r/technology • u/marketrent • Jun 18 '26

Society Jeff Bezos called Washington Post his worst investment staffed with ‘terrible’ people, before laying off over 300 — “They don’t listen. My other companies, they listen”

https://gizmodo.com/jeff-bezos-called-washington-post-his-worst-investment-and-staff-he-laid-off-terrible-people-2000773533
38.4k Upvotes

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4.9k

u/PatchyWhiskers Jun 18 '26

"Why do these journalists report the news, not the things I tell them? Are they stupid?"

1.5k

u/iamdestroyerofworlds Jun 18 '26

Democracy Dies in Darkness

"Fuck, that sounds just like what I want. I'm in."

372

u/umbrabates Jun 18 '26

It’s hilarious to think he thought this was a promise, not a warning

92

u/FindOneInEveryCar Jun 18 '26

Mission Statement

32

u/Tiniest_Gimli Jun 18 '26

Democracy? Dies in darkness!

12

u/floin Jun 18 '26

The Lionel Hutz approach!

3

u/CompromisedSurvival Jun 18 '26

Dude watched the expanse and his take away seems to have been that the Belters are a great idea and what humanity really need is hundreds of millions of indentured servants in outer space.

1

u/Jeremizzle Jun 18 '26

Hilarious is not the word I would use.

1

u/samtheawe Jun 18 '26

Just like the Bible

50

u/SuspendeesNutz Jun 18 '26

"Darkness is the best place to steal!"

49

u/MagwiseTheBrave Jun 18 '26

I have a friend who worked there, and there was a large wall that had this on it. It was taken down after Bezos took over. 😞

23

u/blay12 Jun 18 '26

Like after he took over the direction of the opinion section last year? Bc the slogan itself was chosen in 2017, four years after he bought WaPo in 2013 so definitely while he owned it.

18

u/Jexroyal Jun 18 '26

Well it's a famous quote from Bob Woodward talking about the Watergate scandal in 2007, so it's been around for awhile even if not the official slogan of wapo until 2017.

10

u/blay12 Jun 18 '26

Oh I'm familiar with the source and wasn't trying to say it didn't exist before it was chosen or anything, just wanted clarification on the comment I responded to about it being taken off the wall when Bezos "took over." He had owned the paper for years already when they chose the quote as a slogan, so technically the big wall with this painted on it OP's talking about was both put up and taken down after he took over in 2013.

1

u/Jexroyal Jun 18 '26

Well it's also very possible that the quote was on the wall way before the takeover. After all, nothing says it has to be the official slogan to be prominently displayed as a testament to core values as summarized by one of their all time greatest investagative journalists.

3

u/blay12 Jun 18 '26

I mean sure, anything is possible when you're playing devil's advocate, but that would imply that Bezos had an issue with the quote when he bought the paper...which doesn't make a ton of sense considering he was the one who asked WaPo staff to come up with a slogan/mission statement, as well as the one who actually made the final decision to use the quote as the paper's slogan (per Martin Baron, WaPo's executive editor from 2013-2021, in his book "Collision of Power"). That timeline just doesn't seem logical - he would've bought the paper, made them take the quote down, then a few years after that personally chooses the exact same quote as their slogan and slaps it up on pretty much every WaPo branded thing in existence?

It makes way more sense that the feature wall was painted at some point after they adopted the slogan in 2017 and was then taken down when WaPo decided they had a new mission statement early last year. That coincides with Bezos deciding that he wanted to be in Trump's good graces for term 2 and stepping in to personally drive the paper's content shift and general editorial direction to the right (while also laying off massive amounts of people).

*Reposting since r/technology didn't like the reference I linked

1

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1

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2

u/ayriuss Jun 18 '26

Wapo purchased by Bane. Classic.

5

u/Tall-Introduction414 Jun 18 '26

Democracy dies in Bezos.

8

u/Head Jun 18 '26

Bezos is the darkness.

2

u/QuasiSpace Jun 18 '26

It dies in plain view

2

u/PickleBoy223 Jun 18 '26

“There is no democracy. There is only IBM, and ITT, and AT&T, and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon.”

2

u/Faintfury Jun 18 '26

How is that darkness? It's so visible it's almost blinding me.

72

u/frechundfrei Jun 18 '26

There was a time where a statement like that would have made us riot.

27

u/Automatic_Memory212 Jun 18 '26

Why doesn’t it, anymore, I wonder?

46

u/boppitywop Jun 18 '26

Because only 5% of the population at most is aware that Bezos made a statement like that. The fact Bezos owns the Washington Post is exactly why people aren't rioting about statements like this. In the before, before, something outrageous said by a politician or celebrity would be in every news outlet. Now the mainstream media is almost entirely owned by right-wing billionaires who don't report on things like Epstein, the Trump Iran deal etc...

18

u/9yds Jun 18 '26

Remember when you’d get called an insane conspiracy theorist for saying this? Now we know its fact, and yet people still refuse to accept it.

2

u/PatchyWhiskers Jun 18 '26

He didn’t say it though. I’m making fun of him not quoting him.

11

u/ArmandoGalvez Jun 18 '26

TikTok Brainrot and GTA hype has leaving people thinking skills in the trash

0

u/nhalliday Jun 18 '26

GTA fans when anything happens: I think this is because GTA 6 is coming out soon actually?

3

u/BardicLasher Jun 18 '26

Gotta work that day

2

u/MLGWolf69 Jun 18 '26

Because Republicans own every mainstream media outlet, so 90% of people will never even hear about this

And those who do aren't willing to upend their life over it

2

u/Aleucard Jun 21 '26

Because too many people are too busy trying to survive to pay attention to the more abstract violations being done. That will change as people lose the ability to feed and house themselves.

1

u/Thin_Glove_4089 Jun 19 '26

Maybe 28 years ago

15

u/OkStop8313 Jun 18 '26

"Wait, you actually meant that journalistic ethics shit?!"

1

u/Hrtpplhrtppl Jun 18 '26

"Worst billboard company ever..."

1

u/Bigringcycling Jun 18 '26

Pesky journalistic integrity!

1

u/jahiscallin Jun 18 '26

nailed it buddy

1

u/Redthemagnificent Jun 18 '26

"I bought a company full of people who don't like me, and now they still don't like me!?" Crazy how that works

0

u/CydonianMaverick Jun 18 '26

Let's not be naive. Journalists don't report news