For Jeff Bezos, a new frontier

Found via Abnormal Returns.

A newspaper represents not just a business but a “public trust,” Washington Post Co. chairman and chief executive Donald E. Graham has said more than once. In other words, the values that matter in owning a newspaper go beyond profit and loss. Bezos’s politics and sense of fairness may come to bear as the newspaper, in a perilous state of flux, takes on a new shape.

In a brief letter to employees, Bezos seemed to agree: The “values of The Post do not need changing. The paper’s duty will remain to its readers and not to the private interests of its owners.”

But exactly why he is acquiring The Post — and what he plans to do with it once he owns it — remains mostly a mystery.

Bezos declined to be interviewed for this article. Amazon declined to offer anyone for interviews.

For now, as a result, the best anyone can do to divine his motives is to look at his past.

What emerges from dozens of interviews with friends and colleagues from every stage of his life, combined with his own previous comments, is a portrait of a curious mind attracted to grand schemes. He is a tenacious businessman, too, tough on employees who don’t measure up, ruthless with competitors and willing to take risks.