Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos is serious about improving the Washington Post’s digital footprint — and he’s having Business Insider founder Henry Blodget help him in the process.
In this detailed New Yorker piece about Amazon’s future in the book industry, reporter George Packer wrote that Bezos — who owns a significant part of Business Insider — recently asked Blodget to join him two weeks ago during a visit with Washington Post staff to discuss the difficulties around publishing news on the Internet.
Bezos, who bought the newspaper for $250 million this past August, is spearheading a growth strategy at the paper as noted by the New York Times last month.
In the New Yorker article, Packer noted that Bezos talked about the Post’s design on tablets — among other topics — when he visited the newspaper’s headquarters last month. A few weeks after that visit, the Post announced a 2014 budget that included a bevy of additions, including a website redesign, a Sunday magazine, extra digital content and more employees. The Post’s announcement for expansion came just as it lost well-known Wonkblog creator Ezra Klein to Vox Media.
The connection between Bezos and Blodget actually dates back to 1998, when Blodget famously predicting in 1998 that Amazon.com’s stock would soar past $400 per share — it did, and Blodget’s career quickly launched from there before he was banned from the securities industry for publicly supporting tech stocks.
