Why Jeff Bezos’ Antitrust Statement is a Masterclass in Convincing Narrative Structure
For full disclosure, I am yet to be convinced that Jeff Bezos is a good human being. No individual should have so much money that they could singlehandedly solve multiple world issues while their employees struggle to pay for basic needs. This is not a celebration of his genius or character, far from it, what this teardown of his recent statement to the U.S House Committee is, is an attempt at explaining the power of this type of narrative structure and language. Once you see it, you’ll see it everywhere.
Marshall Ganz’s Public Narrative technique is incredibly influential and is used by people on all sides of opinion and issues. Used for good, it is a brilliant tool that charities, campaigners, activists and organisations can utilise to get their point across. Used nefariously, it can be a way to easily manipulate opinion and communities. What’s happening in Bezos’ statement is up to you to decide. Either way you land, here’s what’s going on.
According to former students, Ganz’s impossible-to-get-into class was so popular that people would sit on the floors and stairs of the lecture theatre just to be a part of it. His work has influenced people like Barack Obama, and countless social justice activists, lawyers and campaigners, and now, it seems, Jeff Bezos (or more likely a savvy copywriter).
One of the most interesting things about this statement is that you can confidently consider every single word to be intentional. This is one of the world’s most powerful men, talking in front of one of the world’s most powerful bodies, on a topic that has the potential to drastically alter global culture and economy. Every word and every image is carefully curated.
Ganz’s Public Narrative technique is worth reading in full, but for now, it can be summarised into three parts:
Story of Self: How you got to where you are. Calls the audience to connect with you.
Story of Us: Emphasise shared purpose and goals. Invites the audience to be part of your community.
Story of Now: An urgent call to the challenge this community faces. Invites the audience to take part in tackling the problem.
Bezos’ Story of Self
Bezos launches almost immediately into the story of his mother:
“My mom, Jackie, had me when she was a 17-year-old high school student in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Being pregnant in high school was not popular in Albuquerque in 1964. It was difficult for her.”
These first 600 words (of a 4,612-word statement) are purposefully personal. By starting with the story of his family, Bezos disarms the audience’s preconceptions and warms quickly to the story of hard-working family facing difficult circumstances.
By the end of these 600 words, he’s got you on side, at least a little bit. He’s bringing in core American family values for the traditionalists, and still peppering through positive images of immigration.
“His mom imagined America would be cold, so she made him a jacket sewn entirely out of cleaning cloths, the only material they had on hand. We still have that jacket; it hangs in my parents’ dining room.”
Bezos makes a point to include poignant imagery, like the cleaning cloth jacket hanging in the dining room. This direct reference to a rags-to-riches narrative is a powerful nod to the American Dream. The American Dream is one of the cultural phenomena that saves Jeff Bezos reputation, and the reputation of billionaires everywhere: it’s the thought that one day, this could be you. So, it’s an essential narrative for someone like Bezos to promote.
The ‘this could be you’ feeling is backed up when Bezos tells us about the struggle he went through to start Amazon; taking risks that were sure not to pay off and being turned down at countless meetings. Bezos doubles down to show that starting Amazon was a decision made with his heart, not his head (read: “I was never in it for the money, promise”). He shows himself as the underdog, a classic character in almost all forms of narrative, and a character difficult to judge harshly.
“My annual shareholder letter for 2000 started with a one-word sentence: “Ouch.””
His emphasis on entrepreneurship and wanting to live a life without regrets aligns with the individualistic culture of much of the Western world. It’s part of the narrative he’s creating where you could see yourself making the same decisions, you don’t want to have regrets either, you work hard too, right?
With this Bezos is starting to lead us into the Story of Us.
Bezos’ Story of Us
The transition to the Story of Us comes where Bezos talks about taking big risks.
He taps into a common understanding that those who take risks deserve rewards, and subtly validates his own success and the size of Amazon in the process.
“…this great nation we live in supports and does not stigmatize entrepreneurial risk-taking”
“Amazon’s success was anything but preordained.”
He throws in a little nugget about his work ethic, and that he is not afraid of the manual labour that he now employs countless people to do.
“It feels like just yesterday I was driving the packages to the post office myself, dreaming that one day we might be able to afford a forklift.”
His clever reference to dreaming of being able to afford a forklift reflects a feeling that every average American has felt, humanising him and connecting him to the everyday person.
A theme that reoccurs throughout the statement is the emphasis on a customer-first mentality. Bezos praises his customers for being demanding of more and praises himself for anticipating their ever-growing consumerism. He uses this to start talking about trust. But, not in the meaning of ‘antitrust’ in which a trust is a collective of companies manipulating the market, but, in the consumer-facing, colloquial understanding of trust as an interpersonal relationship.
This is brilliant in a couple of ways. Firstly, it distracts you from the issue while you agree that ‘yeah, you do trust Amazon to get you your package on time’, and secondly, it builds on a good-guy image that appears to be the main desired takeaway from this entire first half of the statement.
Yet, in the same paragraph, Bezos makes it clear that he will not be shaken from something he believes by mass opinion, or perhaps, government regulation. This could be read as a mirror to his later statement, where he encourages the scrutiny of Amazon. It’s placement early on, and when contextualised to entrepreneurial instinct, not the hearing, is disarming.
“But when you look in the mirror, assess the criticism, and still believe you’re doing the right thing, no force in the world should be able to move you.”
This is followed by a heavy-handed comparison that the only organisations the American people trust more than Amazon are doctors and the military. A Trump-esc statement on American jobs follows this placement of Amazon next to patriotic institutions.
“we can’t outsource these jobs to China or anywhere else. To fulfill our promises to customers in this country, we need American workers to get products to American customers.”
This statement spearheads a section on Amazon’s employment of thousands of entry-level employees. Still, it fails to mention any of the issues, which I won’t go into detail on here, about the company’s treatment of their workforce or the communities they are in. But Bezos emphasises, these warehouse jobs aren’t places of terrible conditions and appalling treatment, they are opportunities.
“For many, it’s their first job. For some, these jobs are a stepping stone to other careers, and we are proud to help them with that.”
A cleverly placed story of 1 of the 125,000 employees, Patricia, who bounced from an unnamed role at Amazon to becoming a medical assistant is the human anecdote used to back this up. As are some details about Amazon’s minimum wage and benefits policies included slightly further down in the statement.
After a brief and vague segment mentioning the investments Amazon has made into communities — which mainly seems to be referring to jobs created by the company’s expansion — and no mention of tax avoidance, Bezos returns to the idea of Amazon being not-that-big-of-a-deal. He talks about the size of the global consumer market, companies like Walmart and Target, and new competitors like Shopify. Remember, this is to show Amazon as an underdog business that anyone could have built if they worked for it. This is key in the Story of Us because it gathers the audience together in a community.
“customers are increasingly flocking to services invented by other stores that Amazon still can’t match at the scale of other large companies.”
Now, at this point, let’s take stock of the things we are meant to be feeling and thinking after reading this statement:
- Bezos is just like you. He came from nothing and built everything, an underdog rising up — an opportunity that is also available to you.
- Bezos loves America. He employs Americans and serves Americans. Isn’t that better than outsourcing to another country?
- He’s a family man, but also he has individual goals. Again, just like you.
- Bezos is providing American’s with opportunities. People just like you. Don’t you want to be part of that?
- Amazon is not as big as you think it is. They have competitors too, and if you look at the global market, they don’t control all of it. (We did not start out as the largest marketplace — eBay was many times our size.)
Back in our Story of Us, Bezos seeks to hammer home his generous nature by showing how he supports entrepreneurialism and small businesses, again emphasising the community of Amazon:
“We didn’t have to invite third-party sellers into the store. We could have kept this valuable real estate for ourselves.”
He claims responsibility for creating 2.2 million global jobs by allowing third parties to sell via Amazon. Complimenting this are two American Dream stories of women (he supports women, don’t you know) selling their products via Amazon. Once again, this is an emphasis on community.
Following this Bezos takes us to a macro view and looks at the creation of 1 trillion dollars of wealth for shareholders. Mentioned by role are teachers, the fire service and the police service. An obvious and misleading grab at the ‘for everyone’ angle that started with the emphasis on customer-centricity and seems to be ending here with shareholders. The argument that it is working and middle-class people who are the ones primarily benefitting from those 1 trillion dollars of wealth is clearly flawed. But, again, we are encouraged to think that this was all for you; the customers and citizens, the community of Amazon.
Bezos’ Story of Now
Bezos enters the Story of Now by reminding us that he was once a ‘garage entrepreneur’ with nothing but a dream. He saw a problem, and he solved it. And now, he’s going to solve another problem, are you with him?
But, despite his garage beginnings, we are reminded that the world needs big companies.
“There are things small companies simply can’t do. I don’t care how good an entrepreneur you are, you’re not going to build an all-fiber Boeing 787 in your garage.”
This draws on the capitalist sentiment of more is more and bigger is better, justifying chronic growth of companies. It is especially effective placed so soon after the section about Amazon supporting small businesses.
He then uses 583 words to talk about Amazon’s CSR initiatives.
“Our scale allows us to make a meaningful impact on important societal issues.”
None of these initiatives are bad things, and it’s certainly better that they are happening than aren’t, however, it’s important to see this in the context of distraction. Bezos personal wealth, much of which was gained from the previously mentioned Amazon shares, increased by $24bn during the coronavirus pandemic. The largest donation he mentions here is $2bn. But, it’s hard to make the point that someone isn’t being ‘generous enough’ when our systems and policies allow for these kinds of inequalities to exist.
“I believe Amazon should be scrutinized”
A smart encouragement of the scrutiny puts Bezos and Amazon on the right-side of the situation. His compliance makes the audience assume innocence — he wants you to know he’s got nothing to hide, and nothing to be ashamed of.
As we get close to the end of his statement, Bezos wraps up all of his themes in one paragraph.
We’ve got patriotism:
“It’s not a coincidence that Amazon was born in this country.”
“Still, the rest of the world would love even the tiniest sip of the elixir we have here in the U.S.”
We’ve got family values:
“Immigrants like my dad see what a treasure this country is…”
We’ve got the American Dream:
“Our country embraces resourcefulness and self-reliance, and it embraces builders who start from scratch.”
And, we’ve got hope for the future:
“It’s still Day One for this country, and even in the face of today’s humbling challenges, I have never been more optimistic about our future.”
Without having to make a direct call to arms, Bezos has brought together the final segment of the Public Narrative and set down a set of challenges that need to be solved. The audience is reminded of his origins, the entrepreneurial journey he has been on, and we are left with a hopeful statement that this is Day One for America, and together, with Amazon on our side, we can all realise the American Dream.
