Book Talk: Dana Mattioli — The Everything War
In 2017, Lina Khan published a paper that accused Amazon of being a monopoly, having grown so large, and embedded in so many industries, it was akin to a modern-day Standard Oil. Unlike Rockefeller’s empire, however, Bezos’s company had grown voraciously without much scrutiny. In fact, for over twenty years, Amazon had emerged as a Wall Street darling and its “customer obsession” approach made it indelibly attractive to consumers across the globe. But the company was not benevolent; it operated in ways that ensured it stayed on top. Lina Khan’s paper would light a fire in Washington, and in a matter of years, she would become the head of the FTC. In 2023, the FTC filed a monopoly lawsuit against Amazon in what may become one of the largest antitrust cases in the 21st century.
With unparalleled access, and having interviewed hundreds of people – from Amazon executives to competitors to small businesses who rely on its marketplace to survive – Mattioli exposes how Amazon was driven by a competitive edge to dominate every industry it entered, bulldozed all who stood in its way, reshaped the retail landscape, transformed how Wall Street evaluates companies, and altered the very nature of the global economy. It has come to control most of online retail, and uses its own sellers’ data to compete with them through Amazon’s own private label brands. Millions of companies and governmental agencies use AWS, paying hefty fees for the service. And, the company has purposefully avoided collecting taxes for years, exploited partners, and even copied competitors–leveraging its power to extract whatever it can, at any cost. It has continued to gain market share in disparate areas, from media to logistics and beyond. Most companies dominate one or two industries; Amazon now leads in several. And all of this was by design.
The Everything War is the definitive, inside story of how it grew into one of the most powerful and feared companies in the world – and why this lawsuit opens a window into the most consequential business story of our times.
Dana Mattioli has been a reporter for The Wall Street Journal since 2006. She has written investigative pieces and Front Page stories about Amazon since 2019 and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Investigative Journalism for her work on Amazon. Her Amazon coverage also received the 2021 Gerald Loeb Award for Beat Reporting. In 2021, she received the WERT Prize, an award from the Women’s Economic Round Table that honors excellence in comprehensively reported business journalism for her Amazon investigations, and received a Front Page Award for her Amazon coverage.
Prior to covering Amazon, Dana held one of the WSJ’s highest profile beats covering mergers & acquisitions. During her 17-year career at WSJ she has produced a string of investigations and Page One stories on CEOs, boards of directors, technology companies and retailers. Dana is the recipient of a second Gerald Loeb award for breaking news, the SABEW breaking news award, two New York Press Club awards and was a finalist for the Larry Birger Young Business Journalist Award. Dana has appeared on CNBC, Good Morning America, Fox Business News, and Cheddar. She was the subject of a Wall Street Journal advertisement campaign about how the newspaper’s highest-profile stories came together.
