Good News, WaPo: Working for Jeff Bezos Is Awesome

Henry Blodget thinks this is a very good thing for the venerable paper
By Kevin Spak,  Newser Staff
Posted Aug 6, 2013 12:02 PM CDT
Updated Aug 6, 2013 1:03 PM CDT
Good News, WaPo: Working for Jeff Bezos Is Awesome
In this Sept. 6, 2012 file photo, Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos speaks in Santa Monica, Calif. Bezos plans to buy The Washington Post for $250 million.   (AP Photo/Reed Saxon, File)

Jeff Bezos is a major Business Insider investor, so in the wake of the Washington Post buy, Henry Blodget has been fielding a lot of questions on what it's like to have the Amazon founder holding the purse strings. The answer? "It's great," Blodget writes. "Any company that cares about building great products and services and long-term value could not ask for a better backer." Unlike most financial investors, Blodget says Bezos is all about the long game, taking any chance to reinvest profits in exciting future possibilities.

Bezos probably just thinks owning the Post will be cool, Blodget speculates. "This is a man who invests in rockets and atomic clocks, after all. He doesn't necessarily make these investments for the money. Or bragging rights. Or strategic synergies." Not that those don't exist: Amazon and the Post are both content creators, for starters, and Amazon is getting into the local physical deliveries business. Lydia DePillis at the Washington Post adds that the paper's brand will lend prestige to the fledgling Amazon Publishing, and that its webpage will be a high-traffic place to advertise Amazon's wares. "The Post doesn't need to generate revenue" anymore, DePillis writes. "It can complement and amplify other regions of Amazonia." Click here for Blodget's full column, or here for DePillis'. (More Jeff Bezos stories.)

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