Jeff Bezos believes public figures such as himself, Peter Thiel and Donald Trump need thick skin and shouldn’t waste their time fighting media outlets critical of them.
Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.com Inc. and owner of the Washington Post, criticized Thiel’s effort to cripple Gawker Media Inc. on Tuesday at Recode’s Code Conference in Southern California.
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When asked if he believed if someone like Thiel should be able to fund a lawsuit where the intention is to silence a media critic, Bezos said “I don’t.”
“The best defense to speech that you don’t like about yourself as a public figure is to develop a thick skin, because you can’t stop criticism,” Bezos told host Walt Mossberg. “You are going to get it. If you’re doing anything interesting in the world, you are going to have critics. You can’t stop it. Move forward. It’s not worth losing any sleep over.”
Bezos is no stranger to media criticism. In one notable case, the New York Times last year wrote a bruising expose on “brutal” working conditions inside Amazon’s offices.
Last week, Thiel, a co-founder of PayPal Inc. and one of Silicon Valley’s best-known venture capitalists, admitted he had been secretly bankrolling wrestler Hulk Hogan’s defamation lawsuit against Gawker, in which a jury awarded Hogan more than $140 million in damages, a sum that likely would bankrupt Gawker. Thiel is said to hold a grudge against Gawker after the gossip blog outed him as gay in 2007.
Bezos is not a big fan of vengeance either: “Seek revenge and you will dig two graves — one for yourself,” he said Tuesday.
While not defending Gawker’s style of journalism, Bezos took a firm stand on First Amendment rights. “Beautiful speech doesn’t need protection,” he said. “It’s ugly speech that needs protection.”
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Bezos also called out presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump for “working to freeze or chill the media that are examining him.”
“That is not appropriate,” Bezos said. “We live in this amazing democracy … with free speech, and a presidential candidate should welcome that.”
In a wide-ranging interview, Bezos also spoke about how Amazon’s artificial-intelligence project, Alexa, could one day become one of the pillars of the company; Amazon’s effort to improve working conditions by financially backing employees’ training for in-demand careers that are not necessarily at Amazon; and of his hope his rocket company, Blue Origin, will help lay the groundwork for the next generation of space exploration, including the colonization of Mars. “People will settle Mars — and we should, because it’s cool,” Bezos said.
This article was originally published on Marketwatch.
