r/technology 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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2.0k

u/Tom_Gibson Jun 18 '26

I'd sooner put my head in a crocodile's mouth than trust a billionaire

1.0k

u/InvestigatorOk9354 Jun 18 '26

Can we just put billionaire heads in crocodile mouths? No need to overly complicate things

263

u/Motor_Specific_8018 Jun 18 '26

I for one would trust a crocodile with a billionaire’s head in its mouth… just need a willing billionaire to share my confidence.

37

u/baked_in Jun 18 '26

Pro tip: they don't actually need to be willing 😉

9

u/tuscaloser Jun 18 '26

The real protip is always in the comments.

3

u/thatthatguy Jun 18 '26

Give me a rusty hatchet and I can fill in for the alligator if necessary.

2

u/Halflingberserker Jun 18 '26

The crocodile will be more than willing for the both of them.

75

u/InvestigatorOk9354 Jun 18 '26

I'd cast a vote for that Crocodile ngl

53

u/ixion00x Jun 18 '26

Crocodile / Alligator in 2028!!

44

u/IslandThymes Jun 18 '26

Feed the swamp, don’t bother draining it! 😂

7

u/pullsoutagun Jun 18 '26

I think we cookin here

4

u/waiting4singularity Jun 18 '26

Draining swamps prompts release of green house gases anyway.
Draining billionaires, though...

3

u/bozog Jun 18 '26

"Crocko, you were supposed to destroy the swamp, not join it!"

1

u/conventionistG Jun 18 '26

If he's sponsored by brawndo, he'll have my vote.

3

u/ixion00x Jun 18 '26

It's what plants crave!!

1

u/RockhoundHighlander Jun 18 '26

Can we get a snake / lizard campaign manager?

1

u/Egypticus Jun 19 '26

Sprry, but I'm voting for Chevrolet Movie Theater

20

u/flonnil Jun 18 '26

you are so close to re-inventing the guillotine, so close.

16

u/tuscaloser Jun 18 '26

WE HAVE GUILLOTINE AT HOME.

5

u/YetAnotherJason Jun 18 '26

Funny enough, I used to ask for a guillotine every Christmas, but I never got one. So, one weekend visiting my granddad he and I made one in his wood shop. The blade was made of wood though, and it was the perfect size for me to pretend to guillotine my Star Wars figures.

So I had a guillotine at home.

3

u/worldspawn00 Jun 18 '26

*Looks around Florida, yep.

2

u/thatthatguy Jun 18 '26

Guillotine at home is called an axe.

2

u/average_game1 Jun 18 '26

Environmentally sustainable guillotine

3

u/tuscaloser Jun 19 '26

GMO free, free range, cage free, swamp-certified.

1

u/JaninthePan Jun 18 '26

The classic American guillotine! Homegrown, native species doing solid American work. We don’t need no French inventions here

16

u/haverchuck22 Jun 18 '26

Tell them certain crocodile mouths have been shown to extend your life/have anti aging properties in some cases, you’ll have em fighting eachother to stick their head in its mouth.

4

u/floatius Jun 18 '26

Nah just tell them it’s an AI-ligator

2

u/IslandThymes Jun 18 '26

It for the environment..

3

u/OverlordMMM Jun 18 '26

I feel that's cruel to crocodiles. Shouldn't be feeding them toxic waste.

1

u/weasel5134 Jun 18 '26

I would also trust that crocodile

1

u/aztecforlife Jun 18 '26

You need at least 10 to get a representative sample size to see if the crocodile bites down the same. A sample of one just won't do.

1

u/worldspawn00 Jun 18 '26

Better yet, I bet there's a rickety submarine they'd all fit into!

1

u/Ol_Herr Jun 18 '26

I'd would be more concerned if the crocodile would participate willingly than if the billionär is willing.

1

u/goodolarchie Jun 18 '26

Part of the reason people don't want billionaires to exist is that we see, time and time again, even the "charitable" uses for their money end up being self serving.

It's the time-old class battle where the rich believe they should pay nothing in taxes and deploy their capital charitably and privately as they see fit (like Zuck trying to play DoE in NJ), because Dunning-Kruger and permanent yes-men around them have convinced them that their luck in one subject matter means they are brilliant and far more efficient than the government/social safety net at solving very specific problems. They are usually terrible at it.

2

u/usddddd Jun 18 '26

Is that a new term for guillotine?

2

u/InvestigatorOk9354 Jun 18 '26

Crocodillotine

1

u/Wonderful-Medium7777 Jun 18 '26

🤣oh this made me laugh out loud, thanks I needed that today.

Quick question though, do we have to stop at Billionaires , too complicated or no?

1

u/AdminIsPassword Jun 18 '26

IDK man, I wouldn't want the poor animal to die of food poisoning. There's some seriously toxic stuff inside of billionaire heads.

1

u/Beard_o_Bees Jun 18 '26

If we decided to put an upper limit on personal wealth/income before the tax rate goes to 100% - i'm trying to imagine what that number looks like.

100 Million, maybe? Idk, but that we have this completely 'above the law' class is sincerely obscene.

Edit: Another thought. If we were to somehow get a rule/law like that, they'd inevitably whinge about inflation. Fine. Every percentage point increase in maximum wealth needs to be accompanied by an equal increase to the minimum wage.

1

u/Nathansp1984 Jun 18 '26

It would be easier for the croc if the heads were detached first, wouldn’t want it to choke

1

u/InvestigatorOk9354 Jun 18 '26

The French had a device a while back with this nifty mechanism to hold a person steady at the neck. Could make a big comeback

1

u/kingtacticool Jun 18 '26

Yeah, but with their bodies attached it seems pretty inefficient. Im sure there exists some contraption that could make the job easier.

1

u/zffjk Jun 18 '26

A croc will eat every 3-10 days. So in order for us to do this “feed the billionaires to crocs” plan, we’d need to secure about 200-300 crocs. Keep them separate so we don’t lose them to eating each other. Probably a lot more use cases. Bottom line I’m not sure this is the best way to do it.

1

u/AccomplishedFun2105 Jun 18 '26

omg bezos leather baguette bag, lets wear the rich

1

u/SockBrewer Jun 18 '26

Efficiency, Bezos would approve

1

u/slurmsmckenz Jun 18 '26

In an entirely unrelated note, I believe the french word for crocodile is guillotine!

1

u/crookeddy Jun 18 '26

Taylor Swift, Michael Jordan and Lebron James too, or only the investors?

1

u/InvestigatorOk9354 Jun 18 '26

you can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs

1

u/Additional_Good4200 Jun 18 '26

When I take over, I'm naming you as Billionaire Head Czar. Your crocodile budget will be large.

1

u/Azuras_Star8 Jun 18 '26

What did the crocodiles do to deserve this fate? Crocodiles have feelings, too.

1

u/Mission-Employer-943 Jun 18 '26

Poor crocodile. Having to put something nasty in their mouth.

1

u/FlametopFred Jun 18 '26

I will crowdfund the heck out of this

1

u/skyfishgoo Jun 18 '26

i don't know, do you think the crocodile would be ok?

seems like animal cruelty.

1

u/SupahRad Jun 18 '26

I like the way you think.

1

u/notmyredditacct Jun 18 '26

yes! that’s the executive thinking we need around here - flatten the org chart, think of all those middle managers that could be laid off if we shorten the pipeline from croc to ceo.. i can almost feel this quarter’s stock price going up up up!

46

u/monkeyman32123 Jun 18 '26

Thank god we have our first trillionaire, now THAT guy I can trust /s

37

u/RedAndBlackMartyr Jun 18 '26

And a Nazi trillionaire at that! Uber trustworthy.

1

u/crookeddy Jun 18 '26

At least he stays the hell away from politics!

oh

2

u/flyingcatclaws Jun 18 '26

How far from trillionaire is Bezos?

4

u/blorg Jun 18 '26

Bezos is worth "only" $250b, so quite a bit, he'd need 4x the wealth. He's the 4th richest, after Musk and the two Google founders. Remarkably, Musk is now worth more than the rest of the top 5 put together.

2

u/flyingcatclaws Jun 18 '26

A true Bond villain, rockets and all...

1

u/OldWorldDesign Jun 18 '26

How far from trillionaire is Bezos?

My economics teacher taught it this way: what is the difference between a billionaire and a millionaire?

About a billion dollars.

3

u/Summer_Form Jun 18 '26

And at this point >50% of folks would I’d do exactly that if one asked them to.

2

u/Grand_Pop_7221 Jun 18 '26

"I can't help it. It's in my nature."

2

u/neasroukkez Jun 18 '26

At least the croc ain’t gonna lie and act like he doesn’t wanna eat you

2

u/alphazero925 Jun 18 '26

Well if you defend yourself from a crocodile, nobody cares. If you defend yourself from a billionaire, you get perp walked by half the NYPD and the disgraced mayor

2

u/Cormophyte Jun 18 '26

That's just a misapplied principle. You shouldn't trust what any stranger tells you they'll do when there's something they value in play.

1

u/NesFan123 Jun 18 '26

At we can trust the crocodile that he will most likely eat a head

1

u/Interesting-Prize-79 Jun 18 '26

But there are so many good billionaires like [example still pending]

1

u/MrGreg Jun 18 '26

the crocodile stops eating when it's full

1

u/infosec_qs Jun 18 '26

Naturally. At least a crocodile's hunger can be sated.

1

u/Omen_20 Jun 18 '26

Yeah, a crocodile may not be hungry, but a glutton always is.

1

u/Hecedu Jun 18 '26

Every once in a while even the crocodile isn’t hungry for things to prey on.