>> i'm jeff bezos. >> what is your claim to fame? >> i'm the founder of amazon.com. >> narrator: from the award-winning producers of "the facebook dilemma". >> richest guy in the world. >> narrator: frontline investigates amazon. >> is amazon taking over theng world a good t >> narrator: questioning those who run the company...>> what would you say to someone who feels as though humans are increasingly being treated like robots? >> that's not the experienceat th i had in setting it up. >> narrator: and those no longer there. >> most people wouldssume 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 ople asking if amazon is a monopoly. >> the question for the democracy is, are we okay with one company essentially winning capitali? >> how do you and jeff think about the call to break you guys up? >> simply because the company's beenes suul doesn't mean it's somehow too big. >> narrator: now on frontline... >> domination was very much the idea. >> narrator: "amazon empire". >> frontline is made possible by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. and by the corporationor public broadcasting. major support is provided by the john d. and catherine t. macarthur foundation, committed to building a more just, verdant and peaceful world. t and ford foundation: working with visionaries on the frontlines of social change worldwide. additional support is provided by the abrams foundation, committed to excellence in journalism. the park foundation, dedicated to heighteublic awareness of critical issues. the john and helen glener family trust.

supporting trustworthy journalism that informs and inspires. the heising-simonsoundation: unlocking knowledge, opportunity, and possibilities. and by the frontline journalism fund, with major support from jon and ann hagler. and additional support from ura debonis and scott nathan. >> jeff bezos has already conquered the retail frontier. 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.ar >>tor: in may of 2019, jeff bezos, the richest person onhe planet, unveiled his latest invention. >> this is blue moon. it's time to go back to the moon, this time to stay. >> jeff has said over and over again that the most important work he's doing is work in space. what he's built in ais really important and really

interesting, and it's, it's revolutionized commee. but it's only revolutionized commerce. >> narrator: bezos's plan is to art a new course for the future of humanity. >> manufactured worlds rotated to create tificial gravity 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.>> his is me in high school. quote: "the earth ite, andis if the world economy and pulation is to keep expanding, space is the only way to go." i still believe that. >> the way jeff bezos sees is it is that consumerism is an example of how today's society lives beer than our parents did and our grandparents. and he wants, you know, future nerations to continue to have an increasingly better lifestyle.

>> these are beautiful. people are going to want to live . >> narrator: bezos unveiled his extra-terrestrial plans at ain time of grconcern about the empire he's built here on earth. >> amazon is the greatbo disrupter, frooks to retail to grocery stores. >> narrator: for more than 25 disrupting and traing been almost eve aspect of our modern lives. >> once you start connecting the dots, you see that amazon is building all of the invisible infrastructure for our futures. >> amazon announced a healthcara nership... >> amazon is helping the c.i.a. build a secure cloud... >> how much of the intnet do you run? >> that's a good question, um, it's a lot, though. >> narrator: but in recent years, amazon-- and bezos-- have come under scrutiny for their t aggresactics and expandingr. po (bezos laughing) >>everything that is admira abouamazon is also something that we should fear about it.

>> narrator: for the past year, we've been investigating howos jeff 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 valley, but on wl street. that's where the young princeton graduate went to work in t early 1990s, at a secretive hedge fund called d.e. shaw.av >> shaw was thone who revolutionized wall street by introducing data. and i think jeff really embraced that, that idea that, "hey, if you ha data, ultimately, you win." >> one of ththings that david

shaw asked jeff bezos to do was to go and investige new businesses, and in particular this new thing in the early '90s called the world wide web. p (dial- modem connecting) >> we all know that a communications revolution is undeay in this count. >> what is the internet? >> it's sort of the mother of all networks. >> it's formation highways. >> it'kind of like your remote control to the world. >> narrator: bezos was qui to see the untapped potential of the new digital landscape and was determined to get in on it. >> i came across this startling 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 ctext of that growth, and i picked books as the first best product to sell online ♪ because books are incredibly unusual in one respect, andat s that there are more items inhe book category than there are items inny other category by far. so, when you have that many items, you can literally build a

estore online that couldnst any other way. >>arrator: the store he wa imagining didn't exist, so he decided to build it himself. ♪ >> the reaction to jeff's idea to start selling books on the internet was pretty incredulous, you know, from a lot of the people close to him. his mom tried to convince him to just do it at night or over the weends. she didn't want to see him give up his job. >> jeff called, and he told me that he and mackenzi quitting their jobs, and they were moving to seattle and starti a company.we i said, "great, what are you going to do?" he said, "we're going to sell books." i said, "nice." said, "on the internet." i said, "oh. jeff, why will anybody buy anything from you?" and he said, "well, we're going to have moreooks than anybody else." >> narrator: one of the first names bezos considered for his newebsite was relentless.com.

>> why "relentless?" >> relentless meant, "we move on no matter what." bv he ultimately,usly, decided that "relentless" wasn't quite the right fit., amazrth's largest river, amazon means gigan >> in terms of relentlessness, stopping at nothing, that's, is that an apt descriptn of jeff? it's not that jeff at nothing, it's that when jeff sets his mind on a goal that he thinks he can achie, he won't stop until he's proven wrong or until he achieves it. ♪ >> jeff and mackenzie had rented a house in bellevue. and then we moved to a small, second-floor office in thepa sout of seattle. >> narrator: shel kaphan was amazon employee number one, e of nine former amazon insiders who agreed to talk on camera.

>> what the company is now was nowhere in my wildest imagination. nowhere, so, the fact that it could have the-the kind of 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 world's largest bookstore. >>loarrator: it didn't take for bezos's vision to prove prescient. >> what kes us different is vast selection, convenience-- we deliver right to the desktop. if our catalog were printed on i pat would be the size of sen new yorkity phonebooks. ♪ >> narrator: the company quickly outgrew the garage and soon had0 more thamployees.

in 1996, james marcus applied to be number 55. >> there was a very palpable exciment in the air at this point jeff bezos w firstthis person to interview ever prospective employee.as so ishered into his office. he wanted to see how fast you were on your feet. he also always wanted to know your s.a.t. scores.>> e wanted to know your s.a.t. scores? >> every time, yes. >> how old were you at the time? >> i was 36 or 37. >> this is the original sign that i made for amazon.c. blue spray paint on white poster board. folklore at that point, he was not the-the wealthiest man in the world.pu >> here's my cter, amazon.com up on the screen. "hello, jeff bezos." >> he was a small, nondescript,m ndy-haired sitting at a desk with quite a large anti er laugh.

(laughing in multiple scenes) >> but he wasn't threatening, hg was a normaluy to a sort of azing extent. >> hal 9000 hat, very important. hal and i shara birthday, we're both born on january 12. >> it belied, you know, an enormous, napoleonic ambition. >> one of the people i really like, thomas edison, here's a model of his original ght bulb. he's famous for saying, "onesp percent ation, 99 percent perspiration." (laughs) it turns out ideas are the easy part, execution is everything. >> domination was on jeff's mind from the beginning. one of his sort of second-in-command people said to me, "you have to undetand that jeff wants to sell many more things than books.is and jeff's idehat in the near-distant future, you could buy a kayak from amazon. and if, and after you brout the kayak, you cou figure out good places to kayak and buy trel services from amazon.

so, those ambitions were very clear, and this was very early on. but he was clearly thinking in those tes from the get-go. >> how did that ring to you at the time? >> a little bit citing and a little bit nutty. >> amazon.com, very good website. you should really try it. (bezos laughs) >> if you signed on to work ata- kind of futuristic bookstore, and the guy who w owned suddenly talking about selling, you know, every object in the universe, you just weren't sure how seriously to take it. (bezos laughing) (bezos screaming playfully) >> narrator: though his public image was often unseriou.. >> that was awesome! >> narrator: iide the company, bezos was a hard-charging manager relentlessly focused on the principle that would make amazon one of the most trusted brands in the world:he customer always comes first. >> this culture of customer obsession...

obsessive focus on customer... o obsessr our customers... totally obsessing over the custer experience. t >> we uscall 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. >> narrato 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 ourh noar. and so, you know, it was a place where we knew we were a pa of something that was new, the internet. there was an excitement that we were doing something that hadn't been done before. it was exhilarating. we were all aligned around building for customers. >> hey, you guys. >> hey. (bezos laughs) >> i've ard there was an empty chair that would often be put at meetings. >> yeah.ho >>as in the pty chair? >> yeah, so that empty chair was

there to remind us all to understand the customer, have empathy for the customer, understand the details of the customer experience. have to bring forward the voice of the customer. (phone ringing) >> thank you for calling amazon.com. >> narrator: and bezos quickly learned that in this new onlinel world, he understand exactly how customers were behaving. >> all orders do need to be aced online. >> it was made clear from the beginning th data collectionf was also oneazon's businesses. all customer behavior that flowed tough the site was recorded and tracked. and that itself was a valuable commodity. >> have you visited our website? >> we could track how a custome navigarough the site. so we could see what you looked at, weould also see what you paused at, we could see what you put in your basket but didn't order, we could see what you put in your basket and der. so that's when we started realizing, "man, this is rich. this is rich, richrich." and so we've used it for everything. >> what do you do with that

infoation? >> that's the data that allowsed us to prict, or try to predict, what books that you would like that you haven't discovered yet. >> nrator: 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. e if you take the time of y into account, if you take maybe when they we last on the site, how long they re on the site the site today, you know what they're falling for. >> whoever owns, collects, the ta, if you have access to it and rights to data, then you are king. it's all about the data. everything. >> one of the most fascinating kind of tools we have at our sposal is the ability to do it's, you know, it's kind of

this huge laboratory. >> we did not think about it as exploing, we thought about helping people make better >> i was starting to feel that that was less respectful toward the consumer, who was, after all, supposed to be our god, the person whose ecstasy was our and it was closer to getting aco into a milking stall andac exng as many pails as possible during each visit. and that felt a little moreun vory. but that was the business of amazon.ma >>n has added 880,000 new customers... >> narrator: while bezos was using these insights to bringmo re and more customers into amazon... >> the number of customers who use the website has increased fourfold... >> narrator: thereas 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...? >> it seems like a new math, doesn't it? >> it does. pe>> narrator: bezos would years losing money trying to beat his competition, and he

convinced investors to go ong with it. >> one of jeffezos' greatest accomplishments has been his abity to get wall street t accept the fact the fi 20-some years, amazon wasn't going to be very profitable. o and that'skay because they're building infrastructe that will cate huge opportunities for them to gain scale and gainr custand gain business. >> narrator: he spelled it out in a letter to shareholders after thcompany first went blic: "it's all about the long term," herote, rather than short-term profits or wall street reactions. >> he essentially says, "we e going to forego profit in order to take market share. that our strategy is to lose money, which enables us then to put other companies out of siness who can't afford to lose money." >> narrator: that strategy wouldn't sitell with critics like stacy mitchell, who advocates for small businesses.

>> in essence, at the very beginning, he's signaling to shareholders, "i have a strategy to monopolize the market, and that's going to reward you, but it's going to be far down the road, and will you come ong s.th me?" and they said ye >> narrator: investors also recognized bezos' essential orvantage over physical st, which had charge their customers sales tax, unlike online businesses. n >> so, collecting sales tax gave amazon a big leg up over bricks and mortar retailers. anthat was central to thei early strategy of gaining market share as quickly as they can. >> what booksellers were saying to me is that, "this is driving my ctomers to amazon. they'll come into the store, they'll browse, they find what they want, but then they'll go buy it on amazon, because they >> so it was a very irksome, bearly, big issue for theook y vendors, first of all, tre 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. >> narrator: amazon's sas-tax advantage would be central tocc its suess as it expandedyo be books, into other products. >> and we have a fantastic nselection of things you look at. electronics and then of course toys. yeah, thank you, here is, we've got have the friendly pokémon. this is more than ten times then a typical, physical world software store. >> narrator: but bezos was still a long way from his goal of amazon being the place where you could buy everything online. (drills whirring) and he saw a way to achieve it. >> amazon could soon become the waart of the internet. >> narrator: there were thousands of businesses eager to sell online. it.os offered them a way to do >> amazon is transforming itself from an online bookstore to an online mall. d> narrator: he transfor amazon into a retail platform ere anyone could sell their goods to his customers and

vited thousands of other businesses to be a part of it. r it's the easiest place anybody, small olarge, who wants to set up shop online to sell online, because they can access our 12 million-plus customers.ll anybody,omers. >> we're talking about hundrs of thousands ocompanies with oliterally tens of millio products. >> narrator: name-brand stores stted selling bezos's platform, and so did tens of thousands of smalltr reneurs. >> everyone knew amazon.com. the only people that knewpe uperhoops.com were the ones that were searching to buy a basketball hoop and saw our name on an advertisement. to us it was really a no-brainer. we knew that we would, you knowe incrur sales. first year we did 100,000, next year we did a million, we did two million, four million, we were doubling evy year in the early days. >> narrator: it was great for the companies-- and even greater for jeff bezos.

>> amazon has become the most recognizable name e-commerce. >> narrator: not only d he take a cut of everything other s businessesd, he'd also keep his own store on the platform, competing against everyone else in the marketplace howned and controlled. >> he owns the main street. he hashe main street real estate. not just one building on the corner, the entire main street.♪ ♪ >> narrator: how amazon would wield s power over the online marketplace would eventually become a question for vernment regulators, but early on, there were indications. the first to see them were book publishers a >>zon took over a large market share of the publishing industry very, very fast. they were very quickly in a position to demand concessions. you know, i think that was a moment where publishers started to realize, "oh, wait a minute like, we... they're our partner,

but they now have the beginnings of a boot on our windpipe." >> narrator: inside the company, they had launched a strategy that some call "the gazelle project," because they'd heard bezos wanted them to pursue publishers the way a cheetah pursues a sickly gazelle. strongest.ou don't go after the it's like the cheetah. the cheetah looks for the weak, s for for the sick, lo the small, that's what you go for. so don't start with, you know,er nune publisher. start with number seven publisher and then number six b publisher, athe time you get to number three, two, and one, the noise has gone, gotten back to them. they're going to know this is coming, and chanceare you may be able to settle that without a full-on war. >> we were just this little publishingoetry books andmpany, translated fiction. >> narrator: in the early 2000s, the number obooks dennis

johnson was selling on amazon had been rising steadily. o th day, he got a phone call. >> our distributor called us up to talk about our amazon contract. and he said, "i went o ounner last night with amazon, it was like gointo dinner with the godfather. they want a kiback." that's the word he used, kickback. and he said they wanted four percent more of our sales. >>as that unusual? >> it was... in our experience,t as totally unprecedented, yes. >> narrator: randy miller ran the european book team and says he saw nothing wrong wit amazon's tough tactics to challenge publishers on prices and profit margins. >> in order to bring them into line, we would actually take them out of automated merchaising, take their prices up to list price; we would put references 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." thought their worsetitoroever we was. lyat was how amazon forced their vendors to-to co (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 gotb excitet it. >> narrator: when dennis johnson still refused to give in to amazon's terms, he says the buy button on all melville house books suddenly disappeared, making it impossible fors customer purchase them on amazon. >> i mean, this is the company that referred to littl publishers like me as wounded gazelles, i believe? that's how they think, that's how he thought from the beginning. and we eventually had pay what at the time i called a bribe. and our attitude toward amazon was, you know, "render unto caesar that which is caesar's."

and then carry on as best as you san. >> jeff bezos ma that amazon comes along and has access to a huge distributionf channel for your books. has amazon been good for your business? e. well, absolutely they h any bookseller that sells our books is goofor our business. so, i'm not complaining that amazon is selling our books. i'm just complaining of the way that their tactics are hurtingov the industry i >> narrator: in addition to granting interviews, amazon responded to written questions. regarding dennis johnson's characterizations, it told 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. people at amazon, that'ssome 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 margin, andso body's going to have to give. and-and a lot of times amazon wasn't the one givin >> kindle is a purpose-built reading device. >> narrator: the tension between amazon and book publishers would ramp up ev further with the unveiling of the kindle, which helped the industry transition to the digital age, but gave amazon more power to set prices lower. >> and new releases are only $9.99.un >> narrator: athat time, barry lynn, an advocate for broad antitrust enforcement, was growing increasingly concerned by what he was hearing from publishers. >> if the door w open, the publisher would say, "hey, you know, amazon, they're just a urrrific customer, they're biggest customer. ey buy the most books, they sell the most books. we love them." then you close theoor, and they say, "amazon is destroying destroying our bus theyy're have way too much power, we

must do something about them >> narrator: lynn wanted publishers to speak up a public thought federal antitrust regulators might investigate whether amon was a monopoly, illegally abusing its market dinance in anticompetitive ways. , >> and they'd say, "no wm not going to talk about amazon in public. i'm not tag about them on capitol hill.ey thill take retribution against me." >> to which you responded? >> "ll, that's why we have to do something about it." an narrator: jennifer cast amazon's books division in its formative years. >> we've had a difficult time in some ways getting publishers to talk to us on camera about amazon. in part, it seems the reason ise thatre afraid. how do you react to that, that publishers find itbl uncomfortoalk about amazon publicly? >> i don't know, i mean, i-i haven't seen that. >> yeah. >> i hav't been in your shoes.

i'm sure they have... i mean, if you're saying that they-they don't talk negatively about us, of good things to say about us. um, you know, i-i don't know why they wouldn't speak their mindse ertainly value speaking our minds. >> there is this well-known anecdotabout cheetahs and gazelles, this gazelle program. do you know about that? >> i don't. >> we've talked to where jeff had sai shouldt, basilly try to negotiate with book publishers and try to get better terms and treat thepu smalleishers 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 moveway from 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 opportunities to present their books to customers. >> i want to talk a little bit

about how we think about innovation at amazon.com. >> narrator: amazon would begin to accumulate even more power in 2005, when bezos quietly rolledn out a revoluy new program: amazon prime. >> now they have somethingca lled the prime shipping >> amazon prim- we only launched this a week ago-- you pay $79 a year, and you get- y shipping for free. >> narrator: it was a risky bet, and it paid off. >> the lynchpin, or the glue, if you will, and probably the seminal moment in amazon's business history, was the introduction of what has become the most successful membership program in history, and that's prime. >> many of you in this audiencel already be amazon prime mbers, bless you. wais is very much appreciated. >> it changes thy you shop. >> narrator: eventually more than 150 million people would sign up for the free shipping-- a tremendous expense for amazon. but to bezos, it was worth i

>> the prime program at amazon is one of the most important .drivers of amazon's grow when you go on and look to buy a product, and it's available in o days, delivered to your door anywhere in the country, that amazon prime program becom a you back as a customer to keep buying and keep searching for new products on amazon. >> narrator: two-day delivery anywhere in the country was a big promise for a company that, at the time, had less than ten warehouses. bezos went on a buildg spree. ♪ acss the country amazon warehouses began to spring up, products being sol bezos's platform. he'd call them ffillment centers, and they'd create hundreds of thousands of js in places hard hit by the great recession.ce >> ten pnt of pennsylvania residents unemployed... >> job market is in complete

disarray. >> narrator: like allentown, pennsylvania. >> at that time, it was trerendous news that an empl was coming and actually opening a facilitynd hiring people, versus, you know, gutting half the staff. >> narrator: spencer soper was a business reporter for the "allentown morning call" wn amazon opened in the area in 2010. he began hearing stories aboutin woin the warehouse. >> people are basicay in this big, sprawling warehouse that's stocked with goods in very random fashion. and they have scanners that tell them which things to get. and people are walking maybe ten, 15 miles a day.eo so pe just kind of crisscrossing this big warehouse all day long. >> narrator: as workers told him about the punishing pa to meet the daily quota of packages, and the intense heat, soper and his colleagues started to investigate further.eo >>e really felt like amazon was playing fast and loose with their, with their health.

>> narrator: ser discovered there had been numerous complaints to auorities at the occupational safety and health ministration, 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 be treated for heat strs." there was a security guard who worked in the facility who sento a complainsha saying that heat stress in-in cility.fering and so there's just, like, these red flags right and left. >> narrator: after an investigation, osha said amazon needed to keep the temperatures in the warehouses lower. in a statement at the time, the wmpany said it installed industrial air conditioning and pledged that worker safety was its number-one priority. >> amazon is shrewd businessople, shrewd businesspeople know when theyag have lev 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 hundreds of thousands of workers and become one ofth e largest jobs creato in the country. at the fulfillment centers, bezos experimented with new boost productivityhnologies to >> willingness to experiment is the key to be able to do new things. so we do, you know, hundreds of experiments every day in our fulfillment centers to get a little bit better. invention.ke incremental ♪ >> narrator: when a company called kiva perfected ae warerobot, amazon bought the whole company. >> amazon has acquired kiva systs. they make shipping robots. >> narrator: it helped transform the work environment in amaz's warehouses. >> when i first showed up at azon in 1999, i led our global operations team. >> nrator: jeff wilke create the amazon fulfillment center

system and is one of two c.e.o.s under jeff bezos. >> as we've added 200,000 robots, in that same time frame since 2012 we've added 300,000 people in our fulfillment centers. so what happens is the robots 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. make them higheruality,, they becauswe present a smaller set of options to-to employees. and that's all good for customers, and it's good for employees to >> narrator: but at the same time, complaints have persisted. >> people o've worked in warehouses for decades say, his is different. this is not the same." e 're here today because we want to make sat these workers know about their rights in the workplace, especially around heat. >> narrator: sheheryar kaoosji is an advocate for warehouse workers in the san bernardino, california, area-- an amazon hub, with ten fulfillment centers and over 15,000 employees. >> because of the way that amazon operates, because of the

way that they set their rates for productivity, it's a lot harder work physically but ao psychologically. >> narrator: we sat down with group in san berrdino who'd recently worked at amazon. >> when they first got here, i thought as exciting. like, for me, i was thinking maybe i could find a-a place k where, yw, i'm going to set roots of a good job, you know, move up in-in the place.th but after beine for a while, i was like, "there's no >> it's like, "okas is where i can probab make a career." but once you worked there for a certain amount of time, it's just like, it's just not realistic,ow they expect you to work. >> narrator: like dozens of workers we've spoken to around the country, they say theye struggled to kp up with the rate amazon expehem to pick and pack items.ic >> how realire the rates that 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 cheate it, becace you hit rate,

by the end of the week, they raised i they bump it up ain. cause they start seeing, "hey, people can hit those rates, n hit those numbers, hey, let's push them a little harder."ek every t seemed like it was going up. ♪ >> you have security camerasbe righnd you at all times, that are looking at you 24-seven. 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 seconds that you have to ve 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, you just consttly have to sit there scanning like a robot all

day long. if they catch you noscanning, you get a write-up. >> and what they're doing is they're producing this mass of data that they are using to be able to analyze the entire workforce. >> we're not treated as human as robots.'re not even treated we're treated as part ofhe datatream. >> it's the incentive at any warehouse, on any assembly line, to get theost out of any worker. >> yes. >> to make rates, to-to be as efficient as possible, to be as productive as possible. so, i don't see exactly what's opposed to any othehouse. >> amazon is the cutting edge. other warehouses are starting to adopt these technologies, other companies are definitely interested in doing what amazon is doing. data collection could become basically the standard for all workers, and that there's... you're never good enough, you' never able to keep up. ♪ >> narrator: amazotold us work

rates are not based on 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 workers around the count, both current and former workers. they've deribed the pace of work as being really grueling. in the early thinking about rates and how far you could push human beings in terms of their productivity, what was the thinking about that? >> well, obviously if the rates artoo high, you're not goi to have people showing up for work. so, we have 600,000 people at the company, most of them are in the fulfillment centers, and they-they come to work every day, they st for years. these are considered great jobs in the hundreds of communities where we have fulfillmen centers all over the world, and in the u.s. we have, aost every state has an operation in it, and people come to work because these are great jobs. they're safe, we pay double the minimum wage, e national minimum wage, we have terrific

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

"steward." >> early o amazon took a position to basically be anti-union. y was that decision made? >> i don't think we made the decision to be anti-union.t we jel that all of the things that-that unions would-would want to-to get us to do, we've already done. >> what-wh about setting rate, though? do you not see that there's a little bit more leverage in them hands agement in this enario than ere would be in a unionized environment? >> i don't know, it's hard to ispeculate on that, but-bo think that we have 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 to someone, though, who's, who's worked in-in your fulfillmentth center feels as though there's been... that-that humani are incrly being treated like robots? 'cause it's something that we've actually heard, and i don't sense it's hyperbole. >> well, that's not the experience that-that i had in tting it up or that i've

seen. it's, it's certainly trueth that-thae jobs are not for everybody, and there-there may be people that don't w do this kind of work. >> narrator: amazon executives also stress the company has become an industry leader in training its workforce for career advancement. >> we just announced a pledge recently to spend $700 million to upskill, which is basically creating career opportunities for people, 100,000 of our ployees. we pay 95% of tuition to go 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 couplef years and then go do something 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 i labor, a ja job, there were benefits, and they are now investing $700 million to

do retraining for other types of jobs.'s whhe real grievance? what is there to complain about?" i actually used to think that way for a while whener i, when i first started, whoever i heard complaints from, i was like, "well, it was in the job description, and you signed up t r it." the part they dolk about is the safety rules that you have to ignore to make rate. it's not just you go in, okay, and you-you do your job, and that's it. >> so, you're in, you're in a weird bind. >> it's incredibly hard to meet rate while following all the safety procedures. >> a complaint that we've hearfrom workers in terms of the sort of automation of their work as humans, some of them telling us that, yes, there are high safety standards in these fulfillment centers, b that in order to make rate, they're having to cheat the standard aittle 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. so, we have, we have a culture that if-if we are asking people to do something that is, that they have to do o fast to be safe, they can raise their hand and say, "this isn't," and-and we'll fix it. (phone vibrates)ar >>tor: for years, amazon has put a happy face on its business and its workforce. ("give a little bit" by supertramp playing) >> ♪ give a little bit give a little bit of your love... ♪ the people are almost likecials, shadows and silhouette it's all about boxes, and singing and bumbliir wayboxes to your door, like, oh, no, no. >> ♪ there's so much that wene . ♪ >> hello. >> hey. >> they don't wa you to even 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 my love to you. ♪ t they wanted people to j think, "whoa, magic!"

♪ >> narrator: and magic was a big part of bezos' marketing strategy, with an emphasis one mpany's miraculous level of innovation and growth. >> we started amazon prime in 2005, but then something vy extraordinary happened. this. in 2011, the slope o graph changed-- a lo >> narrator: as amazon grew, he wa his top executives to think about the kind of company it was becoming. he wrote a memo titled, "amazon.love." copy of it was obtained by brad stone. >> the memo is another example ofeff being very prescient about the future. it's jeff grappling with the idea that all big companies are loved. get uncomfortable hen wethat we

talk about very big companies. "rudeness is not coo defeating tiny guys is not cool. risk takg is cool. winning is cool. polite is cool. defeating bigger, unsympathetic guys is cool inventing is coo explorers are cool. conquerors a not cool." >> some businesses, you can tell when you go in and haveme ings with them, they have a conqueror mentality. and there's a big difference being an explorer.nqueror d and i think in, yoknow, this very inventive space that 're in, it pays to explore. ♪ >> narrator: but to some watching amazon's 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 delivery system

and made a key decision: rather than hire its own drivers, it built a network of independent businesses to deliver packages. >> they weren't just going to dabble here and dabble there.e they wering 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'r thnot regulated by the federal government. >> an 84-year-old woman struck and killed by amazon delivery truck. >> a woman hit and killed in a >> narrator: propublica and buzzfeed found that drivers are under intense pressure to deliver packages >> after striking him, the van maneuvered around salinas and his dog. >> narrator: and they documented

more than 60 crashes, including 13 deaths, since 2015. >> an infant critically injuredh in a car cas died. >> when it came time to figure out who's responsiblzon would always say, "it's a contractor, it's n our responsibility." >> now you've been able to find 13 deaths. and that's over the course of several years. is that statistically significant given all of the packages that they deliver in any day or any given yea >> i don't pretend to claim that there's only 13 deaths and that i found every single one. w i just found enough to sat this is happening around the country. with ups, there's a . there's a federal record you can urok at how many serious i and fatal accidents they have. with amazon, that doesn't exist. no one knows theafety records of all of amazon's contractors. >> narrator: amazon disputed the propublica report.el

it would notse any data on crashes involving its driver network but told us it had a "better than average" safety record and that nothing is more important to them than safety. >> any accident is one accident too many, so just as we were focused on safy in thet fulfillmnters and product safety, we are... we set very high standards with all of those partners for safe performance. we have training videos fothe third parties that work with us to help them understand what w expectn terms of the drive, we have mapping software that we use to help them find the right routes. every one of our drivers i required, including the third parties, are required to have comprehensive insurance,it including liabinsurance, so that if there is an accident that the person who's injured is covered. to >> amazon wantet prime members their packages even faster... >> nrator: in the last year, amazon announced a change to th

wa handles prime deliveries. instead of delivering packages in two days, they pred to do it in one. >> free xt-day delivery all across the u.s.... >> it's impossible for me to imagine a world 20 years fromwh noere a customer comes up to me and says, "jeff, i love amazon. rei just wish your prices little higher." or, "i love amazon. i just wish you delivered a little more slowly." >> narrator: at the same time the delivery network was bei set up, amazon was also rapidly expanding its product offerings, inviting more sellers onto the site. (compur plays tune) including those from china. >> it basicay makes it to where it's super-easy for these 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 worked in product safety at amazon, and

worried that the site was being flooded with untested and potentially unsafe products. p >> are theroper warnings? has it been safety-tested for if a child chews owill the paint come off? is that paint leaded? >> most people would assume that there's a pretty high safety standard on amazon. >> and that assumption would be incorrect. >> narrator: she says that's becae amazon, like other tec companies, takes the position responsible if itsustomersre harmed by products sold by third parties on theite. >> if someone buys something that causes harm at waart or at target, a consumer can sue walmart or tget. >> right, 'cause no one's forcing you, when you come into walmart, to enter the doors of walmart. they aren't making y 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 been challenginamazon's terms and conditions in court. some have even been successful. >> ultimately, who's on the hooa whustomer buys a dangerous product on amazon? who takes ultimate responsibility for that? >> well, in the rarewhere that, where something like that happens, if it's a third-party seller, the sale is by a third-party seller, and it is the seller's responsibility to, to sell a legitimate product to a customer, and then, when amazon is the retailer, and we ll a product to the, to a customer, then it's our obligation to make sure that we understand the manufacturer and the supply chain for that oduct and its, and its safety. >> but when the other sellers are selling in your store, you're not responsible for it ultimately, if they'reus selling yourmer 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

settg the price and who is purchasing the product, and for things not sold by azon-- and it says on the detail page, it'll tell you who the seller is-- it's e seller's responsibility for those things, and for us, it's very clear. it says amazon.com whenever we sell it. >> do you audit your sellers in terms of whether they're actually providing safe products to your customers? >> we do... you know, some of our sales... so about, almost 60% of our sales are by third parties, and ose sales, some of them come directly from the trd party,o we're not involved at all. >> but you take a cut. i mean, it's on yourfr tructure, it goes through amazon.com, so, i mean... >> well, it's on ourre infrastrucn terms of the website and payments, but we're not... >> and fs that, you know, you're taking a cut of the sale, right? >> sure, sur and we'repr iding, you know, traffic that, that... you know, it's kind of the way they think about marketing is why they woulday that fee,

but... it's harder to, before an experience, inspect that, thatod t. >> a south carolina woman who bought a hair dryer on amazon said ts happened. >> fire is coming out of the 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 of schoold supplies that gh levels toxic metals. >> narrator: and a recent report found thousands of banned, unsafeor mislabeled products. th i'm having a hard time understanding sog, which is that, that... you know, amazon's entire brand is about the customer,? >> yes. >> that it's... >> oh, i reminded themis over and over again. >> you reminded them of what? >> i said that no customer wants to buy an unsafe product. no customer wants selectionth harms their child. no customer wants to buy something that burns down their l house because it looks cd

it's the latest, coolest thing. >> sitting here today, are you able 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 thatey e safe. we have... we've spent $400 million in the last year on systems that seek out things that are not safe, and, you know, there are of millions of products, andreds our job is to, as fast as we can, weeout 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 our customers. >> narrator: we heard that concern for the customer over and over in our inte with amazon executives. >> customer trust in a company like amazon, it's sort of foundational. first leadership principle, and it, it's not a corporate slogan. >> we try to stay really focused on customers. >> very focused on, on

delivering results for our >> providing a gretomer experience that customers . >> delivering that, that customer delight. >> narrato this commitment to the customer, and to keeping ices low, had anothebenefit: it helped them avoid running afoul of regulators who enforce thnation's antitrust laws. >> it's important to understandh sort o there's two fundamental philosophies of titrust, of antionopoly law. you know, there's the traditional philosophy, in which you, you want to break up all potential concentrations of power that you can. 3 but for the layears, there's been this chan in howo wetitrust. and this is the idea that the only purpose of antitrust should be to drive prices lower, to serve the interest of the consumer. >> narrator: lynn had been urging regulators to take a more traditional apoach and examine whether the company was

gaining market power inve exploitaays: stifling fair competition, but keeping prices low for consumers. >> we live in a sociy of consumers, thou, and seemingly there is some net 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 we can drive down prices, if we have lower-priced drugs, if we have books that anybody could buy. that's a good thing. it's a good thing for society, and it's a good thinfor us as consumers. but we're not only consumers, we're also citizens. we're also producers. we're also people o think and who make things and who grow things, and we want to have access to open marke >> narrator: once again, then tenss most pronounce with book publishers. amazon was selling around 40% of all new books in america and two-thirds of all electronic

books, thanks to the success of the kindle. then, one of the world's largest publishers, hachette, decided to push back. franklin foer was one of its authors. >> hachette and amazon set out 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 delivering your books. if somebody searches for a hachette title, we're going to redirect them to another publisher." >> azon's battle with hachet and the authors that hachette publishes is heating up. >> narrator: as bezos's virtual blockade dragged on for months. >> a bitter, seven-month standoff... authors, includingellersf like douglas preston, were caught in the middle. >> 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 your les plummet? >> i did, yes. i saw my sales plummet tremendously. >> narrator: in frustration, preston penned an opter on behalf of all authors. it was published in "the new york times" with more than 900 signatures. >> we authors have loved amazon. we have enthusiastically supported it, and this is how they treat us? this is not right. >> amazon has been accused of doing everything from raising prices to deliberately delaying shments. >> is this what happens when jeff bezos decides to flex his muscles? amazon were at an impasse, douglas preston, franklin foer,h and other s went to washington, and asked the obama administration to open an investigation. >> i went to the justice partment and i went to t 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 w bullying the publishing industry. >> the department of justice 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 anan trust investigation. >> narrator: eventually, hachette and amazon wouldtt their dispute, with amazon allowing hachette to set bus own prices for e-books offering it incentives to keep them low. >> it's great to be here at amazon. (crowd cheering) >> narrator: azon would thrive during the obama years, and eventually account for nearl 40% of all online commerce in the country. >> last year, during the busiest day of the christmas rus

customers around the world ordered more than 300 items fr amazon every second. >> narrator: but the complaints about itctics would continue, with retailers of all kinds concerned that amazon had become the online-shopping gatekeeper. >> you've got to be on amazon. you have to be there, because that's where eveone is. that... 100 million prime subscribers. they are the de facto e-commerce channel in the united statesod peri, end of list. >> amazon executives have told us that there are many other options out there. there is walmart, there is alibaba. as a seller, you've got options. >> i've hearthat response from amazon executives before, and we did th, we were listed, we listed all of our products on every other online marketplace. but it's a testament to just how good amazon is. all of the others that were non-amazon combined did aboutha

ten percent ofwe were doing on amazon. >> narrator: businesses big and small have been accumulating complaints about amazon's hold on them. >> on amazon, the customer belongs to amazon-- itoesn't belong to the third-party seller. you're basically renting the amazon customer. >> narrator: 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 thatz am has access to their valuanle data, which gives it unfair advantage. they also complain about increasingly higher fees to star on the pla and pressure to use amazon's warehouses and shipping services. we spoke to numerous name-brand companies, but none would share its griences on camera. >> my account was suspended. >> narrator: some smallbu nesspeople have been

talking about their experiences-- good and bad-- onli. >> when you're selling on amazon, you're playing in someone else's playground. >> who gets placed where, whether or not your product shows up in the search results... >> they suspended my account without warning. >> these are all things that are governed by azon's rules. and if there's a dispute within that arena, if you feel you are mistreated, you know, the judge and jury is amazon. >> they don't care, they'll jusc kill your count like that or suspend it... >> there are all sorts of crazy stories about why people get their accounts shut n amazon. and it could take a week, it could take months, it could be never before you're back online again. er amazon has the uand d the ability to basically take your business away from you at any given moment. >> selling on amazon, take one. >> narrator: amazosaid third-party sellers account for more than halff everything sold on the site.>> sell mini-longboard skateboards. >> i sell mineral water. >> narrator: and it's

committed to its sellers' success-- proactively contacting them when their accounts are at risk of suspension and offering an appeals process to resoe 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 t last century that controlled the flow of commerce across the country. >> start selling today. >> do you see yourself as being kind of like the railso e-commerce, that sellers bring their goods to markethr on your rails,gh your marketplace? >> i don't think of it that way, and here's why: the, the vast majority of stuff that's... well, all of the stuff that's sold is manufactured, right?t' somanufactured, meaning there are brands and factories that produce stuffnd then sell it. we're one rcent of the retail sales in the world, about. >> well, you are theet biggest maace online, right? e' no, so, again, i, i don't... the idea that than online,

distinct for brands to sell their stuff and distinct fromys al, just doesn't make the largest retaile're far from so, i, i describe this as retail, and we're comp against walmart and target and costco and carrefour and alibaba and tmall and all kinds of folks who are, are now selling both physical stores and online. >> narrato 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 le "market share." amazon has 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 amazon feel those terms are, are much safer than using terms like market shar

>> so market share was something they were really concerned about. >> clear 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 lk to you about how b we are." >> narrator: sinceameaving on 20 years ago, shel h kaphanas been watching the company with increasing concern, and he's speaking about it for the first time. >> i think that thar terization of amazon as being a ruthless competitor istr , 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? ne >> i'm, i'm concthat it has that type of power.

you technically can call it a monopoly or not, i don't know. ♪ ra >> nr: that question has continued to loom over amazon. >> i think that amazon is looking out, and the existential threat that they may face is going to be from govnment. it's whether or notpo cymakers are going to step in and intervene and say, "you have too much power." narrator: for years, bezos habeen ramping up amazon's profile in washington. >> amazon habeen lobbying the f.a.a. to lift... >> trying to cozy up to politicians, so that they will ve him the biggest tax breaks around... >> narrator: spending millions a ar on lobbying. >> amazon lobbied more e governmeities than any other tech company. >> narrator: and hiring as its spokesman the former white house press secretary jay carney >> you've got an army of lobbyists, manof whom have revolved in and out of

government, including yourself. what are you hoping to get for all that lobbying spend anall that influence? au one of the things we discovered is, b of the visibility of our company, but also the range of businesses that we're in, we need subject-matter experts on food safety, on transportation, on drones, on privacy. and also, we c be a resource, an information provider to policymakers and regulators. traditional nse,rms ofhe trying to persuade somebody to do something, it's just answering questions and, and providing data and information. >> narrator: bezos himself would also become a presence in the capital, and eventlly buy thee largest privsidence in town. >> jeff bezos never really showed much interest inti po, but as he's cemented himself in the city, he'sst arted to acquire this physical. presence he bought a mansion, then developed it into a place that is explicitly designed to be social.

>> it s a big ballroom, i mean, it is designed to create a real presence for him in the nation's capital, where he can hobnob with the people who make decisions. >> narrator: he'd even boughtsp the hometown ner... >> jeff bezos sent a thunderbolt through the media world this we... >> narrator: spending a quarter of aillion dollars to rescue the struggling "washington post." >> i do believe thatemocracy dies in darkness. i think that the capital city of the united states of america needs a paper like "the washingtonost." >> i got to say, you know, full credit to him, he hasn'tte ened in any of the coverage of the paper.d '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, atmosphere of sortdecline.y i'd sa"the washington post" has really flourished under,

under bezos's ownership. >> let's cut this digital ribbon. >> narrator: at the time, critics saw a more cynical motive. >> perhaps he's buying "the washgton post" to buy some sort of protection. >> precisely. >> this deal could give him more influence over politics. st nobody hangs out in washington, dc, o go to the free museums. you buy a home in washington, you buy a newspaper in washington, because it is the most influential city in the world, and you want to lay your hands on that power. ♪ >> narrator: bos saw a business opportunity there, as well. the obama administration planned modernize the federal government by embracing cloud computing. bezos had been quietly building a revolutionary cloud 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 givele peccess to the kind of technology services they need. >> narrator: to keep amazon running, bezos had developed an unprecedengital infrastructure. he realized he could rent parts of it out, not just toes businebut also to the government. >> our infrastructure is built to s the security standards of the most risk-sensitive organizations. >> he's already got a huge edge in it.he other big competitors so he wants to take that lead and capture the u.s. government. >> narrator: in 2013, he got revealed that amazon web services had designed a computing cloud for the c.i.a. >> amazon web services wasd awardeten-year contract for $6 million. >> amazon is helping 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'cloud business.te it lifd all doubts about the security of the cloud and on whether you could trust amazon with your most precious data. >> the message to the world is, "if the c.i.a. trusts amaz with its data, then maybe other companies and government instutions can, well." >> narrator: and they d. >> experience it with expedia. >> narrator: a.w.s. became by far the world's leadingin cloud-compplatform. >> on cbs. >> narrator: today, more than a million businesses, as well as pbs, pay amazon to store and manage their data. >> narrator: bezos had again anticipated the next frontier in technology, and had ma himself indispensable to it. >> what jeff bezos is after is really creating a company that is the irastructure, that owns the infrastructure for how commerce is done. and that's an incredibly powerful place to be. ♪ >> please welcome chief

executive officer of aman web services andy jassy. a >> narrator:y jassy created and runs a.w.s. he credits the service with making it easier to do business and sparking innovation throughout the economy. >> look at what a.w.s. has enabled 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 accommodations, and hola and grab and lyft and uber changed the way that we t transportation. a.w.s. has enabled, has been a part of enabling all these huge innovations and changes in consumer experiences thatve have made life better for people. >> and we're the cloud wh the innovation, the mo customers. >> narrato the division generated $35 billion in sales rvst year. >> amazon web sees. >> yes! >> build on. >> narrator: the success of a.w.s. gave bezos billions to

expand amazon om a company that sells everything to a company that does everything. a top priority... >> to boldly go where no man has gone before. >> narrator: ...was to creeut the sci-e he'd fallen in love with as a child. >> gentlemen, this comhas an auditory sensor. it can, in effect, hear sounds. >> narrator: a world of artificial intelligence, in which computers can think d make decisions for humans and about mans. >> jeff bezos is a big fan of "star trek." he, he admits that that was on his brain when he came up with the idea that amazon should be pursuing a little dit 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 term, it would become the star trek computer. >> when it first arrived from amazon, i didn't know what it was. i >> narraton 2014, bezos'smp talking uter, the amazonth echo, hit market. >> is it for me? >> it's for everyone. >> narrator: the voice known as alexa would embed amazon deeper into the lives of millions of people. >> alexa, what do yodo? >> i can play music, answer questions, get the news d weather. >> they call it a personal j assistant, at that term implies this intimate connection that we then begin to develo with amazon. >> alexa, sing the abc song. >> ♪ a, b, c, d, e, f... >> i believe that when we think about the future and the futurea wiificial intelligence, given where we currently are today, axa in some ways represents the moment that it becomes seamlesslynterwoven

with our lives. >> alexa, how many teaspoons are in a tablespoon? >> one tablespoon equals three teaspoons.>> h, okay. >> and the problem is that we forgethat 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 better. it's one of the reasons why amazon, having had a head start, is able to kind of preserve that head start, because they've got the mo data of anyone. >> alexa is one more way for amazon to gather extremely valuable data. and this data collection is extremelimportant to thisss busiodel. it's extreme hard to do, and, you know, convincing people toy just depmething like this in their home is a brilliant trick. >> narrator: dave limp is amazon's head of devices.

>> how is it that you convinced tens of millions of people to put what is essentially a, a listening dece in their homes? >> well, i, i would first disagreeith the premise. it doesn't, it's not a listening device. the, the device in its cor is... it has a detector on it. we call it internally a "wake-word engine." and that detector is listenin- not really listening-- it's detecting one thing and one thing only, whichw is td you've said that you want to get the attention of that echo. >> narrator: once the device is awake and the blue light is on, and last year, it was revealed th amazon employs thousands of people around the wo listen and transcribe some of the recordings to help tra the system. >> do you think that you did a good enough job of disclosing that to consumers? that, that there are humans involved in stening to these recordings? >> we,e 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 how we were using human beings to annotate a small percenge of the data, i would, for sure. what i would say, though, is that once we realized that customers didn't clearly understand this, and within a ncouple of days, we added opt-out feature, so that customers could turn off annotation if th, if they so chos and then withia month or two later, we allowed people toto elete data, which they also asked for within that, within that time frame. you ow, we're not going to always be perfect, but when we make mistakes, i thinkey 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 devicesau withon. >> when do you turn off your alexa? >> i turn off my alexa when i knowor a fact that the conversation that i am going to have, or, or whenever i justnt o have a private moment.

i don't want certain conversations to be ard by humans, conversations that i know for a fact are not things i actually turn off those, then particular listening devices. >> we have had an incredible year. the team has invented a lot on behalf of customers, and i cannot wait to show you what we have. an>> narrator: so far, lim his team have made alexa compatible with more than 100,000 produc. >> eo frames allow you to get done more arnd you and be more present the everyday. >> now they're going to know more about you than anyone knows. theye trying to move as intimately as possible and as quietly as possible into everyday life. >> echo loop is a smart ring, packed with wa to stay on top of your day. >> amazon wants to have the entire environment essentially

miked. >> alexa, start my running playlist. >> they want your walk in the park, they want your run down the city street. n >>ationwide's teamed up with amazon to bring you the all-new echo auto. >> they want what you do in your car, they want what you do in your home.t >> amazon smaren. >> alexa, bake for 30 minutes 350 degrees. (oven beeps) >> all these intimacie all this insight is being integrated. analyzed and >> 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 all n dollars to buy ring... >> hey, bud, the police are on the way. narrator: a doorbell camera "the new neighborhood watch." as >> hey, geaway! >> get out of there! d narrator: to promote it, amazon has enlise help of hundreds of local police

departments. >> it's a phenomenal tool to assist detectives. >> narrator: they give them t accea portal to request footage and have gen free cameras to hand out-- and talking points. >> this system is so simple use... >> you have amazon in partnership th police departments, who have basically turned policemen into, like, avon salespeople for amazon ring. they have given police departments talking points and marketing materials to encouragn allation of ring by community residents. none of this was public knowlee. >> 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 designed to monitor the inside of people's homes. within weeks, hackers discovered a way to terrorize ring

customers. >> did you see that video? >> i did see that video. >> what did you think of it? >> i think that that is a t dustry problem. it's not just abe, a ring camera-- it could be about it's about any device in that... and we've already inated that one to make sure what, what the root cause was.wa what w to be able too in those cases is, we want to minimize them. we'd like to detect them. and we also want to build tools that give them the ability so that doesn'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 seems harmless, and i'm justd wondering whether you're being straighth people about the attendant risks to your

customers that you are obsessed with, supposedly. >> well, it's not supposedly, we are obsessed with customers. i, i would say that we are trying to build security features at every level of the stack: operating systems, authentication, fraud detectionr we ohings that customers can turn on that make it even, make it even harder for those attacks to happen. >> yo, what's up, how's your day? >> who is that >> what's goinon, buddy? what are you watching? >> narrator: there were a ries of similar attacks across the country. >> what's up, homie? i still seyou. >> you hungry? >> what's going on, my main man shaq? >> narrato and it's not just hackers. ring has fired some of its own employees for spying on customers. >> in george orwell's "1984," he describes a dystopia in which, "you had to live, you did live from habit that became instinct in the assution tt every sound you made was and wonder if you ever think

about how easily this could anco dystopian to some degree? >> well, i don'tto live in that world. technology that, o myinvent the teams invent the technology that would create that world. and so... but i am an optimist. i, i think if you take the, the absolute view of that, we wouldn't invent anything. >> we're increasinglywo living in d in which your products and your designs are there. do, can you see how it could be concerning in some ways that wel can't opt out of that world at this point? >> oh, sur 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 jlked about, as best as we possibly can. you know, the, the reality of it is, that world happened way before ring or alexa.

♪ >> narrator: that's something that bezos himself wrestled with 20 years ago. >> i believe that privacy is going to be one ofhe prominent issues of the 21st century. e thing is, there are towns now in the united states 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 that are going to happen over the next 100 years with respect to technology that are goi to challenge us as a society to figure out how we want to deal with priva. >> narrator: decades later, of expanding the uthatvanguard kind of technology. >> introducing amazon rekognition video. >> rekognition allows you to pass an image to us. you can say, "do these two faces mah?" which is incredibly useful for applications in the security space. you can agine... >> narrator: after amazon rolled lat a facial recognition tool, it marketed it t

enforcement. >> recognize and track persons >> narrator: police we've spoken to say it's a valuable tool to identify suspects quickly. >> ...appears to be a match, but i'm gonna make sure i look at >> narrator: and whi amazon has offered guidelines for how 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,s as have computentists, who worry amazon has released the software before it's ready, and that police are essenty field-testing it on the public on behalf ofhe company. >> the tools are not what i call battle-tested. and we still do not understand how well they work in the enronments in which they'll be plied. that's where i see a danger.ni >> narrator: anandkumar was the principal scientist for artificial intelligence at amazon.

in her first interview abo her concerns she told us she was forticularly alarmed by an m.i.t. study thaund the sohware prone to mistakes w 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 where a.i. truly is today, right? because they hear so much of a.i. being hyped up, you kw, it's supposed to be magical, it's supposed to solve all the world's problems i see the potential in doing need a reality check. time we we need to ask, where is a.i. today? what can it truly do well? >> and when it comes to facial recognition, you don'tth k it's ready for primetime. >> i don't think face recognition is ready forin primetimhallenging applications like law enforcement. other scientists have asked amazon to stop selling rekognition to law enforcement because they say the system's i

accuracystill in question, and there are no clear regulations about how it's used. we asked andy jassy about it. >> i have a different view, and we've spent... we've had the facial recognition technology out for use for over two-and-a-half years now. and inhose two-and-a-half years, we've never had any reported misuse of law enforcement using the facial know, i think a loocietald, you good is already being done with facial recognition technology. already, you've seen huneds of missing kids reunited with their parents, and hundreds of human ndafficking victims saved, all kinds of security anden ty and education uses, so there's a lot of good that's anen done with it. but i also underthat it could be misused. old i think at the end of the day with any tecy, whether you're talking about facial recognition technology or anything else, the people that use the technology have to be responsible for it, and if they use it irresponsibly, they have to be held accountle. >> there's been all sorts of problems with policing

in this country. so why allow police ments to experiment? >> we believe that governmentsti and the organis that are charged with keeping our access to the mostave to have sophisticated, modern technology that exists. we don't have a large number of poce departments that areg usr facial recognition technology, and as i said, we've never received any complaints of misuse. let's see if somehow they abuse they haven't done that, and to assume that they're gonna do it and therefore you shouldn' allow them to have access to the most sophisticated technology out there, doesn't feel like thm right balance >> it's been difficult to even know how many police departments are usg the facial recognition technology, and there's no public auditing to know whether there are coints about abuse. how would the public ever know? >> you know, again, i don't think we know the total numberrt of police dents that are using facial recognition technology. i mean, there' you can use any number-- we have 165 services in our technology infraure

platform, and you can use them in whatever conjunction, anyat combn 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. and when they'reot, 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 d the platform. ♪ >> narrator: andy jassy and jeff bezos have said they want governments to hur up and regulate how law enforcement can use facial recognition. but in the meantime, amazon has forged ahead, and has even discussed its services with migration and customs enforcement. >> at amazon web services... >> narrator: and the u. tary. >> ...partner community tofo deliveour warfighters and defense leaders for when it matters most. >> narrator: bezos himself has madet clear that he sees amaz playing a critical role in national security, as well as in commerce. >> we are going to continue to support the d.o.d., and i think we should.

and if big tech companies are gonna turn their back on theen u. deparof defense, this country is gonna be in trouble. narrator: as amazon has revolutionized one industry after another, jeff bezos's reputation has grown to myth proportions. >> you've called what jeff bezos has built a miracle. >> absolute miracle. i wish i could give him a bloodt ter something so i could pick it out, but... >> you want to clone him? >> no, i want transfusion, actually. >> amazon is now worth $1 trillion...ar >>tor: his every move moves the markets. >> amazon advertising is just on fire. >> narrator: starting a digital advertising business to rivalgl facebook and ge. >> some breaking news on whole foods... holy cow. >> jim, i heard you gasp just now. >> holy cow, this is such a game-chaer. >> narrator: buying the grocery chain whole foods. >> in a record-breaking deal, amazon is buying whole foods for cq3.7 billion. >> the day the auisition was announced, the nation's largest grery company lost billions of

dollars because amazoncquired a company one-12th the se. >> everybody thinks bes is the smartest person in the world and he's gonna come and crush me. >> when amazon announced the acquisition of pill pack... >> news of the deal se shockwaves through an industry..et >> the rail pharmacy sector shed billions of dollars. >> look at this sty-- ree titans of industry... >> when amazon was mentioned in a presrelease with berkshire hathaway and jp morgan saying they were looking at healthcare costs-- no detail in what that meant... >> healthcare companies are panicked about amazon's fortoming entry into the healthcare market. >> on the opening bell the next morning, the healthcarege industry's l players shed billions of dollars. >> and insurance stocks are down after amazon announced healthcare partnership with berkshire hathaway and jp morgan chase. >> bezos basically wants to own the whe economy, right? >> you think he will. >> i kind of think he will. i kinda think that in, like, ten years jeff bezos owns every single thing there is. h >> so amaz these darth vader-like abilities to just look at a sector and begin o choking oxygen without

even touching it. amazon can begin beating competitors without competing. >> you actually think that amazon is havina negative effect on competition in the innovation economy right now? >> i think it's a mixed bag, ith thin you could argue, and there's evidence that they have inspired innovation in certain sectors.t think there's a lot of small companies that aren't being formed, because if you go in to try and raise money for e-commerce company, it's, "well, how are we going to compete against amazon?" and i say, "well, the answer can be summarized in one word: impossible." all right, let's move some earth. >> every single area that he enters into, he manages to succeed in a fairly major way. >> we've had another great prime day. >> we've never seen anything li a company that is so integrated into the fabr ofnc exis so, you know, at a certain point, it becomes unavoidable. >> amazon just yesterday said. >> bezos would even extend his reach into the heart of popular

culture. >> can you imagine macy's starting a media company? but amazon does itpeople that. take it seriously. (explosionchoes) (people screaming) >> narrator:mazon is investing billions in new shows and movies. >> oh. hi. >> hey. rv narrator: and on beefing up its streaming seice, which streams around four times as many movies as netflix, major >> narrator: and on beefing up its streaming service, which streams four times as many movs as netflix, major league baseball, and pbs shows ke 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) >> bezos likes to joke about how, every time he wins a golden globe... h >> ...ps us sell more shoes. and it does that in a very direct way, because when

peop... 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 their annual feethey're looking around to see, "how can i get more value out of the program?" s they're trying to use t entertainment to get people into the pipeline. >> alexa, play "jack ryan" on fire tv. >> to keep them sitting wiin this structure that is amazon, where it becomes ts unthinking habit that's starting to pattern all these parts of our existence. >> so you're doing the media stuff to encourage people to use more of prime.ct >> cor >> amazon is represented at the academy awards.on ams the first streaming service nominated for best >> he's like one of the old studio bosses right now. he really enjoys havinispl e in the industry and really seems to relish bng at

the center of attention there. >> i also want you to know, jeff, if you win tonight, you can expect your oscar to arrive in two to five business days... (audience laughing) >> what you see now is seone who is so supremely self- confident. a guy who has become a titan. ♪ >> amazon is about to get bigger. it's looking for anoth home in north america. >> narrator: bezos and amazon's soaring stature uld be on full display in september 2017, whenn the companunced a contest to find a location for a second headquarters. >> ...called hq2. >> narrator: they omised $5 billion in capital investments. >> $5 billion... >> ...in local investment... >> narrator: and 50,000 jobs. >> 50,000... >> 50,000 people. >> 50,000 high-paying jobs.e >> cities salivating over

the opportunity. >> it was unprecedented because d-e number of jobs was heaand- shoulders more than haever been offered in a deal before. this was a super-high-profile auction by the most popular consumer company in the, in the country. >> narrator:he company invited cities across nortamerica 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 veos. >> ...i live in atlanta. >> amazon is demonstrating that it has the power to get thousands of elected officia to remake their workday 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 $5 billion. >> $7 billion from new jersey. >> 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. >>o to those who saw it as a kind of grotesque display of corporate power, to ngle 50,000 jobs and potential billions of dollars of revenue over metropolitan cities around the country, you say what? l k, i, i think, i used to work for t united states government, like, we want businesses to invest in the united states. states want businesses to invest in states, cits, city officials want businesses to invest in cities. the proposals we got, the cities made the proposals, they wanteds o come, and they presented to uwhy they were an ♪ tractive option. >> narrator: in november 2018, amazon announced there were two winners: arlington, vi, and new york city. ♪ >> this is by far the biggestw bs deal in the history of new york city, the history of new york state.

>> narrator: new york city and state had campaigned hard for it, offering up nearly $3 billion in subsidies and tax breaks. >> i'll change my name tocu "aman o" if that's what it takes. >> narrator: in return, amazon promised 25,00jobs, billions of dollars in capital investments, and a small number of projects earmarked for local community members. >> i thought it could be a great thinfor new york. we are more and more of a tech center, we wanted to consolidate that reality. having amazon here would havehe ed immensely. >> amazon has got to go! >> narrator: but not everyone was enthused about giving billions in tax breaks to a trillion-dollar corporation. >> get out!e handout! >> alexandria ocasio-cortez says the tax break isn't worth it. (gavel pounding) >> welcome to today's oversightn hearinhe deal... >> narrator: though the deal had already been finalized, the new

york cy council insisted on a public hearing. it quily turned contentious. >> mr. husman, you mentioned that there are 5,000 employees that are currently working here in new york city for amazon, is that correct? >> yes. >> narrar: council members grilled amazon executives on their position on unions, and ether the company would pledge to remain neutral if workers in new york state tried to unionize. >> how many of those employees are unionized? .> none, s >> none. would you be okay with agreeing to neutrality so that rkers can unionize? >> no, sir, we respect... >> you wouldn't agree to that. >> correct, sir, we would t. >> to go to a city council hearing, as amazon did, and antagonize the city council-- if they wanted to start a fight, they did a great job. if they wanted to actually show that they wereilling to work with this community and ourid values, they horrible job. >> you are in union city. and one of t 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

wh it launched the contest. two weeks later, amazon pulled out. >> amazon is pulng the plug on its new york plans. >> we decid we didn't have to be there in that political dynamic. the fact of the matter is, when it turned out the govern and the mayor supporting something turned out not to be enough to persuade other crics that it was the right kind of investment for new york to make, we decided, that's fine, we can go >> he said to us t turned out that the governor and the mayor supporting something wasn't enough to persuade other critics that it was the right kind of investmentor new york to make. so we decided... we decided it's fine, we'll go elsewhere. >> that's an idiotic statement on its face. that is pure idiocy from a guy who should know a hell of a lot better. the dealas done, amazon knew it was done. there was noise, there was posturing by people in theli cal world, but the deal was done, so all we're talking

about here is the background noise. in what world are there no critic well, yeah, in an autocratic totalitarian world, maybe they're not allo that's the world that jeff bezos somewhere in his mind thinks 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 splitting. >> the announcement coming amid tabloiports that bezos is now in a relationship with former news anchor lauren sanchez. >> narrator: the "national enquirer" had been pursuing him >> the tabloid claims it tracked him across five states and over 40,000 miles. >> narrator: bezos saw the "enquirer's" report as politically motivated. wh >> so at would be the motive here of getting that embarrassing material about bezos and his alleged affair to who would want to get the dirt in the press? >> narrator: the magazine's owner, david pecker, was linkedp to terful men who disliked

how they were covered by bezos's "washington st." 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 binsa an, who the c.i.a. had tied to the murder of one of the l"post's" journalists, ja khashoggi. >> former c.i.a. director john brennan said, "i have no doubt that saudi arabia would want to embarrs jeff bezos and hurt him financially." >> narrator: david pec demanded that bezos publicly declare th"enquirer's"ot coverage wasolitically motivated or he'd publish intimate photos of him. >> breaking news tonht, a unner from the richest man in the world. >> narrator: rather than give in, bezos fought back. >> jeff bezos calling out the publisher of the "national enquirer," david pecker. >> bezos published a personal account accusing the "nationalck enquirer" of bil, of

extortion. >> he turned the situation ound and handled it so brilliantly-- he was very transparent, he was very courageous, admitted se very embarrassing things about himself, didn't try to deny it-- and positioned the other individual as the bully, and and somehow turnedinto anuts, net positive. i mean, this really was the pr ages.egy and execution of the i' never seen anything like this. ♪ >> narrator: publicly, bezos has pushed ahead undaunted-- a world-famous celebrity. and even after a $38 billionle divorce sent, still the richest person on the planet.an (cheerapplause) but the calls to rein his mpany are growing loud. >> amazon reported $10 billion in profits and paid zero in taxes. >> i will single out companies like halliburton or amazon that pay nothing in taxes in our t nechange that. >> here's bezos achieving this american dream and succe. and, and he's now the target of,

of all of this criticism.an basically, it becomes a symbol of all of his problems. amazon is closing 30% of america's stores a malls and paying...e >> yousically a piñata dangling in front of any politician with a populist message. anyone who wants to talk about wealth inequality, they'rein pointing theirr at you. >> this is why three people own more wealth than the bottom half. >> if they want to talk about problems with capitalism in general, they're pointing their finger at you. >> 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. sh narrator: president trump has madeezos's own of "the washington post" aegular target. >> "washington post," bezos uses that as his lobbyist, okay? >> he kind of assumed that "the washington post" was operated in the sort of way that he would

operate a newsper. and so he thought that bezos was dictating coverage to the "post," which we should be careful to say is not the case. >> narrator: trump has also criticized amazon, and accused the company of evading taxes. last year, the company was competing for a $10 billion cloud computing contract with the department of defense. >> this contract would have solidified bezos's dominance in cloud computing. this is a hugely important thing. >> narrator: but t company claims president trump intervened to scuttle the deal. >> and we're looking at it veryi sly. it's a very big contract. one of the biggest ever given. >> a big win for microsoft, being out amazon... >> amazon can protest the outcome, especially given the unusual, unprecedented cments by president trump... >> it's an extraordinary times we live in that one of the world's biggest corporations, president of the united states

has corrupted our ability to win this contract." >> is there any evidence of that? >> the evidence is what the president has publicly said. >> narrator: and a problems have continued to multiply. the federal trade commission is now reconsidering its stance on antitrust enforcement and is looking at amazon-- as are regulators in the e.u. owhis gatekeeper power and the platforms are exercising it >> narrator: in washington, democratic congressman david cicilline has launched an antitrust investigation into allegations of abusive conduct bymazon and the other tech giants. >> given your experience, do yoa agree wizon's statements suggesting that it seeks to act in the best interest ofll independent s? >> i disagree with that. we get, i don't know, what i might call bullying with a smile. >> we were able to get several public to come to hearing. that required tremendous courage because there'a real potential

for economic retaliation for their sharing th. >> we don't have the resources to fight amazon. we couldse some help. >> in the course of your investigation thus far, and you've had several publi hearings, have you seen any evidence of anti-competitive behavior by amazon? anti-competitive behavior by all of the large platforms as a result otheir market dominance. but it sort of doesn't fall on the companies to fix this problem. it falls on us without objection, the hearing is adjourned. >> narrator: cicilline's committee is considering everything from imposing limits on what businesses a company 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 may be necessary to go even further. d on the one hand, i'm pr

what it became, but it also scares me. m, and, just feel like it's important for someone in my lsituation to, you know, st t say why think about what's going on. >> this is sort of in some ways a baby that you gave birth to, righ and so, i mean, you helped birth azon. >> um, yea very much so. in fact, i used to, um, youer know, get up s times during the night to, just to see if it was working and... and, you know, take care of it if it wasn't, so. >> and when you look at what amazon has grown into today,ou see what? >> (chuckles) well, um... you know, you don't want to see your offspring, um, become, um, antisocial adults, right? i think not all of the effects of the company on the

,world are for the best a um...an you know, i, i wish it weren't so, and i... you know, ngand i... but i had someto do with bringing it into existence, so, it's partly on me. >> and, i meanisn't... isn't this just pitalism? isn't this just a company doing what a company does?. >> y yes, it is, um, and i think they're doing what the busines schools teach people to do, and they're doing it aggressively and skillfully and with greatin lligence. and they will continue to do that unless they're constrained by other forces in society. >> there are proposals out there to break up amazon. is that something you'd promote, the idea of breaking them up? i >> uhink that they're now at the scale where that could 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. you know, i've been at amazon now for 22-and-a-half years, d i always remember one of the first things i heard jeff bezos say back when we could fit e whole company in just one conference room for an all-hands meeting. he said, "i would not go to bedi at night f your competitors or fearing any external issues. would go to bed at night fearing whether you're doing right by your customers." we live here and it's what weat spend most of our time thinking about. >> wel i, i understand that we're big, and that, that we deserve scrutiny, and i think evything that's... that's large in the economy and in society should deserve scrutiny. the problem is, when you think about us, we're in a lot of verticals, yes. there's... there's video, and there's commerce, and there's, you know, there's web rvices .here are all these thin but in every one of them, we have inten competition, and i do understand why, when you're in a lot of them, can seem like we'reverywhere, but the global... if we were everywhere, that means we're talking about the global economy, not just global

retail-- it's so vast, we're just, you know, we're a speck. >> to the public, it may sound strange coming from amazon, which is a company with basically a trillion-dollar market cap, your c.e.o. is the richest man inhe world, but jeff wilke said to me that you're kind of just a speck in the scheme of things. do you see how that coem strange or incongruous? >> you know, amazon as a whole has become, you know, has been successful, but simply because the company's been successful i a few differsiness segments doesn't mean it's ♪ mehow too big. >> narrator: as jeff bezos's ercompany is coming under greater scrutiny-- for everything from how it wields power to even its impact on the environment-- 's continuing to look beyond it all. w get to preserve this unique gem of a planet which is comptely irreplaceable. there is no plan b.e

we h save this planet, and we shouldn't give up auture for our grandchildren's grandchildren of dynamism and growth. we can have both. who is gonna do this work?oc ket rumbling) >> narrator: he's spending a billion dollars a ye of his personal fortune on a space exploration company he created. >> and it's this generation'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 >> i want you to think about this. this vision sounds very big, an. it none of this is easy, all of it is hard,ut i want to inspire you, and so think about this. big things start small (audience applauding)

thank you. (audience cheers and applauds)♪ ♪ >> go to pbs.org/frontline for extended excerpts of our interviews with top amazon a executiv insiders, including employee number one.'m >> on one handroud of what it became, but it also scares me. >> and more on amazon's use of facial recognition software. >> i think a lot of societal good is already being done with facial recognitionechnology. >> connect to the frontline community on facebook and twitter, and watch atime on the pbs video app, or pbs.org/frontline. contributions to yse possible by station from viewers like you. thank you. and by the corporation for public broadcasting. major support is provided by the

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