip with police departments, who have basically turned policemen into, like, s avespeople for amazon ring. they have given police depaments talking points andte marketing als to encourage e installation of ring by community residents. none of this was public owledge. >> and this is ring's first indoor cam. it is... cute, is what i would say. >> narrator: amazon has continued to expand the scope of ring. last fall, dave limp unveiled a version degned to monitor the inside of people's homes. ovwithin weeks, hackers died a way to terrorize ring

customers. >> did you see that video? >> i did see that video. >> what did you think of it? i hink that that is a industry problem. it's not just about the, a ring camera-- it could be about anybody's cameras. it's about any device in that... and we've already investigated , that one to make sure what the root cause was. what we want to be able to do tin those cases is, we wa minimize them. we'd like to detect them. and we also want to build tools that give them the ability so that dsn't... that, that makes it harder for those kinds of attacks to happen. there's a lot of bad people in this world. >> here's a device that you had described as cute and seems harmless, and i'm just wondering whether you're being straight with people about the attendant risks to your

customers that you are obsessed with, supposedly. >> well, it's not supposedly, we s.are obsessed with custom i, i would say that we are trying to build curity features at every level of the stack: operating systems, authenticationfraud detection. we offer things that customers can turn on that make it even, make it even harder for thoseta s to happen. >> yo, what's up, how's your day?s >> whoat? >> what's goinon, buddy? what are you watching? >> narrator: there wera series of similar attacks across the country. >> what's up, homie?il i see you. >> you hungry? >> what's going on, my main man shaq? >> narrator: and it's not just hackers. ring has fired some of its own employees for spying on customers. >> in george orwell's "1984," he desibes a dystopia in which, "you had to live, you did live from habit that became instinct in the assumption tt every sound you made was overheard."

and wonder if you ever think about how easilyhis could become dystopian to some degree? >> well, i don't want to live in that world. so, i do not want to invent the technology that, or have my teams invent the technology that would crea that world. and so... but i am an optimist. i think if you ke the, the absolute view of that, we wouldn't invent anything. >> we're increasingl living in a world in which your products and your designs are there. do, can you see how it could be concerning in some ways th we all can't opt out of that world at this point? o sure, i can see why it could be concerning to some customers. our job in building that technology is to build it in such a way that it, that it takes into account for the scenarios that you just talked about, as best as we possibly ca you know, the, the reality of it is, that world happened way before ring or alexa.

♪ t >> narrator:hat's something that bezos himself wrestled with 20 years ago. >> i believe that privacy is going to be one of the prominent issues of the 21st century. the thing is, there are towns now in the united st that have installed security cameras on every corner, and their crime rates decreased by 80% but do you really want cameras on every corner? there are very strange things th are going to happen ove the next 100 years with respect to technology that are going to challenge us as a society to figure out how we want to deal with pvacy. >> narrator: decadesater, bezos would be at the vanguard of expanding the use of thatlo kind of tech. >> introducing amazon rekognition deo. >> rekognition allows you to pass an image to us. you can say, "do these two faces match?" which is incredibly useful for applications in the security space. you can imagine... >> narrator: aft amazon rolled out a facial recognition tool, it marketed it to law

enforcem >> recognize andrack persons of interest from a collection of tens of millions of faces. >> narrator: police we've spoke to say ivaluable tool to identify suspects quickly.to >> ...appeare a match, but i'm gonna make sure i look at them all. >> narrator: and whi amazon hs offered guidelines for it should be used, there are few laws governing the use of this technology. >> it returns anybody with warrants that look like her. >> narrator: civil liberties advocates have raised concerns, as have computer scientists, who worry amazon has released the software before it's ready, and that police are essentially field-testing it on the public >> the tools are not what i call battle-tested. and we still do not understand w well they work in the environments in which they'll be applied. that'shere i see a danger. >> narrator: anima anandkumar was the principal scientist for artificial intelligence at amazon.

in her first interview about her concerns she told us she was particularly alarmed by an m.i.t. study that found the software prone to mistakes with darker-skinned faces. amazon has questioned the study's methodology. >> as a researcher in a.i., i feel it's my personal responsibility to educate the public of ere a.i. truly is today, right? ca e they hear so much of it's supposed to bcal,ou know, it's supposed to solve all the world's problems.po i see thntial in doing that, but at the same time we need a reality check.d we n ask, where is a.i. today? what can it truly do well? >> and when it comes to facial recognition, you don't think it's ready for primetime. >> i don't think face recognition is ready for primetime in challenging enforcement. like law >> narrator: anandkumar and ngher scientists have asked amazon to stop s rekognition to law enfcement because they say the system's

accuracy is still in question, and there are no clear regulations about how it's used. we asked andy jassy about it. >> i have a differen, and we've spent... we've had the facial recognition technology out for use for over two-and-a-half and in those two-and-a-half years, we've never had any reported misuse of law forcement using the facial recognition technology and, you know, i think a lot of societal itod is already being done facial recognition technology. already, you've seen hundreds of missing kids reunited wi their parents, and hundreds ofuman trafficking victims saved, and all kinds of security and identity and education uses, so ere's a lot of good that's been done with it. but i also understand that it could be misused. and i think at the e of the day with any technology, whether you're talking about facial recognition technology or e anythie, the people that use the technology have to be use it irresponsibly, they have to be held accountable. >> there's been sorts of problems with policing

in this country. so why allow police departments to eeriment? >> we believe that governments and the organizations that are charged with keeping our communities safe have to have access to the mostti sophted, modern technology that exists. we don't have a large number of police departmentshat are using our facial recognition technology, and as i said, we've never ceived any complaints of misuse. let's see if somehow they abuse e technology. they haven't done that, and to assume that they're gonna do it and therefore you shouldn't helow them to have access to most sophisticated technology out there, doesn't feel like the right balance to me.en >> it's ifficult to even know how many police departments are using the facial recognion technology, and there's no public auditing to know whether there are mplaints about abuse. how would the public ever know? t>> you know, ain, i do think we know the total number using facial recognts that are tenology. i mean, there's, you can use any nuiner-- we have 165 service our technology infrastructure

platform, and you can use them in whatever conjunction, any combination that you want. we know of some, and the vast majority of those that are using it are using it according to the guidance that we've prescribed. e and whenre not, we have conversations, and if we find that they're using it in some irresponsible way, we won't allow them to use the service and the platform. ♪ >>ffarrator: andy jassy and bezos have said they want governments to hurry up and regulate how law enforcent can use facial recognition. but in the meantime, amazon has forged ahead, and has even discussed its services with immigration and customs enforcement. .. at amazon web services. >> narrator: and the u. military. >> ...partner community to liver for our warfighters andfo defense leaderwhen it matters most. >> narrator: bez himself has made it clear that he sees amazon playing a critical role in national security, as well as in commerc >> we are going to continue to support the d.o.d., and i think we should.

ed if big tech companies gonna turn their back on the u.s. department of defense, this untry is gonna be in trouble. >> narrator: as amazon has revolutionized one industryhe after an jeff bezos's reputation has grown to mythic proportions. >> y've called what jeff bez has built a miracle. >> absolute miracle. i wi i could give him a bloo test or something so i could pick it out, but... >> you want to clone him? i >> nant a transfusion, actually. >> amazon is now worth $1 trillion... >> narrator: his every move moves the markets. >> amazon advertising isust on fire. >> narrator: startindigital advertising business to rival facebook and google. >> some breaking news on whole >> holy cow. >> jim, i heard you gasp just now. >> holy cow, this is such a game-changer. >> narrator: buying the grocery chain wholfoods. amazon is buying whole foods for $13.7 billion. >> the day the acquisition was announced, the nation's largest

grery company lost billions ofam dollars becauson acquired a company one-12th the se. >>heverybody thinks bes is smartest person in the world and he's gonna come and crush me. >> when amazon annouaced the isition of pill pack... >> news of the deal sent shockwaves through an dustry... >> the retail pharmacy sector shed billions of dollars.hi >> look atstory-- three titans of industry... >> when amazon was mentioneda n ess release with berkshire hathaway and jp morgan saying they were looking at healthcare costs-- no detail in wthat meant... >> healthcare companies are panicked about amazon's forthcoming entry into the healthcare market.>> n the opening bell the next morning, the healthcare industry's largest players shed billionsf dollars. >> and insurance stocks are down after amazon announced a healthcare partnership wit berkshire hathaway and jp morgan chase. >> bezos basically wants to own e whole economy, right? >> you think he will. >> i kind think he will. i kinda think that in, like, ten years jeff bezos owns every single thing there is. >> so amazon has these darth vader-like abilities to just look at a sector and begin choking it of oxygen without

even touching it. amazon can begin beating competitors without even competing. >> you actually thinkis that amazoaving a negative effect on competition in the innovationconomy right now? >> i think it's a mixed bag, i think that you could argue, and there's evidence that they have inspired innovation in certain sectors. but i think there's a lot of small companies that aren't being formed, because if you go in to trand raise money for an e-commerce company, it's, "well, how are we going to compete against amon?" and i say, "well, the answer can be summarized in one word: impossible >> all right, let's move some earth. >> every sine area that he enters into, he manages to succeed in a fairly major wa (crowd cheering) day.e've had another great prime >> we've never seen anything like a company that is soat inte into the fabr of existence, so, you know, at a certain point, it becomes unavoidable. >> amazon just yesterdd... >> bezos would even extend his reach into the heart of popular

culture. >> can y imagine macy's starting a media company? we couldn't even imagine that. but amazon does it, and people take it serisly. (explosionchoes) (people screaming) >> narrator: amazon is investing billions in new shows and movies. >> oh. hi. >> hey. >> narrator: and on beefing up streams around foumes ashich many movies as netflix, major >> narrator: and on beefing up its streaminservice, which streams four times as many movies as netflix, major league baseball, and pbs shows like this one. (audience applauding) >> and the golden globe goes to... "transparent." amazon instant video. >> i want to thank amazon, jeff bezos. >> to amazon, my new best... friend. (audience laughing) >>ezos likes to joke about how, every time he wins a golden globe. >> ...it helps us sell more shoes. and it does that in a veryay

directbecause when people... if you look at prime members, they, they buy more on amazon than non-pre members, and one of the reasons they do that is, once they've paid theiu fee, they're looking around to see, "how can i get more value out of the program?" >> they're trying to use this entertainment to get people int. the pipeli >> alexa, play "jack ryan" on ttre tv. >> to keep them g within this structure that is amazon, where it becomes this unthinking habit that's startin pattern all these parts of o existence. >> so you're doi the media stuff to encourage people to use more of prime. >> correct. t >> amazon is representede academy awards. amazon is the first streaming service nominated for best picture. >> he's like one of the old studio bosses right now. he really enjoys having this place in the industry and really seems to relish being at

the center of attention there. >> i also want you to know, jeff, if you win tonight, you can expect your oscato arrive in two to five businesdays... (audience laughing)no >> what you seis someone who is so supremely self- confident. a .y who has become a titan♪ ♪ amazon is about to get bigger. it's looking for another home in north america. >> narrator: bezos and amazon's soaring stature would be on full display in september 2017, when the company announced a contest to find a location for a second headquarters. >> ...called hq2. >> narrator: they promised $5 billion in capital investments. >> $5 billion... >> ...in local investment... >> narrator: and 50,000 bs. >> 50,000...le >> 50,000 peop. >> 50,000 high-paying jobs. >> cities are salivating over

the opportunity. >> it was unprecedented because the number of jobs was head-anda shoulders mon had ever been offered in a deal before. this was a super-high-profile auction by the mt popular consumer company in the, ithe country. >> narrator:he company invitedos cities as north america to pitch themselves. >> how about, i don't know, here? >> narrator: 238 took them up on it. >> i chose, miami-- you should, too. >> can't wait to see you, amazon >> i, ebenezer scrooge... >> narrator: some with elaborately produced videos. >> ...i live in atlanta. >> amazon isemonstrating that it has the power to get thousands of elected officials to remake their worky and bow down before amazon. >> i'm mark bound, mayor of the city of danbury. >> and offer it huge tax breaks. >> georgia offered $2 billion. >> maryland offered billion. >> huge infrastructure promises, huge prime parcels of land.

>> philadelphia is offering the most land-- 28 million square feet. >> they know that these places all don't have a prayer. >> so to those who saw it as a kind of grotesque display of corporate power, to dangle 50,000 jobs and potential billions of dollars of revenue over metropolitan cities around the country, you say what? >> look, i, i think, i used to work for the united states government, like, weant businesses to invest in the united states. states want businesses to inves, in staities, city officials want businesses to invest in cities. the proposals we gotcities made the proposals, they wanted us to come, and they presented to uwhy they were an attrtive option. ♪ >> narrator: in november 28, amazon announced there were two winners: arlington, virginia, and new york city. ♪ >> this is by far the biggest new jobs deal in the history of new york city, the history of

new york state. >> narrator: new york city and neate had campaigned hard for it, offering up ly $3 billion in subsidies and tabreaks. >> i'll change my name to "aman cuomo" if that's what it takes. >> narrator: in return, amazoned prom5,000 jobs, billions of dollars in capital bevestments, and a small n of projects earmarked for local community members. >> i thought it could be areat thing for new york. we are more and more of a tech center, we wted to consolidate that reality. havi amazon here would have helped immensely. >> amazohas got to go! >> narrator: but not everyone was enthused about giving billions in tax breaks to a trillion-dollar corporation. >> corporate handout! >> get out! >> alexandria ocasioortez says the tax break isn't worth it. (gel pounding) >> welcome to today's oversight hearing on the deal... >> narrator: though the deal had

already been finalized, the new york city council insisted on al hearing. it quickly turned contentious.ma >> mr. h you mentioned that there are 5,000 employees that are currently wking here in new york city for amazon, is that correct? >> yes.ar >> nrator: council members grilled amazon executives on whether the company would and pledge to remain neutral if workers in new york state tried se unionize. >> how many of tmployees are unionized? >> none, sir. >> none. would you be okay withing to neutrality so that rkers can unioze? >> no, sir, we rpect... >> you wouldn't agree to that. >> correct, sir, we would not. >> to go to a city council hearing, as amazon did, and antagonize the city council-- if ight,wanted to start a they did a great job. if they wanted to actually show that they wereilling to work with this mmunity and our values, they did a horrible job. >> you are in union city.on anof the first answers to your question today, is-- would you be neutral?-- you said no. that is not a way to come to our city. >> narrator: it was not the

reaction the company expected when it launched the contest. two weeks later,mazon pulled out. >> amazon is pulling the plug on its new york plans. w decided we didn't have to be there in that political dynamic. the fact of the matter is, when it turned out vernor and the mayor supporting something turned out not to be enough toth persuade critics that it was the right kind of investment for new york to make, wed, decihat's fine, we can go elsewhere. >> he said to us that it turned out that the governor and the mayor supporting something wasn't enough to persuade other critics that it was the right kind of investment for new york so we decided... we decided it's fine, we'll go elsewhere. statementan idiot on its face. that is pure idiocy from a guy who should know a hell of a lot better. e deal was done, amazon knew it was done. there was noise, there was posturing by people in the political world, b the dealll was done, soe're talking

about here is the background noise. in what world are there no critics? wellyeah, in an autocratic totalitarian world, maybe they're not allowed, and maybe that's the world that jeff bezos somewhere in his mind he is entitled to. ♪ >> narrator: at the time, bezos was involved in some personal turmoil. >> amazon c.e.o. jeff bezos and his wife of 25 years announcing they are sptting. a the announcement comingd tabloid reports that bezos is now in a relationship with former news anchor lauren sanchez. al>> narrator: the "nation enquirer" had been pursuing him for months. >> the tabloid claims it tracked him rross five states and ove 40,000 miles. >> narrator: bezos saw the r "enquirer's"ort as politically motivated. >> so what would be the motive heref getting that embarrassing material about bezos and his alleged affair to the "national enquirer"? who would want to get the dirt in the press? >> narrator: the magazine's owner, david pecker, was lked to t powerful men who disliked

how they were covered by bezos's "wngton post." the first was president trump. >> it's put there for the benefit of "the washington post," of amazon... >> narrator: the second: saudi crown prince mohammad bin salman, who the c.i.a. had tied "post's" journalists, jamal khashoggi. >> former c.i.a. director john brennan said, "i have no doubt that saudi arabia would want to embarrass jeff bezos and hurt him financially." >> narrator: david pecker demanded that bezos publicly declare the "enquirer's" coverage was not politically motivated or he'd publish intimate photos of him. >> breaking news tonight, a stunner from the richestan in the world. >> narrator: rather than give >> jeff bezos callt the publisher of the "national enquirer," david pecker. >> bezos published a personal account accusing the "national enquirer" of blackmail, of

extortion. >> he turned the situation around and handled it so brilliantly-- he was ver transparent, he was very courageous, admitted some very embarrassing things about hi--elf, didn't try to deny and positioned the other individual as the bully, and kicked the bully in the nuts, and somehow turned this into a net positive. prmean, this really was th strategy and execution of the ages. i've never seen anything like this. ♪ >> narrator: publicly, bezos has pushed ahead undaunted-- a world-famous celebrity. and even after a $38 blion divorce settlement, still the richest person on the planet. (cheers and applause) to but the callein in his mpany are growing louder. >> amazon reported $10 billion in profits and paid zero in taxes. >> i will single out companieson like hallibur amazon that pay nothing in taxes in our need to change that.er >>s bezos achieving this american dream and success. and, and he's now the target of,

of all of this criticism. and basically, it becomes a symbol of all of his problems. >> amazon is closi 30% of america's stores and malls and paying... >> you're basically a piñata dangling ifront of any politician with a populist message. anyone who wantso talk about wealth inequality, they're pointing their finger at you. this is why three people own more wealth than the bottom >> if they want to talk about problems with capitalism in general, they're pointing their finger ayou. >> we need to enforce our antitrust laws, break up these giant companies. >> narrator: and it's coming from all sides. >> president trump just sent a chill down the spine of jeff bezos... >> the president again teed off against amazon on twitter. >> narrator: president trump has made bezos's ownership of "the washington post" a regular target. >> "washington post," bezos uses that as his lobbyist, okay? >> he kind of assumed that "the d shington post" was opera

the sort of way that he would operate a newspaper. and so he thought that bezos was dictating coverage to the "post," which we sho careful to say is not the case. >> nrator: trump has also criticized amazon, and accused the company of evading taxes. last year, the company was competing for $10 billion cloud computing contract with the department of defense. >> this contract would have solidified bezos's dom in cloud computing. this is a hugely important thing. >> narrator: but the company claims president trump intervened to scuttle the deal. >> and we're looking at it very seriously. it's a vy big contract. one of the biggest ever given. >> a big win for microsoft, beating out amazon... >> amazon can protest the outcome, especially given the unusual, unprecedented cments by president trump... >>t's an extraordinary tim rp live in that one of the world's biggest ations, amazon, is now saying, "the president of the united statesha

corrupted our ability to win this contract." >> is there any evidence of that? >> the evidence is what the d.president has publicly sr: >> narrand amazon's problems have continued to multiply.de the l trade commission is now reconsidering its stance on antitrust enforcement and is looking at amazon-- as are regulators in the e.u. >> this gatekeeper power and how ngthe platforms are exercit is of tremendous concern. >> narrator: in washington, democraticongressman david cicilline has launched an antitrust investigation into alletions of abusive conduct by amazon and the other tech giants >> given your experience, do you sree with amazon's statements suggesting that ks to act in the best interest of independent sellers? >> i disagree with that. we get, i don't know, what i ile.t call bullying with a >> we were able to get several c.e.os. to come to a public hearing. at required tremendous courage

because there's a real potential for economic retaliation for their sharing that. rc>> we don't have the res to fight amazon. we could use some help. >> in the course of your you've had several publicnd hearings, have you seen any evidence of anti-competitive behavior by amazon? >> um, we have seen evidence of anti-competitive behavior by all of the large platforms as a result otheir mark dominance. but it sort of doesn't fall on f the companies this problem. it falls on us. without objection, the hearing is adjourned. >> narrator: cicilline committee is considering everything from imposing limits on what businesses aompany like amazon can engage in, to restricting the collection and use of data. ♪ the man who helped jeff bezos build amazon 25 years ago says it may be necessary to go even further. >> on the one hand, i'm proud of

what it became, but it also scares me. situation to, you know, at least say what they think about what's going on.s >> thiis sort of in some ways a baby that you gave birth to, right? and so, i mean, you helped birth azon. u >>m, yeah, very much so. in fact, i used to, um, you know, get up several times duri the night to, just to s if it was working and... and,ta you know care of it if it wasn't, so... >> and when you look at what amazon has grown into today,ou seehat? >> (chuckles) well, um... you know, you don't want to see your offspring, um, become, um,lt antisocial a right? so i think not all of the

effects of the company on the world are for the best and, um... and, you know, i, i wish it weren't so, and i... you know, and i... but i had something to do with bringing it into existence, so, it's partly on me. >> and, i mean, isn't... isn't this just catalism? isn't this just a company doing what a company does? >> yes. yes, it is, um, and k schools teach peopdo, andsiness they're doing it aggressively and skillfully and with great intelligence. and they will continue to do neat unless they're constr by other forces in society. >>there are proposals out there to break up amazon. is that something you'd prote, the idea of breaking them up? >> um, i think that they're now at scale where that coul potentially make sense. >>how do you and jeff and others at the senior leadership level think about the call to break you guys up? >> we don't think about it very,

very deeply. u know, i've been at amazon now for 22-and-a-half years, the first things i jeffne of bezos say back when we could fit the whole company in just ane conference room fo all-hands meeting. he said, "i would not go to bed at night fearing your competitors or fearing any external issues. i would go to bed at night fearing whether you're doing right by your customers." antthat really is a credo t we live here and it's what we spend most of our time thinking about. well, i, i understand that we're big, and that, that weny deserve scruand i think erything that's... that's large in the economy and in society should deserve scrutin the problem is, when you think about us, we're in a lot of verticals, yes. there'.. there's video, and there's commerce, and there's,kn yo, there's web services there are all these things. but in every one of them, we have inten competition, and i do understand why, when you're in a lot of them, can seemke e're everywhere, but the global... tif we were everywhere, t means we're talking about the global economy, not just glol

retail-- it's so vast, we'rest you know, we're a speck. >> to the public, it may sound strange coming amazon, which is a company with basically a trillion-dollar market cap, your c.e.o. is the richest man in the world, but jeff wilke saito me that you're kind of just a speck in do you see how that could seem strange or incongruous? >> you know, amazon as a whole has become, you know, has been successful, busimply because the company's been successful in a few different business m segments doesnn it's somehow too big. ♪ >> narrator: as jeff bezos's company is coming under ever greater scrutiny for everything from how it wields power to even its impact on the environment-- he's continuing to look beyond all. >> we get to preserve this completely irreplaceable.ich is

there is no plan b. we have to save this planet, ant we shoulive up auture for our grandchildren's grandchildren of dynamism and growth. we can have both. who is gonna do this work? (rocket rumbling) >> narrator: he's spendi a billion dollars a year of his personal fortune on a space exploration company he created. >> and it's thiseneration's job to build that road to space, so that the future generations can unleash their creativity. >> narrator: for bezos, it's always been about one thing: his vision forhe future. >> i want you to think about this. this vision sounds very big, and it is. none of this is easy, all of it is hard, but i want to inspire you, a so think about this. big thgs srt small. (audience applauding)

thank you. (audience cheers and applaud ♪ >> go to pbs.org/frontline for extended excerpts of our interviews with top amazon executives and insiders, including employee number one. >> on one hand i'm proud of what it became, but it also scares me. >> and more on amazon's use of facial recognition software. >> i think a l of societal good is already being done with facial recognition technology. in>> connect to the frontle community on facebook andnd twitter, a watch anytime on e pbs video app, or pbs.org/frontline. >> frontline is made possible by contributions to your pbsom station iewers like you. thank you. and by the corporation for public broadcasting.

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-weaving through the crowded "amina" gracefully follows aminata fall, o a senegalese woman grates to turkey to build a better life. ♪ -[ speaking french ] -as she faces alienation in a foreign country and longs for her daughter back home, she pursues her dreams. ♪ turkish director kivilcim akay colorfully documents the snds, tastes, and intimate interactions of amina's experience, while providing a platform for immigrant voices.