Amazon

The six largest companies on the planet are now technology-based. Like the industrialist of the late 19th century, they disrupted their industries and changed the way they worked. In the process, they repeated the same destructive decisions from the past. Businessmen or Swindlers? While it wasn’t a new term — it dates back to the Middle Ages and used to describe feudal warlords — the name stuck on business tycoons in the 19th century. Originally, they were portrayed as positive self-made men that helped build the nation. Their image changed for the worse as the century ended and critics and newspapers painted them in a different light. There was a certain truth to the phrase thanks to some captains of industry, especially those that controlled the railroads. Leland Stanford and Charles Crocker along with other shareholders of the Central Pacific railroad company gained the rights to build the western portion of the Transcontinental Railroad. They received subsidies and land grants to…

Amazon prime day 2019, July 15th and 16th A mote back we put up our guide to US holidays for the benefit of people from other countries, so you can tell whether your American staff need the day off or not. But one day got left off the calendar because it's such a new concept that has yet to be fully recognized. That day is Amazon Prime Day. It's a new kind of "holiday" being pushed by Amazon as a kind of Internet shopping festival. This year, they even decided to do a full blowout by having a "Prime Day Concert 2019" hosted from the Hammersmith Ballroom in New York City. It was broadcast on Amazon Prime Video and headlined Taylor Swift, among many celebrity guests. It's a good time to step back and ask: What's happening here? Can a corporation, with no other cultural anchor point, force a holiday into existence? Well, while this sounds like a portent of cyberpunk mega-corp behavior, the commercial impetus for holidays actually goes back much farther than you'd think. A Brief History Of…

We Should Be Looking At The Robber Barons of Yesterday to Protect Against The Tech Barons of Today

Are You Ready For Amazon Prime Day?