Publishers Weekly
★ 02/05/2024
Wall Street Journal reporter Mattioli debuts with a blistering exposé of how Amazon used its “size, leverage, and access to data across industries to choke competition.” According to Mattioli, Amazon’s enormous growth since the late 1990s was fueled by a business model that dominated industries by introducing low prices (even when it meant operating at a loss) to lure customers away from competitors, who rarely had the resources to outlast Amazon’s steep discounts. Once rivals had been bankrupted or bought out, Amazon would raise prices again. Mattioli’s impressive reporting—which draws on internal documents and hundreds of interviews with employees, senior executives, and government officials—recreates the company’s conquests in disturbing detail. For instance, Mattioli recounts how Amazon lost $200 million in one month selling discounted diapers to force Quidsi, parent company of Diapers.com, to the bargaining table, and threatened to give diapers away if the company didn’t capitulate to Amazon’s takeover bid (Amazon acquired Quidsi in 2010). Mattioli also delves into Federal Trade Commission chairperson Lina Khan’s lawsuit against Amazon for “maintaining an illegal monopoly,” presenting Khan as a heroic underdog for suing over the objections of her risk-averse colleagues at the FTC. Mattioli spins the legal wrangling into surprisingly riveting reading, and the meticulous accounts of Amazon’s nefarious practices outrage. This is investigative journalism at its finest. Agent: Eric Lupfer, UTA. (Apr.)
From the Publisher
"Wall Street Journal reporter Mattioli debuts with a blistering exposé of how Amazon used its 'size, leverage, and access to data across industries to choke competition.' Mattioli’s impressive reporting—which draws on internal documents and hundreds of interviews with employees, senior executives, and government officials—recreates the company’s conquests in disturbing detail....This is investigative journalism at its finest."—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Riveting, shocking, and full of revelations, The Everything War is the thrilling account of how Amazon redefined corporate power, and did so with a single minded focus on rolling over the competition in its pursuit for dominance. This one could be a classic.”
—Bryan Burrough, co-author of Barbarians at the Gate and Forget the Alamo
"An unflinching expose of thuggish strategies employed by Amazon—tactics that not only hobble competitors, exploit paying customers, but also cripple aspiring start-ups that make the mistake of sharing product secrets, only to find Amazon knock-offs sold on the consumer monolith’s website."—Jacquie McNish, co-author of Losing the Signal: The Untold Story Behind the Extraordinary Rise and Spectacular Fall of BlackBerry
"A riveting and explosive work of investigative reporting that will stand as a classic. Dana Mattioli has managed to unearth the deepest secrets of the world’s most powerful retailer, bringing it all into the daylight in vivid detail. Every page is revelatory and the characters—from the domineering billionaire CEO, to the brilliant 30-something trustbuster in Washington who pursues him—seem like they’ve walked straight out of a novel. This is the business story of our time."—Christopher Leonard, New York Times bestselling author of Kochland and The Lords of Easy Money
"Dana Mattioli’s The Everything War is a masterful expose of a corporate leviathan’s relentless drive for power. Her incisive writing and thorough reporting takes you behind a global juggernaut’s seemingly innocuous facade. You will never look at those little cardboard boxes on your doorstep the same way again."—Zeke Faux, author of Number Go Up: Inside Crypto's Wild Rise and Staggering Fall
"In The Everything War, the journalist Dana Mattioli shows us at length that Bezos’s legacy is far more insidious than we ever suspected....At this point, continuing to defend Amazon’s business practices with the argument of low prices, even when such toxicity extends to a soul-crushing work culture, has turned into a feel-good illusion that corporate America keeps telling itself about the monster it has created. But as with all illusions, at some point, reality hits. This book is exactly the dose of reality Americans need to imagine a world without Amazon, which already costs us so much to feed."
—Karina Montoya, Washington Monthly
"There’s an echo here of Ida Tarbell, the journalist whose revelations about Standard Oil’s monopolistic chicanery led to the famous antitrust case over a century ago. As the Wall Street Journal’s Amazon correspondent (a post whose very existence speaks volumes), Mattioli’s reporting came to focus on allegations of the company’s anti-competitive behaviour, and it is the many eye-stretching case studies that are the meat of the book…The Everything War makes a compelling case that no company should be this powerful."—Jonathan Ford, The Financial Times
Kirkus Reviews
2024-01-25
A compelling study of the tech behemoth’s bid to control whatever it touches.
Amazon has infiltrated our lives, and the U.S. economy, to a degree that no other company ever has. Mattioli, a Wall Street Journal reporter who has covered Amazon since 2019, brings great expertise to her first book. She readily acknowledges that the company provides convenience, product range, and low prices to shoppers, but she believes that it is now doing more harm than good. There are already several books and a wealth of articles explaining how Amazon overpowers small companies through unfair practices, manipulates the tax system, and abuses its employees, but Mattioli examines some new aspects through interviews with former and current employees. Many of her sources requested anonymity, which is understandable given Amazon’s penchant for retribution. The real value of this book, however, is in the chapters about regulating the corporation. Legislation stalled in Congress, but a lawsuit has been brought by the Federal Trade Commission, which aims to break the giant into separate entities, working on the principle that much of Amazon’s power stems from its domination of numerous connected sectors. For its part, Amazon argues that it constantly works to benefit consumers, but the focus of the FTC case is its anti-competitive market operations. The case is still underway, and while Mattioli is a supporter of the lawsuit, she points to the massive lobbying power of Amazon, as well as its legion of lawyers and PR specialists. Another lawsuit involves the Prime program, claiming that “Amazon purposefully signed up consumers…without their understanding and made it very hard to cancel.” Even if there is no firm conclusion, Mattioli has done much to reveal the snarl behind the smiley-face logo.
Mattioli tears away the Amazon curtain and finds a culture of ruthlessness, greed, and disdain for the law.
