In a few of these NDA's that these entrepreneurs signed, I found something very strange called a residuals clause.

And it said, basically any company meeting with Amazon for deal talks or an investment,

there's a line that you sign that says anything retained in the memory of an

Amazon executive in those talks could be used without any legal consequence to Amazon.

So as long as they remember your idea or your technology or without any legal consequence to Amazon.

So as long as they remember your idea or your technology

or something you told them, they could use it

and you can't do them.

I'm Ricky Mulvey and that's Dana Matioli,

an investigative journalist at the Wall Street Journal and the author of the Everything War,

Amazon's ruthless quest to own the world and remake corporate power.

On today's show, we're going inside the belly of the beast.

My colleague Mary Long caught up with Matioli to discuss how Amazon leverages data,

its battle in Washington, and the culture that built a multi trillion dollar company. Dana, the full title of your book is The Everything War,

War, Amazon's ruthless quest to own the world and remake corporate power.

Amazon started as a bookshop.

Was the plan always to own the world and remake corporate power?

Yeah, it's hard to remember that in 2024

that this was a fledgling against all odds online bookstore

when it launched in 1995.

And most people at that time had never even been on the

world wide web.

...