Jeff Bezos said what? Insult rival companies is fashionable



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When did public exchanges between business leaders turn into a Friars Club roast?

Amazon.com's chief, Jeff Bezos, used his shareholder letter last week to challenge "our main competitors in the distribution sector (you know who you are!)" To match the Amazon's minimum wage at $ 15.
Walmart
of the
responsible for communication, Dan Bartlett, replied on Twitter: "Hey, retail competitors (you know who you are [wink emoji]) How about paying your taxes? "

There is nothing like a fierce battle between two companies whose combined market value is higher than that of 125 other members of the S & P 500 combined. If you score goals at home, keep in mind that Walmart raised its minimum wage to $ 11 an hour last year, spurring competitive
Target

and others; that his average worker earns $ 17.55 at the hour, including benefits; Amazon and Walmart have different geographic footprints, where workers face different costs; last year, Amazon spent $ 15 an hour in the midst of a whirlwind of bad press claiming poor working conditions; and on the other hand, it is up to the shareholders to minimize taxes within the limits set by Congress.

The letter of Bezos was a rare doubled, also calling
eBay
.
According to Amazon, Amazon has recorded annual growth of 52% since 1999, compared to 20% for eBay in the same period. EBay's chief, Devin Wenig, took the big road wrong. "Although I appreciate the ink … I will dedicate my letter to the clients, their purpose and their strategy," he tweeted. Then, "We do not compete with our sellers. We do not bundle endless services to create barriers to competition. "

Hard to score on this one. Amazon has clearly had the upper hand on eBay in terms of growth, but Bezos has left its denominator arbitrarily small exposed. The starting point of his calculations coincides with the launch of Amazon's third-party business, when sales were close to zero and eBay sales were already significant. In other words, from a short time after my birth, I took advantage of 32% annual earnings made up of the total number of hours lived. Hold the applause.

And no, Don Rickles did not come to life last week, did not push his hair up to the shoulder, and did not hold the leading position at T-Mobile US. It was John Legere, who has a rich history of tweets against other big players in the industry. On Wednesday, he published this new black hole photo that makes astronomers shudder. "I did not know that they had captured a picture of @ Comcast's customer service," he wrote. He then used dashes, slashes and other keyboard characters to simulate two sets of heart rate readings: normal and accelerated for "when you open your @Verizon bill".

I'm not sure what this new trend means but
Wells Fargo
,
who beat earnings estimates Friday, is looking for a new general manager. Here is an original idea: consider Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, a chewing puppet for the cigar, expressed by Saturday Night Live alum Robert Smigel. I can not imagine that Triumph is succeeding in maximizing loan spreads in a low-rate world, Dodd-Frank, but his big jokes are out of place.

In the meantime, I want to try out the new board game that all cool chefs play. I am not a leader, but I do not think that lack of experience hinders me. For Christmas a year, my brother bought me a book titled How to talk about books that you have not read yet. I agree with his outline, although I have never had time to read it.

So where to start?
McDonalds

: I appreciate your McDouble sandwich, with its two burger patties and a slice of cheese, keeping the whole thing at a respectable 390 calories. But you are not mistaken with your Double Cheeseburger. It's just a McDouble with extra cheese.

Smack! This will leave a mark.

Verizon Communications: What about the dead spots of the Hudson River train line going from the Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan to North Westchester County? This seems to go hand in hand with the low turnover of your customers and your recent victory in the ranking of speed and availability of the network by the company Opensignal wireless tracking.

Oh yes, I went there! And I'm just warming myself up.

Delta Airlines

: I've noticed that you now place passengers separately for flights aboard: something called Diamond Medallion, then SkyPriority, then Comfort +, then the zones one by one. A way to capture marginal income opportunities along the shame curve. On a recent flight, by the time they called me, and the rest of Zone 1, I had barely enough confidence to look down Zone Two. But the plane was clean, the crew was courteous and the arrival was at the hour, as usual.

Too far? Better to leave it there for the moment.

The most epic week that has attracted the attention of senior officers has been directed against anyone in particular, and therefore perhaps against everyone else.
Walt Disney
of the
You may have seen, Bob Iger unveiled his company's new streaming service at an investor meeting on Thursday, boosting the 12% stake on Friday. But before that, while accepting a humanitarian award at the Simon Wiesenthal Center on Wednesday, Iger had been scathingly talking about the state of public discourse. "Hitler would have liked social media," he said.
Facebook
,
Twitter and Google were last seen watching their shoes.

I was going to finish telling you to follow me on Twitter for more vicious kills, but Iger really killed the mood. I guess I'll try to say some cool stuff to people in person this week. Like a total square.

Write to Jack Hough at [email protected]

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