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> 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.
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 s…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
House of Saud, maybe, they are dumb enough to think this would work. Given their inept handling of the Khashoggi I wouldn't be surprised. I doubt anyone in the US intelligence profession would think Bezos would call off the WaPo because of some scandalous photos. "Just blackmail the richest man on the planet, that will totally work!"
Don't underestimate how desperate people in power will get when they feel threatened.
Whatever you think about Jeff, this is the correct way to handle such things. We should all have the same character in such a situation (despite how the situation arose; in this case via an affair). Jeff has MANY other issues of moral disfortitude (we all do to some degree, though not at these scales). However, this particular event is to be applauded and emulated.
Wonder what the Saudi connection is...
> 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.
Whatever you think about Jeff, this is the correct way to handle such things. We should all have the same character in such a situation (despite how the situation arose; in this case via an affair). Jeff has MANY other issues of moral disfortitude (we all do to some degree, though not at these scales). However, this particular event is to be applauded and emulated.
Yes, with conditions.
Bezos himself writes, in the article we're discussing:
I asked him to prioritise protecting my time since I have other things I prefer to work on and to proceed with whatever budget he needed to pursue the facts in this matter. - emphasis mine.
And that:
On that point, numerous people have contacted our investigation team about their similar experiences with AMI, and how they needed to capitulate because, for example, their livelihoods were at stake.
Thus making it plain, simple, and obvious, that he recognises that having a net worth up around the US$137 billion[1] mark has it's perks.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Bezos
Edit: inconsequential grammar improvement
Important note: This is written by Jeff Bezos himself . Normally, the Bezos affair story would be gossipy, but this alleges extortion , extraordinarily. (Also, why is Jeff Bezos using Medium? He owns a newspaper.)
Failure to immediately understand why this is bad idea boggles my mind. Maybe this is how we ended up with Trump in the first place.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Let's be real. He earned much more than half.
His wife supported him after he left his IB job to start Amazon. Amazon would not be without her in all probability. I argue Jeff earned half; precisely half, which would otherwise be zero without his wife's 20+ years of support. https://www.wired.com/story/mackenzie-bezos-amazon-lone-geni...
No, Jeff's wife was not in the room making the business decisions that were needed to be made to amass their fortune.
Let's say she watched the kids and maintained the house with no help. That's a mighty contribution, but there are other stay at home spouses that do that too who would be entitled to far less in a separation solely because of the money their partner has made.
So why does she get billions and the average stay at home divorcee gets thousands? Was her contribution to the family a million times more valuable than the average stay at home spouse?
No, Jeff made the money and she's entitled to half. They both knew that going in and know that now. She didn't earn billions through parenting that was so much better than anyone else or create that much more value than the average spouse, but she is entitled to half by law.
To put it another way, if they had signed a prenup and he had paid her $1000/hr 24/7 for 30 years, she would have earned $262 million. Or about 250 times less than the ~$65 billion she could get.
Instead, she walks away with having made about $290k per hour every hour every day for the 25 years they were married. That's a lot of support.