Good morning. Get ready to hear a lot more about Jeff Bezos in the days, weeks, and probably months, ahead. The Amazon cofounder stepped down as CEO nearly five years ago, but he thrust himself back into the collective consciousness in a big way on Thursday with his plan to raise a $100 billion fund.
The number itself is huge. The last time something like this happened, when Masayoshi Son launched SoftBank’s $100 billion Vision Fund, it created its own weather pattern in the business press. This time, the effects will be felt well beyond the business pages. Bezos wants the money (which he’s apparently been traveling everywhere from the Middle East to Singapore to raise) so that he can acquire manufacturing companies and, in the words of the Wall Street Journal, “use AI technology to accelerate their path to automation.”
The optics of one of the richest people on the planet using his post-Amazon years, not to sip daiquiris on a private island, but rather to go on the hunt for factories where AI can replace blue-collar workers, are … not so great. Maybe Bezos will demonstrate how manufacturing can be reinvented for the new era in a way that’s additive and that increases prosperity for everyone. But to judge by the swift reaction to the news on Thursday, Bezos does not enjoy the benefit of the doubt among a significant segment of the public. “Oligarchs are waging all out war against workers. FIGHT BACK,” tweeted Bernie Sanders. That was one of the nicer tweets. It’s eight months until the mid-terms, and I have a feeling that Bezos just made himself a campaign issue.
