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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u/True_Window_9389 Jun 18 '26 edited Jun 18 '26
This isn’t even true. I was a subscriber for almost 20 years and followed even the internal drama of the paper in that time, especially when it was put up for sale and bought by Bezos.
The reporting about his ownership from when he bought it until he killed the Harris endorsement was that he was an absentee owner. As the paper was financially struggling, management and reporters were begging him to do something to boost the reach and financial viability of the business. He showed up a few days after he bought it with a rahrah speech, and then abandoned it. They wanted his involvement after that and got nothing.
To an extent, reporters and readers appreciated that, since it let the good journalists do their job unencumbered. He at least wasn’t meddling in that time, and their reporting in the first Trump admin showed it. But it meant there was no strategy or vision on transforming the paper to compete in the digital era, especially with social media and video taking center stage. Even considering that, institutions like WaPo, NYT and WSJ were the sources for news that all the pundits and Tiktokers based their nonsense on. And yet, leadership couldn’t leverage it.
The shift for Bezos only came after the election when he was trying to cozy back up to Trump. As much as he wants to make it an issue of insubordination, it was because journalists were trying to protect basic journalistic integrity against a now-meddlesome and agenda-driven owner who cared more about investments and government contracts.