This thorough Frontline exploration of the Big Tech firms that are increasingly influencing our everyday lives shows both the public benefits of Jeff Bezos' innovations and how such unprecedented corporate power needs a counter-acting force. Amazon has drawn criticism on several major fronts - from alleged privacy violation, to unsafe workplaces, to driving small businesses to the wall - because it is such a sprawling, multidimensional enterprise. Frontline producers are fair in giving a great many Amazon executives as much airplay as the company's critics, and Amazon was p.r.-wise in making them available and accountable. All in all, a good, well-rounded look at a business phenomenon which, with its Big Business counterparts, deserve careful thought on how we are to reap the benefits of their innovation and protect against the side-effects. It's worth noting with these larger-than-life companies - Facebook, Walmart, Microsoft, Amazon - that always they become so big that they simply cannot self-police, try as they do, without external direction and occasional restraint.
Frontline (TV Series)
Amazon Empire: The Rise and Reign of Jeff Bezos (2020)
User Reviews
Review this title5 Reviews
A great documentary that deserves more views
nickskanavis24 March 2020
This a great documentary, with tons of interviews with employees, executives, and industry experts. It's well made, well narrated, and shot beautifully. It's a shame that this doesn't seem to have that many views or ratings.
I think it paints a great picture, albeit possibly a bit critical on Amazon at times. But it tells you a lot about Jeff Bezos, the man who is winning capitalism, maybe even a bit too well. This documentary is free on youtube and I'd highly recommend it to anyone curious about the company, Jeff, or our world in general.
I think it paints a great picture, albeit possibly a bit critical on Amazon at times. But it tells you a lot about Jeff Bezos, the man who is winning capitalism, maybe even a bit too well. This documentary is free on youtube and I'd highly recommend it to anyone curious about the company, Jeff, or our world in general.
A surprisingly objective and compelling overview of a modern-day 'emperor' and his online emporium
take2docs1 April 2023
Warning: Spoilers
"It's time to go back to the Moon, this time to stay." So says a straight-faced Jeff Bezos, as seen here in a video clip of him speaking to an audience of admirers. What could pass as stand-up comic material to those of us who believe that no man has ever been to the lunar surface to begin with is expressed by the speaker atop the stage in all seriousness, as if something totally achievable and not the least bit megalomaniacal. I suppose such grandiose ambition comes with the territory when you're an outer-directed entrepreneur who has always thought big and when practically everything you touch turns to gold. Say what you will of the founder of the most successful e-tailer around, but an underachiever this guy is not.
Never-minding that Bezos is erroneously described by the voice-over narrator in this as "the richest man on the planet" (a comment which fails to take into account the far more affluent ruling one-percenters), as an investigative look at one of the world's most famous moneybags and the hugely popular company he started, AMAZON EMPIRE delivers.
Interesting it is to learn from watching this of Jeff Bezos's rather humble beginnings. As a former associate of his who's heard from in this remarks, in describing this early period, "He was a small, nondescript, sandy-haired man sitting at a desk." In other words, a far cry from someone with stated dreams of wanting to colonize celestial bodies.
Back on Earth...we learn that upon moving to Seattle, the Princeton graduate would eventually go onto found the online store familiar to us today, which began as simply a bookseller. (As an interviewee informs, the name of the company is in reference to the largest river on earth...and here all along some of us thought the name was perhaps inspired by those muscular single-breasted women of Greek mythology.) It was not until Bezos decided to expand his business by way of diversification that things really took off for him. Today, the company is said to be the majority of internet-users go-to place for online shopping, with countless items available to purchase, alongside new and used books for sale.
Not satisfied, however, with being a multi-billionaire success in the world of retail and, say, retiring to a tropical island with a cocktail and a good paperback, the driven Bezos has since ventured out into other projects and pursuits beyond commerce, among them helping to produce a number of privacy-invasive technologies of which the average consumer seems only too eager to buy and use (e.g., that so-and-so interactive spy-bot), along with working with the CIA in the area of cloud computing. So much for a man content with being an anonymous desk-jockey.
To the film's credit, we hear from more than just friends and praisers of Bezos in AMAZON EMPIRE, but from various critics as well...among them former disgruntled employees, who speak of horrific working conditions inside the warehouses known in company jargon as 'fulfillment centers,' of these depots being to some degree dehumanizing and Orwellian. One can only imagine what a moon base would be like under such an alleged regime.
Never-minding that Bezos is erroneously described by the voice-over narrator in this as "the richest man on the planet" (a comment which fails to take into account the far more affluent ruling one-percenters), as an investigative look at one of the world's most famous moneybags and the hugely popular company he started, AMAZON EMPIRE delivers.
Interesting it is to learn from watching this of Jeff Bezos's rather humble beginnings. As a former associate of his who's heard from in this remarks, in describing this early period, "He was a small, nondescript, sandy-haired man sitting at a desk." In other words, a far cry from someone with stated dreams of wanting to colonize celestial bodies.
Back on Earth...we learn that upon moving to Seattle, the Princeton graduate would eventually go onto found the online store familiar to us today, which began as simply a bookseller. (As an interviewee informs, the name of the company is in reference to the largest river on earth...and here all along some of us thought the name was perhaps inspired by those muscular single-breasted women of Greek mythology.) It was not until Bezos decided to expand his business by way of diversification that things really took off for him. Today, the company is said to be the majority of internet-users go-to place for online shopping, with countless items available to purchase, alongside new and used books for sale.
Not satisfied, however, with being a multi-billionaire success in the world of retail and, say, retiring to a tropical island with a cocktail and a good paperback, the driven Bezos has since ventured out into other projects and pursuits beyond commerce, among them helping to produce a number of privacy-invasive technologies of which the average consumer seems only too eager to buy and use (e.g., that so-and-so interactive spy-bot), along with working with the CIA in the area of cloud computing. So much for a man content with being an anonymous desk-jockey.
To the film's credit, we hear from more than just friends and praisers of Bezos in AMAZON EMPIRE, but from various critics as well...among them former disgruntled employees, who speak of horrific working conditions inside the warehouses known in company jargon as 'fulfillment centers,' of these depots being to some degree dehumanizing and Orwellian. One can only imagine what a moon base would be like under such an alleged regime.
Too long and not much juice.
kulturim3 October 2020
I was expecting more, what I found most irritating was the preformated, highly rehearsed nd boring responses by the company current senior staff. I was surprised no questions were asked regarding those entry-level employees that are paid to respond online, positively, about the company every time there is an online debate due to some Amazon related news.
Incisive questions were lacking, too many omissions and lack of depth about delicate subjects such as tax evasion, corporate structure, etc.
The journalist should insist way more to get something other than inane and unacceptable responses.
Informative
anthonydapiii5 June 2020
Tells the story of Bezos and Amazon with a skewed perception or lean towards one side.
I applaud PBS for striving to keep everything neutral in brilliantly telling this Amazon Empire story. But I guess, the higher the power and control and more scrutiny and bias comes your way.
As the one part of the documentary said with Bezos shareholder letter about amazon.love - "the big guys can be cool" but human nature unfortunately always wants to make the opposite of that.
Great work by the crew on this PBS documentary.
I applaud PBS for striving to keep everything neutral in brilliantly telling this Amazon Empire story. But I guess, the higher the power and control and more scrutiny and bias comes your way.
As the one part of the documentary said with Bezos shareholder letter about amazon.love - "the big guys can be cool" but human nature unfortunately always wants to make the opposite of that.
Great work by the crew on this PBS documentary.
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