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Tyson Evans (left), deputy editor for interactive news at the New York Times, said he’s excited for Jeff Bezos owning the Washington Post.

There’s been quite a bit of reaction — and confusion — to Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos purchasing The Washington Post.

But what does The Post’s competition think? That’s exactly what Willamette Week editor Mark Zusman wanted to know from Tyson Evans, a deputy editor for interactive news at the New York Times, during a Saturday Q&A at the TechFestNW conference.

Zusman asked Evans if he thought Bezos was a “threat or a menace,” to which Evans answered, “neither.”

“He’s a brilliant guy,” Evans said.

Evans referenced an earlier slide where he showed the New York Times’ software development toolbox and said that “most everything I showed is running on the Amazon web server.”

He added that he’s looking forward to seeing what Bezos does with The Post, particularly because of his success with Amazon and other investments.

wapostbezos“I’m pretty excited for the competition,” he said. “It’s going to be great to have somebody who understands consumption at the level he does and ideally, he’ll push The Post in a way that will make them fun to compete with.”

Bezos visited The Post’s newsroom this week, where he met with reporters and editors to discuss his plans for the newspaper, which mirror some of the strategies he uses at Amazon.

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Scott Kveton on what makes Portland’s ‘boring’ startups special

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