Amazon Part 3: The Bumpy Road to Hollywood

Summary

Foundering: Amazon Part 3 - The Bumpy Road to Hollywood

Introduction

In the third installment of Bloomberg's award-winning serialized podcast, "Foundering," listeners are taken deep into Amazon's tumultuous journey into the Hollywood landscape. Hosted by Brad Stone, this episode dissects Amazon's strategic maneuvers, internal struggles, and the profound personal transformation of Jeff Bezos as his company strives to become a dominant player in the entertainment industry.

Jeff Bezos' Strategic Ambition: Acquiring MGM

The episode kicks off by highlighting Jeff Bezos' relentless pursuit of growth through strategic acquisitions. Amazon's purchase of MGM for nearly $8.5 billion in May 2021 is portrayed as a pivotal moment that underscores Bezos' commitment to embedding Amazon deeply into consumers' daily lives. Narrator Brad Stone emphasizes, "When Amazon struggled to sell shoes, they bought Zappos...now they bought MGM," illustrating a pattern of Amazon stepping into diverse markets to solidify its influence.

Lucas Shaw, an entertainment industry reporter, observes the surprise within Hollywood regarding the MGM deal. He notes, “The response was at first shock at the number Amazon was paying almost $9 billion for MGM, which far exceeded what anybody really thought it was worth on paper” ([02:52]).

Building Amazon Studios: Roy Price and Early Successes

Under the leadership of Roy Price, Amazon Studios embarked on creating original content with an initial focus on unique and artist-driven projects. Roy Price believed in leveraging passionate creators to produce compelling stories, a philosophy he articulated during Amazon's annual shareholder meeting:

“We can reimagine and develop that IP for the 21st century. It’s going to be a lot of fun work and people who love stories are going to be the big beneficiaries” ([03:57]).

This strategy bore fruit with the creation of critically acclaimed shows like "Transparent," which won a Golden Globe in January 2015, marking Amazon as a serious contender in the streaming wars. Joey Soloway, the show's producer and writer, publicly thanked Jeff Bezos, signaling the significance of Amazon's investment in genuine, meaningful content ([15:40]).

Shifting Gears: Bezos Pushes for Blockbuster Content

As streaming giants like Netflix began dominating with massive hits such as "Stranger Things," Amazon's initial niche approach faced challenges. Jeff Bezos, desiring broader appeal, directed a strategic pivot towards tentpole shows and blockbuster franchises. This shift is encapsulated in Bezos’ directive to Roy Price:

“Bring me my Game of Thrones” ([21:00]).

Bezos introduced a formulaic approach to storytelling, outlining key elements he believed were essential for a successful show, including a heroic protagonist, a compelling antagonist, and diverse world-building. This analytical mindset aimed to systematize creativity, reflecting Bezos’ belief that “remarkable storytelling always finds an audience” ([16:32]).

Controversies and Leadership Changes

The episode delves into the darker side of Amazon Studios' evolution. In 2017, amidst a broader #MeToo movement shaking Hollywood, allegations emerged against Roy Price involving inappropriate behavior and sexual harassment. Issa Dick Hackett, the executive producer of "The Man in the High Castle," recounted a distressing incident where Price made explicit and unwelcome remarks ([23:03]).

Roy Price publicly apologized, claiming his comments were "failed jokes" and expressing regret for any offense caused ([25:23]). However, the scandal led to his resignation, coinciding with Harvey Weinstein's downfall, and marked a turning point for Amazon Studios. Jen Salkey was appointed as the new head, signaling a shift towards more mainstream and commercially viable content ([30:11]).

Rebranding and Mainstream Appeal: Jen Salkey’s Leadership

Under Jen Salkey’s leadership, Amazon Studios steered towards projects with broader appeal and higher commercial viability. Shows like "Jack Ryan" and "The Boys" emerged, targeting a wider audience while maintaining creative integrity. Danny Gabai, a former Hollywood agent and Vice Studios executive, noted the company's urgent push for "big blockbuster content" and the pressure to meet Bezos' high expectations ([32:17]).

This period saw significant financial investment, with Amazon increasing its Prime Video budget from $5 billion in 2018 to an astounding $11 billion in 2020. Brad Fuller, producer on "Jack Ryan," highlighted Amazon's aggressive promotion strategies, which marked a departure from their previously more restrained approach ([34:48]).

Jeff Bezos' Personal Transformation and Hollywood Integration

Parallel to Amazon Studios' strategic shifts, Jeff Bezos experienced a personal transformation. Once a figure more reserved and focused on business metrics, Bezos began embodying the Hollywood persona he helped shape. His increased presence at high-profile events, such as hosting Campfire—an exclusive gathering for entertainment elites—and his visible role at award shows like the Oscars, showcased his rising celebrity status.

Visual transformations were also noted, with Bezos adopting a more action-star physique and demeanor, symbolizing his deepening involvement in the entertainment world. Journalist Kim Masters critiqued this evolution, suggesting that Bezos learned traditional Hollywood lessons the hard way: “The old rules exist for a reason” ([38:22]).

Conclusion: The Intersection of Business and Celebrity

The episode concludes by reflecting on how Amazon's foray into Hollywood is emblematic of broader trends where tech giants attempt to disrupt traditional industries. Jeff Bezos' journey from an internet bookstore founder to a Hollywood magnate encapsulates the complex interplay between business ambition, creative endeavors, and personal reinvention.

As Amazon continues to navigate its dual identity in tech and entertainment, "Foundering" sets the stage for exploring how these parallel paths influence each other and shape the future of both the company and the industries it touches.

Notable Quotes

• Lucas Shaw ([02:52]): “The response was at first shock at the number Amazon was paying almost $9 billion for MGM, which far exceeded what anybody really thought it was worth on paper.”

• Roy Price ([03:57]): “We can reimagine and develop that IP for the 21st century. It’s going to be a lot of fun work and people who love stories are going to be the big beneficiaries.”

• Jeff Bezos ([16:32]): “Is the creator of this show incredibly passionate about this topic?... remarkable storytelling always finds an audience.”

• Roy Price ([21:00]): “Bring me my Game of Thrones.”

• Jen Salkey ([30:46]): “There had been a lot of negativity and a little bit of trauma around the company, understandably. And then there had been a lot of healing that had already started, which I was really happy about.”

Final Thoughts

"Foundering: Amazon Part 3 - The Bumpy Road to Hollywood" offers an intricate look at Amazon's ambitious yet fraught journey into the heart of the entertainment industry. Through strategic acquisitions, leadership changes, and the personal evolution of Jeff Bezos, the episode captures the high-stakes drama of a tech giant grappling with creative ambitions and cultural challenges in Hollywood.

Transcript

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[Advertiser]

Amazon today just did some shopping of its own, buying MGM for nearly eight and a half billion dollars.

[Narrator]

But this is coming as Amazon continues its push to try and figure out Hollywood, try and figure out how to make this work with streaming.

[Kim Masters]

They've kind of been all over the map.

[Narrator]

This is so fascinating.

[Roy Price]

You have this company that's really the.

[Narrator]

Epitome of the modern company buying a film stud was founded in the silent era. Amazon said it was buying one of the most storied names in Hollywood. MGM is home to movies like Rocky and RoboCop, Fargo and the Survivor TV series. And of course, Bond.

[Advertiser]

James Bond, Mr.

[Narrator]

Bond. The deal surprised even obsessive Amazon and Hollywood watchers. Here's my colleague Lucas Shaw, who covers the entertainment industry.

[Lucas Shaw]

The response was at first shock at the number Amazon was paying almost $9 billion for MGM, which far exceeded what anybody really thought it was worth on paper.

[Narrator]

And the other reason the deal surprised Hollywood was what it said about Amazon's and Jeff Bezos overweening ambition. For 10 years, Amazon had offered TV shows and movies as a free perk to prime members. But Amazon's streaming service was seen as trailing Netflix. Making original TV shows and films was even considered something of a vanity project for Jeff Bezos. He seemed to love attending award shows and throwing parties for big name actors at his home in Beverly Hills. But the purchase of MGM suggested that Bezos was far more serious, that owning content was a vital piece of Amazon's future.

[Lucas Shaw]

The deal is the clearest indicator yet that Amazon is not just fooling around in Hollywood. It's not just some other kind of interloper from another industry that thinks it's cool to go to parties, want to play to win.

[Narrator]

The day of the announcement, Bezos talked about it during the company's annual meeting with shareholders.

[Jeff Bezos]

We're really excited about mgm. The acquisitions thesis here is really very simple. MGM has a vast deep catalog of much beloved intellectual property. And with the talented people at MGM and the talented people at Amazon Studios, we can reimagine and develop that IP for the 21st century. It's going to be a lot of fun work and people who love stories are going to be the big beneficiaries.

[Narrator]

But this was more than a business deal. It seemed like another inevitable step in Bezos own remarkable reinvention into something of a celebrity. Himself and his company, which started as an online store, then became a cloud provider, then an AI company with Alexa, now had a new target. Hollywood listening to foundering. I'm your host Brad Stone. In this episode we're going to tell the story of Prime Video and Amazon's beleaguered path into the entertainment industry. It's a story that starts with a strange choice by Jeff Bezos to create original content. Amazon Studios launches a few celebrated shows, a few more notorious bombs. And then gets consumed by a me too controversy that shook the company to its core. Bezos decisions in Hollywood would end up changing the company and himself in ways that no one predicted. We'll tell you more after a quick break.

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[Narrator]

Let'S go back a decade and a half before Amazon came to buy mgm, before they were investing billions of dollars in making movies every year. The mid aughts were a fertile period for Amazon. This is around the time that Jeff Bezos was conceiving the Kindle and aws, and when Amazon was furiously entering new industries and new countries. Back then, Netflix was a company that sent their customers DVDs in the mail. But then in 2007, Netflix introduced a streaming service called Watch now at no additional charge. It was the official start of the streaming revolution. Bezos saw what Netflix was doing as the future of home entertainment, and he wanted to join the race. But Amazon didn't have a vast streaming content library, and they didn't feel comfortable charging customers for an inferior product. Bezos himself came up with the answer that Amazon would give away its content for free as well to members of its prime shipping club. He argued that making TV shows and winning awards would help with Amazon's core business. Here's Bezos speaking a few years later at the Recode conference in 2016.

[Jeff Bezos]

So from a business point of view, for us, when we win a Golden Globe, it helps us sell more shoes. And it does that in a very direct way, because if you look at prime members, they buy more on Amazon than non prime members. And one of the reasons they do that is once They've paid their annual fee. They're looking around to see how can I get more value out of the program. And so they look across more categories, they shop more. A lot of their behaviors change in ways that are very attractive to us as a business.

[Narrator]

Bezos saw that Prime Video could get more people to buy prime memberships, get people to interact with Amazon.com every day. And if a competitor like Walmart also geared up to deliver in two days, Amazon prime would already be offering something more. Years later, when antitrust authorities were investigating the Amazon MGM deal, critics would point to this moment as an example of Amazon behaving anti competitively. They were using their dominance in online shopping to give themselves a big head start in online video. Amazon introduced Prime Video. In February 2011, we saw Amazon.com take on Netflix directly. Amazon starting an unlimited streaming video service with 5,000 movies and TV shows. It's for its existing prime customers who are already pay $79 per year. The selection was thin. Old episodes of the Dick Van Dyke Show, PBS documentaries, and old films like Stanley Kubrick's 2001. Open the pod bay doors, Hal.

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[Narrator]

I'm afraid I can't do that. But slowly, Amazon started licensing more TV shows and movies from media companies like Viacom and Epix, which added stuff like Jersey Shore, SpongeBob SquarePants. All right, pinhead, your time is up. The Hunger Games movies and the first Avengers.

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[Narrator]

Banner, now might be a really good time for you to get angry. That's my secret, Cap. I'm always angry. And because paying for rights to stream blockbusters and popular TV shows was so expensive, because they were getting into bidding wars with Netflix and Hulu, Amazon decided they wanted to control their own destiny. They would create their own TV shows.

[Roy Price]

But at the time, you know, people were skeptical. They were like, wait, you guys are an online bookstore or something? And now you're gonna try to be, you know, NBC or whatever, you're gonna try to be a real network? Like, I'm not sure I believe you. I'll come back in a few years. And so you have, to some extent, earn credibility.

[Narrator]

That's Roy Price, the first head of Amazon Studios, as we'll get to later in this episode. Roy was later ousted for sexual harassment allegations. But he was also responsible for some of Amazon's early successes. When Roy started, creating TV shows was a really big leap. Bezos and his fellow geeks in Seattle thought that they could come down to Hollywood and swim in their pool. The plan was audacious. Maybe Even arrogant Bezos believed that Hollywood had such a low success rate and stumbled so frequently with expensive movies that bombed that Amazon could do things differently and better. In 2012, Amazon Studios opened up their first office in Sherman Oaks above a Fuddruckers restaurant. Bezos informally dubbed it the Scientific Studio. The idea was that Amazon would be methodical about only making shows that people wanted to watch. They gave their customers a set of pilots and let viewers vote online about which shows they wanted to expand into full series. It was a very Silicon Valley approach. Let's tap into the wisdom of the crowd. And most Hollywood veterans rolled their eyes.

[Roy Price]

There was a lot of experimentation and it was actually a somewhat amateur on. Then we said, all right, but we really do need some real professional shows on the site.

[Narrator]

Among the first shows that viewers chose were the political comedy Alpha House, which was like a watered down version of Veep, and a tech industry spoof called Betas, which was a poor version of the HBO comedy Silicon Valley that debuted the next year. They weren't exactly hits around this time. The Netflix original show House of Cards was a huge success. So Amazon was playing catch up.

[Roy Price]

So we had to sort of convince people that, you know, this is actually adding value over and above all the TV you already have. So you've got to be distinctive and bringing something that is. It's like film on TV and it's great and it's setting a high bar.

[Narrator]

So Roy decided to seek out prestigious projects. He wanted Amazon Studios to look like a place that was friendly to artists and where audiences could find shows that weren't on mainstream TV networks.

[Danny Gabai]

Amazon's original programming, when it first started to really roll out, was notably quirkier.

[Narrator]

That's Danny Gabai. Danny used to be a Hollywood agent, and he remembered having a terrible time trying to sell a project called Mozart in the Jungle, about hijinks in a fictional New York City symphony.

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[Danny Gabai]

That thing died on the vine. It wasn't really going anywhere. And then a couple years later, I remember seeing it turning up on Amazon and I thought, oh, wow, they're really taking a chance for such a unique, quirky show. And I always really loved that show and really loved that love that pilot script.

[Narrator]

Mozart in the Jungle was Amazon's first modest hit, but their next show made Amazon a serious player in Hollywood. Here's Roy.

[Roy Price]

When I read the script for Transparent, it was so moving and it was so great and it was so real that, you know, we had to make that show.

[Narrator]

It's a show about a fictional Los Angeles family where the father, played by Jeffrey Tambor, decides to transition later in life.

[Advertiser]

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[Roy Price]

Dressing up like a lady all the time?

[Narrator]

Honey, all my life.

[Roy Price]

My whole life, I've been dressing up like a man.

[Narrator]

This is me. Transparent was a critical hit. Activists praised it for its sensitive portrayal of transgender issues. The show made Amazon seem progressive and forward thinking. And in January 2015, Transparent won a Golden Globe, making Amazon the first streaming service to win a major award. They beat Netflix at something for the first time. Transparent's producer and writer, Joey Soloway stood on stage and accepted the award and thanked Jeff Bezos.

[Advertiser]

I want to thank Amazon.

[Narrator]

Jeff Bezos, Roy Bright.

[Advertiser]

I want to thank the trans community. They are our family. They make this possible. This award is dedicated to the memory of Leela Allen.

[Narrator]

It was a tremendous validation of Amazon's efforts in Hollywood and of Roy Price's initial strategy. And it was a sign of the times. Viewers were beginning to pull away from cable to look for high quality shows online. After their big win at the Golden Globes, the Transparent team, Joey Soloway and Jeffrey Tambor, appeared on CBS this Morning for a victory lap. And they brought along Jeff Bezos. He pledged that Amazon's approach with TV shows and movies was different.

[Jeff Bezos]

There are two ways to go about deciding whether to make a show. You can ask yourself, how many millions of people are going to watch this show? I think that leads you into corners that aren't interesting. Or you can say, you know, is the creator of this show incredibly passionate about this topic?

[Narrator]

Yes.

[Jeff Bezos]

Is the creator of this show one of the world's great storytellers? Can they assemble a cast to make this thing come to life? You know, and so if you're asking that, if you're saying, you know, can we build something truly remarkable, I think remarkable storytelling always finds an audience.

[Narrator]

Bezos is saying here that Amazon would keep making more Transparents, that he would choose passion and artistry over popularity. That streaming would offer an alternative to the Hollywood formula. This approach would lead to a few more critical hits for Amazon Studios, like the marvelous Mrs. Maisel.

[Advertiser]

I would like to repeatedly kick every man in here in the balls over the course of the next several hours. I won't. No. I am still a lady.

[Narrator]

Women aren't funny.

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Your wife must have a sense of humor. She's seen you naked.

[Narrator]

And the wonderful Phoebe Waller Bridge comedy fleabag. Tell the truth. It's horrendous.

[Advertiser]

It's horrendous.

[Narrator]

It's modern.

[Advertiser]

Don't lie.

[Roy Price]

I'm not.

[Narrator]

I look like a pencil. You both were. Projects with messy feminist heroines, they made Amazon seem to stand apart from the rest of Hollywood. Here's Roy.

[Roy Price]

One of the ways that the studio's record was truly distinctive is we, I think, led the league in shows created and led by women winning Emmys and sort of going from nowhere to being, you know, internationally famous and from, you know, transparent to, you know, fleabag and Maisel and many, many in between. And I'm glad to say that a lot of the shows really stood out. And, you know, we won the Globe for best comedy four years out of six. We won the best comedy director at the Emmys four years out of five.

[Narrator]

But as Netflix also started to mint even bigger streaming hits like Stranger Things, that approach wouldn't last. After a few years, Amazon retired its quirky pilot voting system. Bezos wanted larger audiences. He sought out experienced tastemakers and storytellers. Hollywood, it turned out, was changing the company instead of the other way around. We'll tell you more after the break. On December 3, 2016, Jeff Bezos threw the buzziest party in Hollywood at his Beverly Hills estate. Tons of famous people were there. Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, Diane Keaton and Ben Kingsley, Tebow and Burnett and Beck and many more. They were there to celebrate Manchester by the Sea. It was Amazon Studios biggest movie hit yet. It's a very depressing family drama starring Casey Affleck. The movie was up for several major awards, continuing a winning streak for Amazon Studios. At the center of attention was Bezos. He seemed to be loving it. His wife, Mackenzie, was nowhere in sight. Friends of the couple told me she disliked these kinds of parties. It looked like Bezos was at the start of a major personality shift. He used to be content to stay out of the limelight, focused on the business and on his secret technology projects. But now, with Amazon stock price tripling over the previous five years, he was one of the richest men in the world. And that status came with adulation and social opportunity. Bezos seemed to relish it. At the Golden Globes, he sat near the stage and laughed uproariously as Jimmy Fallon made jokes about him. Amazon did pretty well today. Eleven nominations for Amazon. So Jeff Bezos is here tonight. He actually arrived yesterday, but there was no one around to sign for him that night. Manchester by the Sea won five Golden Globes, including best drama Motion picture. But behind the scenes, Bezos wanted big changes. He was no longer content with Roy Price's niche artist driven shows. He wanted Prime Video to grow, to drive customers to Amazon prime and hundreds of countries around the world. Here's Roy.

[Roy Price]

You know, over time, your audience gets bigger. I mean, as your service grows, as you grow around the world, you really need some tentpole shows. So you've got to have your whatever it is, you know, Lord of the Rings or what have you, Game of Thrones, you know, whatever it is.

[Narrator]

So Bezos tells Roy at a meeting, bring me my Game of Thrones. That's a direct quote. He was frustrated that he didn't have a blockbuster franchise. At another meeting, Bezos gave Roy a sort of ingredients list of what he believed was essential for every huge show. His list includes stuff like a heroic protagonist, a compelling antagonist, positive emotions, negative emotions, wish fulfillment, and diverse world building. Those last two are common tropes in science fiction and fantasy. Anyway, Bezos came up with this on the spot. And from that point on, every time an Amazon executive wanted to greenlight a show, they had to explain how the project contained all 13 of Bezos storytelling elements. And I gotta tell you, when I first wrote about this list and it came out, people were really upset about it that this billionaire founder thought he could boil down creativity into some formula of his own making. It was weird, but it's just another part of Bezos's analytical mind. Sort of like the pilot voting scheme. Bezos wanted to systematize the process of creating hits. He believed you can impose a rigorous process around the very act of imagination. The quest to find the next Game of Thrones put a ton of pressure on Roy Price because those big shows and movies that Bezos wanted, they take time to make. And Roy was about to run out of time because in 2017, an entertainment journalist named Kim Masters was hearing things, bad things, about life at Amazon Studios. Kim says she got a call from a source.

[Kim Masters]

This source painted a picture of cultural dysfunction, a sexist work environment. It was kind of a bro environment. The upper ranks, Roy's people that he had brought in, let's just say this source felt that they were not doing a great job and dubiously qualified.

[Narrator]

And that's not all. Kim's source also intimated something more serious. That Roy Price had been accused of sexual Harassment back in 2015 by Issa Dick Hackett. She's the executive producer of the Amazon show Man in the High Castle and the daughter of the writer Philip K. Dick.

[Kim Masters]

There was an incident at Comic Con, I think, in San Diego, they were there. There was a dinner where Issa and Roy were in proximity to each other. He was being, in her mind, very harassing, which ultimately led to a car ride where he very inappropriately started talking about his genitalia. And there were other people in the car who were witness to this and tried to get, you know, help her fend him off. And he was aggressively pursuing this. And then they arrive at this after party, and he walks up to her and whispers something very graphic sex act in her ear, just randomly. Very odd. And she was very upset about.

[Narrator]

Kim's article alleges that Roy Price said outrageously explicit things to Issa Dick Hackett, such as, you will love my dick and anal sex. I reached out to Issa Hackett for this episode, and she did not want to rehash the incident. But back in 2017, she told Kim that Roy's comments in the car and at the Amazon Studios after party were, quote, shocking and surreal. That he did not relent when she told him that she was not interested, that she was married and had a wife and children. And here's Roy Price's version of the same event. He denies the specific comments attributed to him in the article, but concedes the incident happened and that his sexually explicit remarks were failed jokes.

[Roy Price]

Well, you know, it was obviously unfortunate and unintended. And I went down to San Diego to look at a pilot screening at Comic Con of Man in the High Castle, and we had a dinner party. I got an Uber to go to an after party afterwards. I'd never met Issa Taka, and she hopped in my Uber along with a guy from Amazon. And, you know, there was banter in the Uber, and I deeply apologize. I'm sorry if the banter was, you know, overboard. And we get to the afterpart. I mean, it was very short. It was like, whatever, 10 blocks at 1 in the morning. Anyway, so, I don't know, we get out, we take a selfie. I thought everything was copacetic. And. But obviously, you know, one person's copacetic is. Everyone has the right to define their own line of humor and copacetic and not copacetic. And I'm not objecting to that. And again, I'm sorry for it.

[Narrator]

Two years after all this happened, Kim Masters published her article on the Hollywood Reporter. Her piece came out in October 2017. The Roy Price story went public the same week that the New York Times and New Yorker published their bombshell stories about Harvey Weinstein and pervasive sexual harassment in Hollywood.

[Roy Price]

And. But that was it, you know, that was not a good week to have a bad article. And so it was not really tenable to stay under the circumstances. And so that was it.

[Narrator]

This is a Fox News alert. This is just breaking. Roy Price, Amazon's entertainment chief, is taking a leave of absence following a sexual harassment. Now, this comes as the massive Harvey Weinstein scandal is now expanding. Roy's career in Hollywood never recovered. And what's more, some of the most prestigious projects he brought into Amazon Studios, including Manchester by the Sea, Transparent, and a four movie deal with Woody Allen, all got clouded by their own sexual harassment and assault scandals. With Roy gone, Bezos needed a new leader for Amazon Studios. He was at a turning point. He wanted a huge hit and at the same time, he was getting personally interested in expanding his profile in Hollywood. That's next.

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[Narrator]

After Roy Price resigned, Amazon Studios got a new boss. Here's my colleague, Luca Shaw.

[Lucas Shaw]

Jen Salkey is a Hollywood veteran, a tried and true person. She was at the time one of the top executives at @NBC. Someone who had relationships with people all over town. I don't know that she was seen as kind of the pinnacle of great taste, but she had a very good sensibility for what people wanted to watch.

[Narrator]

Amazon was sending a clear message by hiring a prominent woman to head the studio at a time of MeToo controversy. Here's Jen Sulkey at a panel held by vanity fair in 2018.

[Advertiser]

I've never met Roy Price, and so I can't speak about him personally, but what I can say is that there had been a lot of negativity and a little bit of trauma around the company, understandably. And then there had been a lot of healing that had already started, which I was really happy about.

[Narrator]

Jen Sulky's arrival signaled something more subtle. Amazon's tastes were changing, and I think.

[Lucas Shaw]

To a lot of people it symboled a clear departure from the Roy Price era, both in that they brought in someone who was the consummate Hollywood insider, and in that she had more broad and commercial taste. She was not going to come in trying to make another transparent.

[Narrator]

Jeff Bezos wanted big franchise TV shows and movies with bankable stars that could capture the attention of customers and recruit new prime members.

[Lucas Shaw]

They wanted shows that could speak to the middle of America, speak to the kind of person you think of as the average ambulance Amazon customer. And that resulted in shows like Jack Ryan, which was a political thriller adaptation of a Tom Clancy novel, and resulted in a show like the Boys, which was this sort of cynical, acerbic take on the popularity of superhero shows. Maybe not super mainstream, but one of the most popular shows on Amazon.

[Narrator]

Danny Gabai, the former agent, is now a Vice Studios executive. He sat in meetings with Amazon. He felt their desperation for some kind of big blockbuster content.

[Danny Gabai]

They all looked at us and they said, you know, we've been having a lot of internal discussions and we need to figure out how we're going to be working on bigger tentpole content, real event series, series like Game of Thrones. And they started throwing out Game of Thrones a lot in conversation. And then I remember it was there. There was this mantra that everybody started to beat and beat out in the meetings all around the same time. And the sense I got was maybe they were having some issues with eyeballs on some of their programming. And some of the people at the top looked at the studios team and said, you all need to start thinking a bit more commercially because we're not going to keep sinking money into this thing if you don't.

[Narrator]

Amazon executives were reluctant to admit that Bezos was dictating this change in strategy, but Danny would often receive calls with urgent requests to create slideshow decks for meetings with Amazon.

[Danny Gabai]

I'd have a lot of last minute late nights where I'd have to be throwing together decks about our upcoming film or series or documentary slate that they could take up with them to Seattle. I remember once I was literally at Coachella. I think I was trying to, trying to watch Kanye perform and I got a phone call from our then president saying I need, I need a deck about all of our film pipeline that we can go and discuss with tomorrow. Bezos may be at the meeting.

[Narrator]

This new sensibility was accompanied by bigger investments. Amazon would spend about $5 billion on Prime Video in 2018, 8 billion in 2019, and an astounding 11 billion in 2020. It's money that even surprises the film industry. Here's Brad Fuller, producer on the Jack Ryan series. He's talking to us while sitting by the pool, which is why you can hear the sound of water lapping. I remember going into an airport right after they dropped the first season of the show. And I was traveling and I looked in the paperback section in the, in this, you know, in the airport store, and John Krasinski's face was on every single Tom Clancy title. Like they were promoted. And it said, watch Jack Ryan on Amazon. And we were getting packages from Amazon and John's face was on the box. Do you know what I'm saying? I had never felt promotion like what they did on that show in the first season. Oh, my God. I didn't know that this could actually occur. It was amazing. Brad Fuller never got hard numbers about how the show did, but he knew it was a success because Amazon immediately started talking to him about a second season. They're very secretive about their data.

[Danny Gabai]

As someone who likes numbers and likes.

[Narrator]

To understand analytics and what's happening, I was continually pressing and pressing and pressing. That's Todd Lieberman, a producer of the Amazon film the Aeronauts, starring Felicity Jones and Eddie Redmayne. He was told it was one of the most successful original movies ever released on Amazon, a claim Amazon repeats to many of its partners. And like those other partners, he never got hard evidence. Movie studios release box office numbers. TV networks issue ratings reports. But streaming services like Amazon provide almost no data, publicly or privately. It's impossible to determine just how Amazon stacks up against Netflix, Hulu and newer players like Apple TV or Disney. Amazon has more than 200 million prime members, but it doesn't reveal how many people watch or how many new prime subscriptions it gets from its movies and shows. But one thing was clear. Amazon and Jeff Bezos were in the streaming game to stay when they bought mgm, they basically purchased a vault of valuable intellectual property that they could mine for sequels, reboots and TV series. And Bezos kept gravitating towards Hollywood. Every fall he hosted a top secret event in Santa Barbara for entertainment executives and actors called Campfire. It was like his own private Davos or TED conference. He invited Oprah and Shonda Rhimes as well as speakers like Jane Goodall and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Bezos brought his family and regularly called it the highlight of his year. More and more of his private life was being swept up into this world of celebrity. He kept attending award shows and sat prominently in the audience. Here's Chris Rock and Steve Martin at the 2020 Oscars. Jeff Bezos is here. Oh, Jeff Bezos, wow, great actor. He's got cash. When he writes a check, the bank bounce. Like Jeff Bezos is so rich he got divorced and he's still the richest man in the world. The Jeff Bezos that was sitting there at the Oscars seemed like a much different man. He had come a long way from the guy who predicted that he could build an everything store in the Internet. Heather, who are you? I'm Jeff Bezos. What is your claim to fame?

[Jeff Bezos]

I'm the founder of Amazon.com it wasn't.

[Narrator]

Just a change in Jeff Bezos interests, personality or how he was spending his time. There was a physical transformation too. In full view, Bezos was getting buffer. He was working out. A few years earlier, there was this famous photograph of him from the Sun Valley Moguls conference. Wearing aviator sunglasses, his biceps bulging. He was kind of coming to resemble the action stars that he wanted for his movies. It was ironic. The journey had begun with Bezos trying to transform the way Hollywood created hit TV shows and films. But in the end, he was the one who changed. Letting go of his quirky attempts to re engineer the entertainment business. Here's journalist Kim Masters again.

[Kim Masters]

I mean, this is a pattern that we're seeing with the tech companies. They come in here and they think they know how to reinvent the wheel and that everybody here has been doing it wrong and they're not that bright. After all, it's la, it's Hollywood. And then they've started to hire legacy media people. So Jen Salke is at Amazon. They find out that sometimes those dumb Hollywood rules exist for a reason.

[Narrator]

You know, the old rules exist for a reason. This was something Bezos was about to learn the hard way in the main part of his business. Because while he was off cavorting in Hollywood, the Amazon Marketplace was going wild. It had evolved into a massive online bazaar where there were practically no rules to who could sell or what they could sell and what tactics they could use to win the sale. Fraud and counterfeits were running rampant. How Amazon built a global marketplace and then tried to tame it. We'll tell you that story in the next episode. Foundering is hosted by me, Brad Stone, Sean Wen is our executive producer. Lucas Shaw contributed reporting to this episode. Ray Mondo is our audio engineer. Molly Nugent is our associate producer. Mark Millian, Ann Vanderme, Robin Agello and Molly Schutz are our story editors. Francesca Levy is the head of Bloomberg Podcasts. Be sure to subscribe and if you like our show, leave a review. Most importantly, tell your friends. See you next time.

[Kim Masters]

Foreign.

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[Narrator]

I think a lot of people think that you're supposed to be going to therapy once you're like having panic attacks every day. But before you get to that point.

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[Narrator]

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