What Jeff Bezos' letter doesn't say... a tale of two Amazons.
So from next year Jeff Bezos is no longer to be Amazon’s CEO, shock announcement, succession(ish) plan implemented. He anounced his decision in an email to employees, which is full of the kind of ‘glass completely full’ quasi delusional Silicon Valley speak we’ve become used to.
As I read through the roll call of Amazon achievements, they are written in a way that feels synonymous with human progress. In many ways Amazon has been architect of our modern ultra-convenient world with it’s: ‘1-Click’, ‘Personalised Recommendations’, ‘Prime’s insanely fast shipping’.
I’ve been reflecting on this world that Amazon built… It reminds me of the world depicted in Disney Pixar’s movie WALL-E. In the movie humans laze around in a space ship orbiting earth, sat in front of screens from which they can order anything their heart desires and have it brought directly to them by robots, all whilst sitting in their hover chairs. Meanwhile another robot WALL-E clears up the unholy mess the humans have left behind on Earth.
Back in the real world I’m compelled to think of Amazon’s growth as a tale of two Amazons, the rainforest and the company. As one has grown the other has been slashed, burnt and denuded to a perilous extent.
The truth is this story is replicated across our global economy and planetary ecosystems. The rapid advances in our material living standards have been bought at a terrible environmental cost that we are only now beginning to fully comprehend. Amazon the company is the zenith and logical conclusion of the flawed set of assumptions we have all been working under, that more is more, faster is better, easier is utopia.
I’m not being lazy and blaming Bezos and his company directly for destroying the rainforest. However one cannot draw a sharper contrast between the fates of the two Amazons over the the 26 years Amazon the company has existed.
Never has such a large and sophisticated machine been created in order to stimulate rapacious material consumption than Amazon the company. Its every innovation geared towards making it easier, cheaper and more mindless to consume stuff. Bezos uses his letter to set out his legacy to date, without recognising that we can’t carry on the trajectory of consumption Amazon has played a huge part in accelerating.
You can contrast Bezos’ letter this with this years annual letter from Larry Fink the CEO of Black Rock.
‘I believe that the pandemic has presented such an existential crisis — such a stark reminder of our fragility — that it has driven us to confront the global threat of climate change more forcefully and to consider how, like the pandemic, it will alter our lives. It has reminded us how the biggest crises, whether medical or environmental, demand a global and ambitious response.’
The differences in language and tone and recognition of the issues of our age could not be greater. The times are changing and history will likely see Bezos’ legacy was to accelerate the consumption driven business model of the past to the point of no return.