Is Amazon a Government Company
Congress has not done such a detailed study of monopoly power over the lifetime of most Americans, making it difficult to imagine where it might lead. But if the past is a guide, it could trigger both new laws and antitrust lawsuits. In 1938, for example, Congress set up a commission to study concentration in several industries. His findings prompted the federal government to file a major cartel case, amend patent laws, and pass comprehensive laws restricting mergers in 1950. Congress conducted further investigations into the monopoly in the 1950s and 1960s, and the results shaped antitrust enforcement. But then, starting in the 1970s, monopoly was set aside as a concern by both political parties. Still, the company was already making its first forays into cloud services, which would ultimately make it an obvious government partner. In 2003, two employees, Benjamin Black and Chris Pinkham, wrote an article describing a standardized virtual server system to provide computing power, data storage, and infrastructure as needed. If Amazon found this system useful, they suggested, other companies would do the same. One day, those who didn`t want to manage their own servers didn`t have to either: they could just rent them. “The more Amazon becomes an inevitable part of government, the harder it becomes for the government to properly regulate Amazon,” Hauser argued.
But once this period is over, these government hires become particularly valuable. Ethics rules allow former public servants to advise a private employer on how to obtain certain government contracts. And it helps tremendously that they often know who to call their old government agency. AWS` recruitment included managers who worked on migrating government information to the cloud. In February, the company hired James “Simo” Simonds as account manager for the U.S. Transportation Command, U.S. Strategic Command and the U.S. Air Force`s Air Mobility Command. He has worked for the Air Force for over 15 years, most recently as Senior Director of Cloud Migration at Air Mobility Command.
The burden lies with the subcommittee to show Americans that what Amazon and the other tech giants are doing is both bad and harmful. Armed with testimonies and internal company documents, the subcommittee and its staff make an argument: although these companies still occasionally produce innovative products, they are not as inventive as they would have us believe. On the contrary, they have reached their extraordinary range thanks to the raw power. The tech giants have become gatekeepers, and they use this control to advance their own interests. At the hearing, subcommittee members translated the sometimes obscure language of antitrust law into words that everyone understands. You talked about espionage, theft and intimidation. Federal contractors such as AWS and Microsoft must follow strict conflict of interest guidelines when hiring former executives, including mandatory deadlines before employees can contact their former agencies. Federal ethics rules often prohibit these employees from representing a company in their dealings with the government. “We don`t agree with this mischaracterization,” Stone said. “Like other companies that support public sector clients, we hire team members with government, military, academic and non-profit expertise, but calling them lobbyists simply not correct.” POLITICO reviewed LinkedIn profiles and job postings, and interviewed seven people familiar with the company`s staff to compile one of the most comprehensive images to date of Amazon`s recent hiring of government officials, particularly AWS-related, and where those employees could gain insight into lucrative contracts.
M. AWS` Stone said Amazon complies with all federal laws relating to hiring former public servants, has a “robust process for selecting former government employees during the hiring process,” and has “adopted specific policies that reinforce our commitment to respecting conflicts of interest and revolving door rules.” Amazon Web Services takes over former government officials who can help them access lucrative federal contracts. By passing similar legislation today, Congress could force Amazon to part ways with its core parts and make each of its core departments — online marketplace, retail department, cloud services, and logistics operations — a standalone company. It wouldn`t eliminate what people like about Amazon. But it would prevent Amazon from leveraging the interaction between its parties to bypass competition, exploit small businesses, and extend its dominance to adjacent markets. In the words of Scott Galloway, a professor of economics at New York University, it would “oxygenate the economy” and pave the way for new businesses, innovations and jobs. Many governments are simplifying the procurement process by shifting purchases to B2B e-commerce stores. Find out how this change opens the door for more small businesses to sell to governments. If observers and critics are right, the Pentagon`s Jedi Treaty is just a stepping stone for Amazon to eventually take control of the entire government cloud and serve as a data store for everything from criminal records to tax audits. If it concerns some from the outside who look inside, it is as usual for those inside the Beltway, where the government has always been the largest and most lucrative customer. In August 2018, Oracle filed a protest with the Government Accountability Office, arguing that the contract was “targeted at a specific cloud service.” (IBM followed soon after.) That same month, the defense One publication revealed that RosettiStarr, a Washington-based investigative firm, had bought a dossier from reporters claiming that Sally Donnelly, a senior Pentagon official and former external consultant to Amazon, had favored the e-commerce company.
RosettiStarr refused to identify the client who paid for his work. “It`s not that AWS is targeting government staff,” AWS` Eldakdoky said, but that people like him are struggling to resist higher-paying jobs in the private sector, and Amazon`s offerings are particularly competitive. He said he received a significant pay raise when he joined AWS and would be able to retire “much sooner.” The subcommittee also has evidence that Bezos used his extraordinary Wall Street support to prevent emerging competitors from gaining a foothold; whereas Amazon lost $200 million in a single month by selling diapers at a price below cost to force the parent company of a popular rival, Diapers.com, to accept the acquisition; that Amazon sold Echo speakers below cost and bought potential competitors like Ring so that its Alexa voice assistant could dominate the “smart home” market. Lawmakers have also documented the consequences of these practices — small businesses, software developers, and product inventors who live in fear of being crushed at Amazon`s whim. AWS has a “fairly rigorous firewall process” to ensure that new employees don`t violate these contactless restrictions, Eldakdoky said. The company`s legal team regularly updates an internal wiki page detailing which newly hired employees are prevented from working on specific projects and when they are available. Former government officials are helping Amazon win contracts because they are “intimately familiar with the bureaucracy associated with the quote request process,” Eldakdoky said in an interview. “Someone who has been on the other side knows exactly how RFP proposals are perceived and analyzed competitively.
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. (Reuters) – The head of Amazon.com Inc.`s cloud computing division said on Monday that the company would work with any government agency that complies with the law, as opposed to rival Microsoft Corp, which has announced its rejection of the controversial sales. And perhaps the ultimate goal is not only more government contracts, but also to influence regulations that could affect Amazon. Today, some of the biggest threats are not competitors, but lawmakers and politicians advocating antitrust action against tech giants. (Or maybe a president who argues he should pay more taxes.) And Bezos clearly understands that working in Washington requires access and influence over everyone in the White House; In 2015, he hired former Obama press secretary Jay Carney as a senior executive, and earlier this year, AWS hired Jeff Miller, a Trump fundraiser, to lobby on his behalf. “We are excited to work with Amazon Business to develop a solution that will help our local and small business community find employment opportunities with our municipal government. Now more than ever, we need to mobilize and support our independent suppliers and family businesses. “What if we took advantage of all these incredible solutions developed and driven by people who have nothing to do with the federal government? ” he asked during his speech in front of the crowded ballroom. .