Welcome to Axisprerata, where we take just 10 minutes to get you smarter on the collision of tech, business, and politics.

I'm Danper Mac.

On today's show, Young Americans versus Capitalism and the e-commerce giant you probably haven't heard of.

But first, Return of the Jedi. On Friday, the Pentagon announced that it has picked Microsoft for a giant cloud

computing contract known as Jedi, or the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure Contract.

This is a $10 billion, 10-year agreement that basically re-architects all of the

Defense Department's IT infrastructure, including field-level military support.

Now, why it matters is twofold.

For Microsoft, it is a massive vote of confidence in Azure.

It's cloud computing platform that's been playing catch-up to Amazon Web Services. And for Amazon, it's a huge loss,

but also one full of political intrigue. Conventional wisdom in D.C. and on the West

Coast was that Amazon had Jedi in the bag, particularly after being named the finalist back in April.

But there also was talk that President Trump was highly displeased by this development.

Remember, Amazon is run by Jeff Bezos, who owns the Washington Post, which Trump despises.

And Trump has repeatedly tweeted that Amazon itself owns the Washington Post, even though

that's not true.

Anyway, in his recent memoir,

former Defense Secretary James Mattis wrote that Trump directed him to, quote, screw Amazon out of the

deal. Mattis said he refused to do that, saying he was going to have this run by the book,

but that was then back in the summer of 2018, and this is now, with Mattis no longer a DOD.

Now, Trump wasn't the only one who didn't want Amazon to win.

Indeed, a large number of tech rivals also opposed to getting the Jedi contract for competitive reasons.

...