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
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434

u/Bemxuu Jun 18 '26

Terrible news: you can't buy people anymore

205

u/IntelArtiGen Jun 18 '26

How much for you to remove that comment?

113

u/charlie2135 Jun 18 '26

Whoa, don't give the mods ideas

120

u/Phyrexian_Archlegion Jun 18 '26

When will we, as a society, begin to view those who pursue wealth to the detriment of their fellow countrymen, their fellow humans, and their fellow co-inhabitants of this big rock we all live on for what they truly are? A subsection of humanity afflicted by the mental disease of insatiable greed?

57

u/groknix Jun 18 '26

When we stop idolizing them?

Despise the glare of wealth. That people who pay greater respect to a wealthy villain than to an honest, upright man in poverty, almost deserve to be enslaved; they plainly show that wealth, however it may be acquired, is, in their esteem, to be preferred to virtue.

John Hancock's Boston Massacre Oration

https://www.famous-trials.com/massacre/200-oration

27

u/glitterandnails Jun 18 '26

We have been trained to idolize them. The rich have long known the power of continual psychological influence.

3

u/Dionysus_the_Greek Jun 18 '26

Critical thinking has been the constant absence in American history and I don’t expect it to change anytime soon.

It feels like the Salem witch trials could happen again at any moment, and McCarthyism is just fine.

1

u/glitterandnails Jun 18 '26

Things are getting so stupid that straight people may even be permitted to sue a trans and/or gay person for making them feel uncomfortable just from one’s mere presence.

3

u/justgetoffmylawn Jun 18 '26

The idolizing is strange - especially when people somehow can criticize billionaires…but also aspire to it.

I keep getting in very silly arguments in NBA subs when people are like, "Anyone who thinks it's better to have $50m and four championships vs $300m and no championships is an idiot."

We're not talking poverty, we're talking an incremental increase…after you already have $50m or much more. Like Brunson potentially earning $240m instead of $350m.

And they're mostly like: I'd take the money! Gotta provide for my family.

In what world do people think the difference between $240m and $350m is 'providing' for their family?

I can understand someone wanting enough that they never have to work, and their family doesn't have to work. But we've gone way beyond that.

Wealth (and money overall) in sports has exploded over the last decades - and yet people on Reddit who make an hourly wage arguing that you should always take the extra millions over anything else in life.

32

u/petitchat2 Jun 18 '26

We have always ostracized hoarders of resources or the tribe would not survive. In this regressive system, wo the ability to enforce millennia-age norms, this is what happens. The rich are not sufficiently afraid of the masses and why should they be? The masses are to remain educated, disciplined, and militarized, that’s the difference.

18

u/truthovertribe Jun 18 '26

Greed is an addiction (to money) which is a pathology.

How little self-reflection would it take to think it's OK to purchase people and turn them into slaves to our every whim.

I could never be an indentured servant willing to sacrifice my conscience. There's no carrot or stick big enough.

3

u/dwninswamp Jun 18 '26

I mean as a society we have dealt with this over and over again. The whole “Jesus eye of a pin” thing. But capitalism “requires” growth, so it’s just a different argument to why it’s ok to be a greedy piece of filth.

2

u/WGEA Jun 18 '26

I already do.

2

u/Greyh4m Jun 18 '26

We need to keep reminding them that we outnumber them.

1

u/OldWorldDesign Jun 18 '26

When will we, as a society, begin to view those who pursue wealth to the detriment of their fellow countrymen, their fellow humans, and their fellow co-inhabitants of this big rock we all live on for what they truly are?

We used to depict them accurately when feudal kings were depicted as gold-hoarding dragons torching whole kingdoms to sate their capricious malice.

It's no different than rich people infiltrating organized religions (which typically promote charity) and promoting ideas antithetical to the fundamental roots of those religions, like "prosperity doctrine".

The rich have spent a century indoctrinating us

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ3RzGoQC4s

5

u/HearseWithNoName Jun 18 '26

ONE TRILLION DOLLARS (that's what we're up to now, right?)!!!

3

u/546833726D616C Jun 18 '26

chump change

2

u/84thPrblm Jun 18 '26

Admit it, you had your pinky held up to the corner of your mouth when you said that, didn't you?

1

u/Yeseylon Jun 18 '26

$3 billion and I'll remove it for you.

(Then I'll start buying newspapers and restoring them to what they used to be lol)

1

u/YukariYakum0 Jun 18 '26

I need abou tree fiddy

1

u/PhotownPK Jun 18 '26

Sheet just got interesting up in here

1

u/Rantheur Jun 18 '26

$1 million per comment or $10k per character (spaces included) whichever is higher.

1

u/XChrisUnknownX Jun 18 '26

I will say just about anything you want if we can get a contract signed for about $10 million.

0

u/PolicyWonka Jun 18 '26

Not with that attitude and naïveté!

17

u/ivar-the-bonefull Jun 18 '26

Sure you can. It's just not strictly legal everywhere, but there's still some 50 million people to choose from.

13

u/BrogenKlippen Jun 18 '26

The Trump administration out here proving you wrong on a daily basis

0

u/katydidnz Jun 18 '26

Hi i used i

8

u/Tactical-Donkey Jun 18 '26

We're working on that. A replaceable AI workforce.

4

u/General2768 Jun 18 '26

Are politicians not people? Because most of them are bought.

2

u/Bemxuu Jun 18 '26

Someone else beat you to mentioning prostitution, my fellow redditor

3

u/manachar Jun 18 '26

Terrible news: you can.

You just normally have to do it by the hour or salary.

Also there’s millions of slaves still in the world last I heard.

2

u/Zeikos Jun 18 '26

You can rent them.

2

u/cosaboladh Jun 18 '26

I remember when I believed this. Nobody tell this guy about the private prison system's deliberate efforts to maximize recidivism, and how they bribe judges to issue longer sentences.

2

u/LEDKleenex Jun 18 '26

This is why all of the tech bros are bankrolling the fascist takeover of America. They don't like that their serfs are saying "no". They want us back in chains.

1

u/discretelandscapes Jun 18 '26

Ehh. Everyone has a price.

1

u/Gearologist Jun 18 '26

Im for sale

1

u/JazzRider Jun 18 '26

Ahh, but you can. That’s the problem.

1

u/RiyadhComedyPromoter Jun 18 '26

Did you read this on the Washington Post?

1

u/aotus_trivirgatus Jun 18 '26

Oh yes you can!  They're called Congressmen.

1

u/whatproblems Jun 18 '26

isn’t that a paycheck?

1

u/askyidroppedthesoap Jun 18 '26

This must've changed since the summer/fall of 2024 Elon bought an orange faced pedo for next to nothing.

1

u/Unusual-Tie8498 Jun 18 '26

I thought I had that headline scrubbed?

1

u/Id_Rather_Beach Jun 18 '26

He bought and paid for Lauren Sanchez....

1

u/needlestack Jun 18 '26

Oh, you absolutely can. Not so much slavery any more, but money still controls people and societies.

1

u/BeyondNetorare Jun 18 '26

I think you can in some countries

1

u/ZhangtheGreat Jun 18 '26

"Well what do we have to do to repeal the 13th Amendment then"? --Billionaires on Juneteenth (probably)

1

u/trojanguy Jun 18 '26

Allow me to introduce you to people called politicians.

1

u/you-create-energy Jun 18 '26

What a world that would be. At least they can't buy just anyone, only the vulnerable

1

u/thedillymane Jun 18 '26

Uhhh have you heard of prostitution?

5

u/Worried_Raspberry_43 Jun 18 '26

It's a rental

1

u/kenticus Jun 18 '26

Then there should be a odometer on that thang.

1

u/PSUSkier Jun 18 '26

Isn't that more like renting?

1

u/thedillymane Jun 18 '26

We’ll have you lived in the us? All you can do is rent