No Mercy / No Malice

Before He Dies on Mars, Jeff Bezos Wants to Live in Hollywood

Amazon is deploying its flywheel machine on the entertainment business

Jack Warner, co-founder of Warner Brothers, built an empire that birthed films including Casablanca, Batman, and The Shining. Warner built a 13,600-square-foot Georgian-style mansion in the 1930s, supposedly (and unlikely) with the wooden floor that Napoleon was standing on when he proposed to Josephine. It was often the site for a who’s who of the golden age of Hollywood, the archetypal studio mogul’s estate.

David Geffen, who likely amassed a larger fortune from music than any 20th-century figure, purchased the estate in 1990. In 2009, Geffen, no joke, called me on my cell and asked if he could buy the New York Times. (I was on the board.)

The most powerful men in Hollywood have occupied this residence, and still do. Jeff Bezos now owns this storied address as he constructs the greatest collection of man caves ever assembled. I’m fascinated by Bezos’ midlife crisis and how the streaming wars embody the perversion of our democracy and economy. The idolatry of innovators’ infection continues to spread.

What tech has done to retail is unfolding in media. Each year, thousands of young people…