Amazon Unbound
Author: Brad Stone
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Published: 2022-05-10
Total Pages: 512
ISBN-13: 1982132620
DOWNLOAD EBOOKPortrait of the growth of tech company Amazon and the evolution of its billionaire founder, Jeff Bezos.
Posts
Amazon
Author: Paul Smith
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Published: 2022-11-28
Total Pages: 367
ISBN-13: 1538165236
DOWNLOAD EBOOKAmazon is everywhere. In our mailboxes, in delivery vans clogging our streets, in an increasing portion of our air traffic, in our grocery stores, on our televisions, in our smart home devices, and in the infrastructure powering many of the websites we visit. Amazon’s tendrils touch the majority of online retail transactions in the United States and in many other countries. As Amazon changes the face of capitalist business, it is also changing global culture in multiple ways. This book brings together some of the most important analyses of Amazon’s pioneering business practices and how they intersect with and affect the components of everyday culture. Its contributors examine the political economy of Amazon’s platform, making the argument that it operates as an unregulated monopoly that is disruptive to the global economy and that its infrastructure and logistical operations increasingly alienate its workers and wreak many other social harms. Our contributors outline the practices of resistance that have been employed by organizers ranging from Amazon employees to artists to digital piecemeal laborers working on Amazon’s Mechanical Turk platform. They examine the broader cultural impact that Amazon has had, looking at things like Amazon Prime and the creation of unending consumption, the absorption of Whole Foods and its brand of ‘conscious capitalism,’ and the impact of Amazon Studios and Prime Video on everyday film and television viewing practices. This book examines the broader environmental impacts that Amazon is having on the world, looking at the slow violence it incurs, its underwhelming Climate Pledge, and the regional impacts that its business practices have. Lastly, this book gathers together some important artistic responses to Amazon for the first time in an appendix that offers readers insight into other ways in which critics of the company are making their voices heard and attempting to move broader audiences into solidarity against Amazon.
Bezonomics
Author: Brian Dumaine
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Published: 2021-05-11
Total Pages: 352
ISBN-13: 1982113642
DOWNLOAD EBOOKJeff Bezos has become the era's biggest business story. At one point the richest man on the planet, Amazon's executive chairman has built one of the most efficient wealth-creation machines in history with more than 2 percent of U.S. household income currently being spent on the hundreds of millions of products speedily shipped from the company's global warehouses. All this convenience, however, has a cost. "Bezonomics" promises massive job disruptions and the further infiltration of AI and Big Tech into our lives. In Bezonomics, award-winning Fortune magazine writer Brian Dumaine unveils the principles Bezos uses to gain increasing market power - customer obsession, extreme innovation, and long-term thinking, all driven by artificial intelligence - and shows how these tactics are being replicated by companies worldwide. If you want to know what the most unstoppable business model of the future will look like, this is a vital read.
Reality of Dreams
Author: Japhy Wilson
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: 2021
Total Pages: 304
ISBN-13: 0300253427
DOWNLOAD EBOOKAn exploration of radical megaprojects in the Ecuadorian Amazon, considering the fate of utopian fantasies under conditions of global capitalism From 2007 to 2017, the "Citizens' Revolution" launched an ambitious series of post-neoliberal megaprojects in the remote Amazonian region of Ecuador, including an interoceanic transport corridor, a world-leading biotechnology university, and a planned network of two hundred "Millennium Cities." The aim was to liberate the nation from its ecologically catastrophic dependence on Amazonian oil reserves, while transforming its jungle region from a wild neoliberal frontier into a brave new world of "twenty-first-century socialism." This book documents the heroic scale of this endeavor, the surreal extent of its failure, and the paradoxical process through which it ended up reinforcing the economic model that it had been designed to overcome. It explores the phantasmatic and absurd dimensions of the transformation of social reality under conditions of global capitalism, deconstructing the utopian fantasies of the state, and drawing attention to the eruption of insurgent utopias staged by those with nothing left to lose.
Netflix and the Re-invention of Television
Author: Mareike Jenner
Publisher: Springer Nature
Published:
Total Pages: 306
ISBN-13: 303139237X
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe Bezos Blueprint
Author: Carmine Gallo
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 2022-11-15
Total Pages: 195
ISBN-13: 1250278341
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe communication and leadership secrets of Jeff Bezos and how to master them, from the bestselling author of Talk Like Ted. Jeff Bezos is a dreamer who turned a bold idea into the world’s most influential company, a brand that likely touches your life every day. As a student of leadership and communication, he learned to elevate the way Amazonians write, collaborate, innovate, pitch, and present. He created a scalable model that grew from a small team in a Seattle garage to one of the world’s largest employers. The Bezos Blueprint by Carmine Gallo reveals the communication strategies that Jeff Bezos pioneered to fuel Amazon’s astonishing growth. As one of the most innovative and visionary entrepreneurs of our time, Bezos reimagined the way leaders write, speak, and motivate teams and customers. The communication tools Bezos created are so effective that former Amazonians who worked directly with Bezos adopted them as blueprints to start their own companies. Now, these tools are available to you.
Nation's Metropolis
Author: Royce Hanson
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
Published: 2023-01-03
Total Pages: 385
ISBN-13: 1512822922
DOWNLOAD EBOOKNation’s Metropolis describes how the national capital region functions as a metropolitan political economy. Its authors distinguish aspects of the Washington region that reflect its characteristics as a national capital from those common to most other metropolitan regions and to other capitals. To do so, they employ an interdisciplinary approach that draws from economics, political science, sociology, geography, and history. Royce Hanson and Harold Wolman focus on four major themes: the federal government as the region’s basic industry and its role in economic, physical, and political development; race as a core force in the development of the metropolis; the mismatch of the governance and economy of the national capital region; and the conundrum of achieving fully democratic governance for Washington, DC. Critical regional issues and policy problems are analyzed in the context of these themes, including poverty, inequality, education, housing, transportation, water supply, and governance. The authors conclude that the institutions and practices that accrued over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries are inadequate for dealing effectively with the issues confronting the city and the region in the twenty-first. The accumulation of problems arising from the unique role of the federal government and the persistent problem of racial inequality has been compounded by failure to resolve the conundrum of governance for the District of Columbia. They recommend rethinking the governance of the entire region. While many books are concerned with the city of Washington, DC, Nation’s Metropolis is the only book focused on the development and political economy of the metropolitan region as a whole. It will engage readers interested in the national capital, metropolitan development more generally, and the growing comparative literature on national capitals.
The Everything War
Author: Dana Mattioli
Publisher: Little, Brown
Published: 2024-04-23
Total Pages: 251
ISBN-13: 031626993X
DOWNLOAD EBOOKMost Anticipated by Foreign Policy • Globe and Mail • Publishers Weekly • Next Big Idea Club Must Read April Books “Will stand as a classic.” – Christopher Leonard "Riveting, shocking, and full of revelations." - Bryan Burrough From veteran Amazon reporter for The Wall Street Journal, The Everything War is the first untold, devastating exposé of Amazon's endless strategic greed, from destroying Main Street to remaking corporate power, in pursuit of total domination, by any means necessary. In 2017, Lina Khan published a paper that accused Amazon of being a monopoly, having grown so large, and embedded in so many industries, it was akin to a modern-day Standard Oil. Unlike Rockefeller’s empire, however, Bezos’s company had grown voraciously without much scrutiny. In fact, for over twenty years, Amazon had emerged as a Wall Street darling and its “customer obsession” approach made it indelibly attractive to consumers across the globe. But the company was not benevolent; it operated in ways that ensured it stayed on top. Lina Khan’s paper would light a fire in Washington, and in a matter of years, she would become the head of the FTC. In 2023, the FTC filed a monopoly lawsuit against Amazon in what may become one of the largest antitrust cases in the 21st century. With unparalleled access, and having interviewed hundreds of people – from Amazon executives to competitors to small businesses who rely on its marketplace to survive – Mattioli exposes how Amazon was driven by a competitive edge to dominate every industry it entered, bulldozed all who stood in its way, reshaped the retail landscape, transformed how Wall Street evaluates companies, and altered the very nature of the global economy. It has come to control most of online retail, and uses its own sellers’ data to compete with them through Amazon’s own private label brands. Millions of companies and governmental agencies use AWS, paying hefty fees for the service. And, the company has purposefully avoided collecting taxes for years, exploited partners, and even copied competitors—leveraging its power to extract whatever it can, at any cost. It has continued to gain market share in disparate areas, from media to logistics and beyond. Most companies dominate one or two industries; Amazon now leads in several. And all of this was by design. The Everything War is the definitive, inside story of how it grew into one of the most powerful and feared companies in the world – and why this lawsuit opens a window into the most consequential business story of our times.
Collision of Power
Author: Martin Baron
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Published: 2023-10-03
Total Pages: 358
ISBN-13: 1250844215
DOWNLOAD EBOOK“A closely observed, gripping chronicle of politics and journalism during a decade of turmoil.” —The New York Times Book Review Politics. Money. Media. Tech. ...It’s all here in Collision of Power. “All the President's Men for a new generation.” —Town & Country Marty Baron took charge of The Washington Postnewsroom in 2013, after nearly a dozen years leading The Boston Globe. Just seven months into his new job, Baron received explosive news: Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, would buy the Post, marking a sudden end to control by the venerated family that had presided over the paper for 80 years. Just over two years later, Donald Trump won the presidency. Now, the capital’s newspaper, owned by one of the world’s richest men, was tasked with reporting on a president who had campaigned against the press as the “lowest form of humanity.” Pressures on Baron and his colleagues were immense and unrelenting, having to meet the demands of their new owner while contending with a president who waged a war of unprecedented vitriol and vengeance against the media. In the face of Trump’s unceasing attacks, Baron steadfastly managed the Post’s newsroom. Their groundbreaking and award-winning coverage included stories about Trump’s purported charitable giving, misconduct by the Secret Service, and Roy Moore’s troubling sexual history. At the same time, Baron managed a restive staff during a period of rapidly changing societal dynamics around gender and race. In Collision of Power, Baron recounts this with the tenacity of a reporter and the sure hand of an experienced editor. The result is elegant and revelatory―an urgent exploration of the nature of power in the 21st century.
Love in the Time of Self-Publishing
Author: Christine M. Larson
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 2024-06-04
Total Pages: 288
ISBN-13: 0691217394
DOWNLOAD EBOOKLessons in creative labor, solidarity, and inclusion under precarious economic conditions As writers, musicians, online content creators, and other independent workers fight for better labor terms, romance authors offer a powerful example—and a cautionary tale—about self-organization and mutual aid in the digital economy. In Love in the Time of Self-Publishing, Christine Larson traces the forty-year history of Romancelandia, a sprawling network of romance authors, readers, editors, and others, who formed a unique community based on openness and collective support. Empowered by solidarity, American romance writers—once disparaged literary outcasts—became digital publishing’s most innovative and successful authors. Meanwhile, a new surge of social media activism called attention to Romancelandia’s historic exclusion of romance authors of color and LGBTQ+ writers, forcing a long-overdue cultural reckoning. Drawing on the largest-known survey of any literary genre as well as interviews and archival research, Larson shows how romance writers became the only authors in America to make money from the rise of ebooks—increasing their median income by 73 percent while other authors’ plunged by 40 percent. The success of romance writers, Larson argues, demonstrates the power of alternative forms of organizing influenced by gendered working patterns. It also shows how networks of relationships can amplify—or mute—certain voices. Romancelandia’s experience, Larson says, offers crucial lessons about solidarity for creators and other isolated workers in an increasingly risky employment world. Romancelandia’s rise and near-meltdown shows that gaining fair treatment from platforms depends on creator solidarity—but creator solidarity, in turn, depends on fair treatment of all members.
