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No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

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Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#281

Post by sytelus »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #269
kumarvvr wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not being sarcastic, but support for 20 years, is a bit far fetched. At some point after inception, Amazon was successful, even before it went public. So are you saying Amazon rose in value because Jeff had the undying support of his wife? I would say the support helped Jeff until the company was self-sustaining and successful. Of course, without the initial support of his wife, Amazon would not have started in the f…

I don't want this thread to devolve needlessly; in summary: I treat my wife like my cofounder with an equal share of equity. I wouldn't let my cofounder take anything less than half of the total value of the business if a liquidation/separation/liquidity event occurred, so why would I treat my spousal relationship differently considering the work a relationship requires? If you're concerned about your partner entitle…

I have seen this go both ways. Some spouses give everything for other to succeed while some become extra work in addition to what you already have. Lot depends on circumstances, personallies and loads of luck. Let’s not be judgmental here.

Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#282

Post by thaumasiotes »

fisherjeff wrote: post #137
notatoad wrote: post #49

Apparently AMI and David Pecker's non-prosecution agreement for the Michael Cohen stuff is contingent on them not continuing to do crime. So i guess that's out the window now. https://twitter.com/nycsouthpaw/status/1093654471157170177

Depends on the analysis I suppose. This one makes it sound unlikely that the agreement will be voided: https://twitter.com/renato_mariotti/status/10936583665834229...

Did their agreement specify that they wouldn't commit any more federal crimes?

Or did it say they wouldn't commit any more crimes?

Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#283

Post by Faark »

yourapostasy wrote: post #184
tptacek wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Post, along with the Times, has been pursuing and reporting a story that David Pecker, AMI's CEO, has been working with a Saudi go-between, in part as an effort to expand their business. More importantly, Jamal Khashoggi, who we now know almost beyond a reasonable doubt† was targeted by Mohammad Bin Salman before Saudi assassins murdered him in Turkey (most probably at MBS's behest), was a Post employee. † Report…

How does that explain Pecker's rage at the WaPo digging into AMI's Saudi connection, though? Nearly everyone who wants funding at this scale hits up the Saudis. Describing that AMI looked for funding with the Saudi royals doesn't strike me as a particularly significant reveal; Musk did it relatively recently, and he wasn't excoriated for it. How is news that AMI is doing it worthy of a push-all-the-chips-into-the-pot…

You're seem to ignoring what AMI was demanding from Bezos/WaPo. Wanting funding from Saudis is no big deal, unless you compromise your core business to do this sell-out. Maybe the deal would have fallen through with it becoming public? Why do we need any much bigger conspiracy?

Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#284

Post by [deleted] »

sytelus wrote: post #281
toomuchtodo wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't want this thread to devolve needlessly; in summary: I treat my wife like my cofounder with an equal share of equity. I wouldn't let my cofounder take anything less than half of the total value of the business if a liquidation/separation/liquidity event occurred, so why would I treat my spousal relationship differently considering the work a relationship requires? If you're concerned about your partner entitle…

I have seen this go both ways. Some spouses give everything for other to succeed while some become extra work in addition to what you already have. Lot depends on circumstances, personallies and loads of luck . Let’s not be judgmental here.

[deleted]

Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#285

Post by slg »

It seems like a lot of people are not reading between the lines of this post. Bezos apparently believes that he was hacked by either the US or Saudi government and that now one or both of those governments are using the National Enquirer as an attack dog against him. That accusation is much bigger than any other piece of this story.

EDIT: Here [1] is a reporter from the Washington Post backing that up. The Bezos' camp believes this is a politically motivated attack and the data was acquired by a "government entity" (logically the US or Saudis).

[1] - https://twitter.com/ndrew_lawrence/status/109371533307931853...

Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#286

Post by fizixer »

danso wrote: post #4

> Well, that got my attention. But not in the way they likely hoped. Any personal embarrassment AMI could cause me takes a back seat because there’s a much more important matter involved here. If in my position I can’t stand up to this kind of extortion, how many people can? Can’t remember the last time I’ve seen a prominent person post the details of a personal extortion attempt out of defiance for all to see.

Maybe a combination of defiance and comic relief:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7f9D4KclJw

(David Letterman talks about an extortion attempt on him)

Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#287

Post by sytelus »

kumarvvr wrote: post #277
toomuchtodo wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't want this thread to devolve needlessly; in summary: I treat my wife like my cofounder with an equal share of equity. I wouldn't let my cofounder take anything less than half of the total value of the business if a liquidation/separation/liquidity event occurred, so why would I treat my spousal relationship differently considering the work a relationship requires? If you're concerned about your partner entitle…

I am not commenting on the law. The law says a divorced wife gets half of whatever. I don't care. What I do care is the notion that the growth and success of Amazon is 50% due to the wife. That I disagree with.

Assume you need atleast $100K to start a business but you have only $90K. Your friend comes around and puts in $10K but only if you are willing to offer 50% ownership. Given no other choices, you agree and work your ass off for next 25 years to grow business to $100B while your friend did nothing else for it.

Does your friend deserve $50B? I am not asking from legal point of view because that answer would be yes. I am asking this from philosophical perspective. Clearly if your friend didn’t lend you $10K, you wouldn’t have your $100B business. But that’s the seed stage only work your friend did. Does he deserve fruits of your 25 years of labor? Does your friend deserve that stack because he took risk without knowledge of how future would turn out?

This is one the deepest question that has huge consequences all the way in to the concept of money, capital, debt, rewards, collaboration and purpose itself.

Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#288

Post by techntoke »

optimiz3 wrote: post #247
kerng wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure if you are joking, but that's exactly what they should not be doing. They also can't just go poke around their customer's data. That would be very unwise...

Well come on - don't host your business on a company you plan on antagonizing. Pretty sure AWS has contract clauses that allow them to deny service or perform forensics when criminal activity is suspected, and blackmail would certainly qualify.

Pretty sure that AWS doesn't have permission to conduct criminal investigations. Those would need to be turned over to a criminal prosecutor. It would be a pretty scary world if corporations were able to police consumer and business data whenever they "suspected" something. Talk about political hit jobs.

Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#289

Post by toomuchtodo »

sytelus wrote: post #287
kumarvvr wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not commenting on the law. The law says a divorced wife gets half of whatever. I don't care. What I do care is the notion that the growth and success of Amazon is 50% due to the wife. That I disagree with.

Assume you need atleast $100K to start a business but you have only $90K. Your friend comes around and puts in $10K but only if you are willing to offer 50% ownership. Given no other choices, you agree and work your ass off for next 25 years to grow business to $100B while your friend did nothing else for it. Does your friend deserve $50B? I am not asking from legal point of view because that answer would be yes. I a…

It's easy (and fun!) to go down the rabbit hole philosophically.

Does Jeff deserve billions of dollars more than the hundreds of thousands of Amazon employees who have collectively built the company? Are their fruits of their labor worth so much less than his, regardless of Jeff's hard business decisions and many more hours per week worked, simply because of how equity is constructed and distributed? Jeff has clearly spent over 20 years building his company, nights, weekends, missed time with family he'll never get back, but can you point to the decisions worth hundreds of millions of dollars to Jeff alone?

Value, its attribution, and its equitable distribution is hard, and executed in an imperfect fashion.

Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#290

Post by jonknee »

slg wrote: post #285

It seems like a lot of people are not reading between the lines of this post. Bezos apparently believes that he was hacked by either the US or Saudi government and that now one or both of those governments are using the National Enquirer as an attack dog against him. That accusation is much bigger than any other piece of this story. EDIT: Here [1] is a reporter from the Washington Post backing that up. The Bezos' cam…

Which makes stories like this a lot more interesting:

https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/mby7kq/malware-to...

> Saudi Arabia paid $55 million to purchase iPhone malware made by NSO Group, according to a recent report by Israeli newspaper Haaretz

The Saudis really disliked the Washington Post digging into their murder of Khashoggi, it doesn't seem too crazy that they set their sights on the boss and ended up stumbling upon some juicy texts and pics. The really interesting part is how they got to AMI. I have to imagine there is a Trump connection somewhere along the way.

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