The Everything War
Amazon's Ruthless Quest to Own the World and Remake Corporate Power
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- USD 15.99
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- USD 15.99
Descripción editorial
Most Anticipated by Foreign Policy • Globe and Mail • Publishers Weekly • Next Big Idea Club Must Read April Books
“Will stand as a classic.” – Christopher Leonard
"Riveting, shocking, and full of revelations." - Bryan Burrough
From veteran Amazon reporter for The Wall Street Journal, The Everything War is the first untold, devastating exposé of Amazon's endless strategic greed, from destroying Main Street to remaking corporate power, in pursuit of total domination, by any means necessary.
In 2017, Lina Khan published a paper that accused Amazon of being a monopoly, having grown so large, and embedded in so many industries, it was akin to a modern-day Standard Oil. Unlike Rockefeller’s empire, however, Bezos’s company had grown voraciously without much scrutiny. In fact, for over twenty years, Amazon had emerged as a Wall Street darling and its “customer obsession” approach made it indelibly attractive to consumers across the globe. But the company was not benevolent; it operated in ways that ensured it stayed on top. Lina Khan’s paper would light a fire in Washington, and in a matter of years, she would become the head of the FTC. In 2023, the FTC filed a monopoly lawsuit against Amazon in what may become one of the largest antitrust cases in the 21st century.
With unparalleled access, and having interviewed hundreds of people – from Amazon executives to competitors to small businesses who rely on its marketplace to survive – Mattioli exposes how Amazon was driven by a competitive edge to dominate every industry it entered, bulldozed all who stood in its way, reshaped the retail landscape, transformed how Wall Street evaluates companies, and altered the very nature of the global economy. It has come to control most of online retail, and uses its own sellers’ data to compete with them through Amazon’s own private label brands. Millions of companies and governmental agencies use AWS, paying hefty fees for the service. And, the company has purposefully avoided collecting taxes for years, exploited partners, and even copied competitors—leveraging its power to extract whatever it can, at any cost. It has continued to gain market share in disparate areas, from media to logistics and beyond. Most companies dominate one or two industries; Amazon now leads in several. And all of this was by design.
The Everything War is the definitive, inside story of how it grew into one of the most powerful and feared companies in the world – and why this lawsuit opens a window into the most consequential business story of our times.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Wall Street Journal reporter Mattioli debuts with a blistering exposé of how Amazon used its "size, leverage, and access to data across industries to choke competition." According to Mattioli, Amazon's enormous growth since the late 1990s was fueled by a business model that dominated industries by introducing low prices (even when it meant operating at a loss) to lure customers away from competitors, who rarely had the resources to outlast Amazon's steep discounts. Once rivals had been bankrupted or bought out, Amazon would raise prices again. Mattioli's impressive reporting—which draws on internal documents and hundreds of interviews with employees, senior executives, and government officials—recreates the company's conquests in disturbing detail. For instance, Mattioli recounts how Amazon lost $200 million in one month selling discounted diapers to force Quidsi, parent company of Diapers.com, to the bargaining table, and threatened to give diapers away if the company didn't capitulate to Amazon's takeover bid (Amazon acquired Quidsi in 2010). Mattioli also delves into Federal Trade Commission chairperson Lina Khan's lawsuit against Amazon for "maintaining an illegal monopoly," presenting Khan as a heroic underdog for suing over the objections of her risk-averse colleagues at the FTC. Mattioli spins the legal wrangling into surprisingly riveting reading, and the meticulous accounts of Amazon's nefarious practices outrage. This is investigative journalism at its finest.
