Five Moments - Jeff Bezos Retires, Morgan Wallen's Sales Are Increasing, The Weeknd, Prince, & More
Issue #8
Hello and happy Sunday! We have some new subscribers this week, so I just want to offer you all a warm welcome and thank you for tuning in this week.
A lot has happened this week and here is your chance to catch up in just five moments.
Enjoy!
Jeff Bezos Has Left The Warehouse Moment
As you may have already seen Jeff Bezos will leave his post CEO and will become the Executive Chairman of Amazon. His letter to employees:
We pioneered customer reviews, 1-Click, personalized recommendations, Prime’s insanely-fast shipping, Just Walk Out shopping, the Climate Pledge, Kindle, Alexa, marketplace, infrastructure cloud computing, Career Choice, and much more. If you get it right, a few years after a surprising invention, the new thing has become normal. People yawn. And that yawn is the greatest compliment an inventor can receive.
If you want to understand the vision Bezos had to grow Amazon from a bookstore into its behemoth status look no further than Ben Thompson’s write up on Stratechery. Ben lays out why he considers Bezos the “greatest CEO in tech history” and he deconstructs Amazon’s multiple, massive business lines.
He is arguably the greatest CEO in tech history, in large part because he created three massive businesses, all of which generate enormous consumer surplus and enjoy impregnable moats: Amazon.com, AWS, and the Amazon platform (this is a grab-all term for the Amazon Marketplace and Fulfillment offerings; it is lumped in with Amazon.com in the company’s reporting). These three businesses are the result of Bezos’ rare combination of strategic thinking, boldness, and drive, and the real world manifestations of Amazon’s three most important tactics: leverage the Internet, win with scale, and being your first best — but not only — customer.
Extra Credit: An Amazonian Transition | Om Malik
Morgan Wallen Moment
TMZ shared a video of Country singer Morgan Wallen using the ‘N-word’. Once publicized, the consequences appeared to be immediate - his label suspended him indefinitely and the largest radio stations all ceased utilizing his catalog.
Wallen was on his way to full country-superstar status in 2021; named Best New Artist by CMAs, big profile in The New Yorker, and a #1 album for 3 weeks - the first country record to do that in the last decade.
A quick timeline of Wallen’s last six months:
October 2020 - Morgan Wallen pulled from SNL performance after violating Covid protocols | NBC News
November 2020 - Wallen named Best New Artist by Country Music Awards | NPR
December 21, 2020 - How Morgan Wallen Became The Most Wanted Man in Country | The New Yorker
January 8, 2021 - Morgan Wallen releases double album, “Dangerous” | Rolling Stone
January 31, 2021 - Morgan Wallen’s Dangerous: The Double Album stays put at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 for a third straight week, becoming the first country album to spend three weeks atop the list in eight years | Billboard
February 2, 2021 - Wallen apologizes after video surfaces of him using ‘N-word’ | Complex
February 2 - 5, 2021 - Wallen removed from all major radio stations | Billboard
A very strange and unexpected thing happened after video surfaced of Wallen using the ‘N-word’, Morgan Wallen's Airplay Continues to Plummet, Streams Steady, Sales Surge:
While Wallen's radio play eroded on Feb. 3, sales of his music swelled, according to preliminary reports to MRC Data. His catalog of albums and songs sold a combined 22,500 copies in the U.S. on Feb. 3 -- an increase of 339% compared to sales on Feb. 2 (5,000).
As with most things, we will have to wait for this story to develop more. I think it will be interesting to watch how his label handle the short term “profits” they are reaping in the aftermath of Wallen being removed from radio. This guy was on his way to superstardom and they have likely invested a lot of money in the marketing of his success, will there be a rehabilitation effort?
The History of Office Architecture Moment
John Seabrook with The New Yorker put together one of the better pieces about the effects Covid on the office. This is a great primer on the history of office architecture and goes to great lengths to explain how we all ended up in cubicles, open floor plans, and why big wigs get the corner offices.
Workers have responded to this steady erosion of personal space by building cubicles of sound with headphones. Bound in a sonic nutshell, you can feel like a king of infinite office space, as long as you don’t look up from your screen. Since most office work takes place on virtual desktops anyway, it was easy, pre-pandemic, to perform what was essentially remote work while occupying your employer’s expensive real estate.
Additionally, he touches on what the future of work may look like as we move from the physical space to virtual, and the privacy implications that will need to be addressed.
Extra Credit:The New Silicon Valley Perks: Child Care, Financial Planning and Therapy | WSJ
Behind Blinding Lights Moments
In honor of the little football game being played tonight, Switched on Pop dug into halftime-performer The Weeknd’s smash hit Blinding Lights. Switched on Pop is, “A podcast about the making and meaning of popular music” hosted by musicologist Nate Sloan and songwriter Charlie Harding.
In each episode, Switched on Pop, digs into the meaning of lyrics, the sonic choices made, why certain sounds can transport your emotions, and the cultural importance of songs. These guys really are the best in class option for understanding popular music and the tricks and tropes used by musicians and producers to communicate an emotion or feeling through music.
Extra Credit: How Beyoncé and The Beatles Modulate Your Emotions
Music Moment
When Prince was informed that it would be raining during his Super Bowl performance he asked, “Can you make it rain harder?”.
Prince - Super Bowl Halftime Medley (Purple Rain, All Along the Watchtower, Proud Mary, and Best of You)
Cutting Room Floor
🚨 New Section 🚨
I am going to experiment with sharing a list of stories I found interesting but did not get a full write-up.
Each week I read hundreds of articles to find the five best stories to share with you great people. Inherently, this means I read a lot of great content that does not make it in effort to keep this newsletter concise.
Let me know what you all think of this section by either hitting reply to this email or responding below.
The problem with the Peloton economy | Market
Is advertising in the Super Bowl worth it? | The Media Nut
America’s mothers are not okay | NYTimes
✅ Give me more content!
⛔️ Abort - keep it short!
What was your favorite Moment this week?
Click the link to let me know which story was your favorite!
📦Amazon Transition
🤠 Morgan Wallen
🏢Office Architecture
🚨The Weeknd
💜 Prince @ Super Bowl
📝 Cutting Room Floor
// You can find us over on twitter @fivemoments_co / @kyleillini or instagram @fivemoments_co //
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Next Distribution 2/14/2021