The historical opportunity for Mr. Jeff Bezos…

I don’t know about you, but when I read Jeff #Bezos post busting AMI / National Enquirer’s attempt at blackmailing him, I couldn’t help but let out a heroic roar, as if the already felt victory for Mr. Bezos was mine. And, judging by the number of claps (or likes) the article got across all media platforms, I was not alone to feel that way.

But how come that so many people could identify themselves with a though, billionaire over a situation, that finally looked like if Mr. Bezos, a well-experienced billionaire, missed the basic self-protection instincts that most of us mastered for our social media communications, even though the potential damages are much greater for Mr. Bezos than it is for us?

I am not sure how many people experienced blackmailing during their adult lives, but judging by my experience and that of my friends, they are probably not many. Then what was all this clamor in favor of Mr. Bezos about?

We all love being heroic.
Actually, we all know about blackmailing, which tends to fuel the scenarios of the multiple series B movies clogging Mr. Bezos’s Amazon Prime offer and Netflixes of this world. And even more, in the same movies, wealthier people like Bezos tend to be blackmailed for reasons that go for wealth grab to vengeance for something they are judged responsible for by their aggressors.

So like in any movies, we hate the bad guy and identifies with the good guy, and the story gets a happy ending with the blackmailer-bully being punched out, behind the bars, or alas for the majority dead.

None of these ingredients was missing in Amazon’s chief story.

And here comes the opportunity for Mr. Bezos…

It is not every day that a billionaire, especially a world’s richest person stands under the protective goodwill of the general public, apart from a few ambitious entrepreneurs among us, who secretly harbor wishes to emulate his successes.

Not only by his action of exposing the bully, he managed to be the real world hero we often see on screens, but he managed also to put the public on his side should those embarrassing pictures be made public; but I bet that the National Enquirer already abandoned any idea of making them public.

This capacity, to change the course of things, especially with the general public approving is a strength or power bestowed in Mr. Bezos, maybe as a pure unrelated coincidence or consequence of his business acumen.

It is an opportunity since his company Amazon is one of the few alongside Google, Facebook, Netflix, and a few multinational banks and service companies that managed to quasi marry their businesses to a large pool of daily single customers.

Like any marriage, he has today more than ever the responsibility and opportunity to change the course of things for the better for his customers or users, on topics which are loudly expressed in the many popular progressive policy requests virtually all over the world by the likes of Rutger Bregman or Anand Giridharadas, and do so starting with the U.S.:

• No corporate funding of electoral campaigns
• Medicare for all (single payer)
• Higher taxes for higher revenues
• Greener policies (new green deal)
• Increased minimum wage

And the funny thing is that this could be done while making more money for Mr. Bezos than ever, not only by increasing his likeability quote (important in a customer marriage), but actually leaving positive cash flows in his bank account, and here is why:

• Banning corporate funding of electoral campaigns:
  MONEY OUT: Funding independent groups to help disseminate the already very popular idea of banning corporate money into politics for it to get more traction and be implemented.
  MONEY IN: Less to no racketing by politicians before campaigns: if a law is voted punishing even an attempt to ask for a contribution, Mr. Bezos will have less to pay to politicians and actually make more money over the years than what he paid to promote this law.
• Medicare for all (single payer)
  MONEY OUT: if Belgium or Austria, smaller European countries with approx 11 and 9 million each, can fund single-payer universal healthcare, what can be done if Mr. Bezos founded and started Amazon Health, a network of practicians enrolling at least 30 million customers to a single-payer Amazon Medicare Repaying their treatment.
  MONEY IN: Issue them an Amazon Credit Card that collects royalties and a percentage payment to the Amazon Medicare Re., to pay their treatment through Amazon Health. Clinics and practitioners will beg to enroll as Amazon Health or risk having their flow of customers choosing their practitioner based on where they make their purchases? A boon — and basically a single-handed Amazon universal care and the rest of the market will have to follow, as any online shop aligns to Amazon.com right now.
• Higher taxes for higher revenues (seriously!)
  MONEY OUT: helping independent groups disseminating the idea for it to get traction. In a leveled playing field no relative losses for Mr. Bezos still.
  MONEY IN: Playing in a level playing field with equally increased tax burden, means a consolidated market in which healthier businesses with solid returns could play at higher level, hence less competition for Mr. Bezos businesses. Plus more state services provided to his customers means that a happy customer is a happy buyer.
• Increased minimum wage:
  MONEY OUT: I can only refer to the courageous and cunning gesture of Mr. Henry Ford when he increased the daily wage to a 5 USD. Single-handedly, it would probably be difficult for Mr. Bezos to influence the market, but doing it combined with a funded campaign to disseminate the ideas and give them sufficient political traction will at the end of the day make it possible.
  MONEY IN: Higher disposable income for consumption of Amazon services.

On the greener policies, I think that elaborating would not be needed, as the likes of Mr. Musk have already extensively demonstrated the profitability of a greener approach.

Probably sending rockets to Mars or for a ballad in gravity zero environments might be something to it, the collective conscience will be, I bet, more happy to remember an exploit with herculean grandeur and noblesse as described above.

Whether he wanted it or not, Mr. Bezos is a king that has the duty to care for his customers, subjects of these new digital and virtual kingdoms that would be willing to acknowledge King Bezos the 1st, if he decided to seize this historical opportunity to ascend his throne.

There is a reason why we still talk about Robin Hood centuries later. Mr. Hood was not of humble beginnings as I understand, he recognized the moment and seized the opportunity.