A riveting corporate exposé, The Everything War: Amazon's Ruthless Quest to Own the World and Remake Corporate Power investigates in impressive depth the "feudal overlord" arrangements that sustain Amazon's position at the top of the economic food chain and enable it to overwhelm its competition using methods that sometimes verge on unethical.
Debut author Dana Mattioli is an award-winning journalist who has served as the Wall Street Journal's Amazon reporter since 2019. She conducted extensive conversations with more than 600 people, including current and former Amazon employees, board members, and members of its most senior team of executives, which Amazon calls its S-Team. Mattioli also interviewed "the company's competitors, including CEOs, sellers, [and] small business owners." Her alarming narrative captures how the organization serves as an "800-pound deterrent to would-be competitors," its success story littered with "cautionary tales" of former rivals who were obliterated by its tenacious reach.
Take the case of Ubi, a voice-activated device created by Leor Grebler in 2012. Ubi became the first of many startups to claim Amazon misused their proprietary information to directly compete with them. Before their talks petered out, Grebler shared troves of Ubi's proprietary data, "almost a road map for the product," with Amazon representatives in 2012 and 2013. Amazon released its voice-activated Echo device in 2015.
Mattioli had access to a multitude of "internal documents, emails... business plans, and strategy memos" that support her capacious reporting. Her spirited book takes readers inside the inner sanctum of a corporate giant that will "stop at nothing" to win. --Shahina Piyarali