Brewing on Books: The Everything War

Join us for a community discussion held at Commonhouse Aleworks as part of our event series Brewing on Books: A Community Book Club. This series focuses on local topics of interest for community members.

For this installment of the series, we are joined by authors Dana Mattioli, Rob Copeland, and advocacy and campaigns manager with the Institute for Local Self-Reliance Lauren Gellatly for a discussion of Amazon’s detrimental impact on the local economy and how we can protect it from exploitation.

by Dana Mattioli ($32.50 in Hardcover)

by Paul Copeland ($32 in Hardcover)

The Everything War: Amazon's Ruthless Quest to Own the World and Remake Corporate Power by Dana Mattioli ($32.50)

From veteran Amazon reporter for the Wall Street Journal, The Everything War is the first untold, devastating exposé of Amazon's endless strategic greed, from destroying Main Street to remaking corporate power, in pursuit of total domination, by any means necessary.
In 2017, Lina Khan published a paper that accused Amazon of being a monopoly, having grown so large, and embedded in so many industries, it was akin to a modern-day Standard Oil. Unlike Rockefeller’s empire, however, Bezos’s company had grown voraciously without much scrutiny. In fact, for over twenty years, Amazon had emerged as a Wall Street darling and its “customer obsession” approach made it indelibly attractive to consumers across the globe. But the company was not benevolent; it operated in ways that ensured it stayed on top. Lina Khan’s paper would light a fire in Washington, and in a matter of years, she would become the head of the FTC. In 2023, the FTC filed a monopoly lawsuit against Amazon in what may become one of the largest antitrust cases in the twenty-first century.
With unparalleled access, and having interviewed hundreds of people from Amazon executives to competitors to small businesses who rely on its marketplace to survive —Mattioli exposes how Amazon was driven by a competitive edge to dominate every industry it entered, bulldozed all who stood in its way, reshaped the retail landscape, transformed how Wall Street evaluates companies, and altered the very nature of the global economy. It has come to control most of online retail, and uses its own sellers’ data to compete with them through Amazon’s own private label brands. Millions of companies and governmental agencies use AWS, paying hefty fees for the service. And, the company has purposefully avoided collecting taxes for years, exploited partners, and even copied competitors—leveraging its power to extract whatever it can, at any cost. It has continued to gain market share in disparate areas, from media to logistics and beyond. Most companies dominate one or two industries; Amazon now leads in several. And all of this was by design.

About the Author

Dana Mattioli has been a reporter for the Wall Street Journal since 2006. She has written investigative pieces and Front Page stories about Amazon since 2019 and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Investigative Journalism for her work on Amazon. Her Amazon coverage also received the 2021 Gerald Loeb Award for Beat Reporting. In 2021, she received the WERT Prize, an award from the Women’s Economic Round Table that honors excellence in comprehensively reported business journalism for her Amazon investigations, and received a Front Page Award for her Amazon coverage.
Prior to covering Amazon, Dana held one of the WSJ’s highest-profile beats covering mergers and acquisitions. During her seventeen-year career at WSJ she has produced a string of investigations and Page One stories on CEOs, boards of directors, technology companies and retailers. Dana is the recipient of a second Gerald Loeb award for breaking news, the SABEW breaking news award, two New York Press Club awards and was a finalist for the Larry Birger Young Business Journalist Award. Dana has appeared on CNBC, Good Morning America, Fox Business News, and Cheddar. She was the subject of a Wall Street Journal advertisement campaign about how the newspaper’s highest-profile stories came together.

The Fund: Ray Dalio, Bridgewater Associates, and the Unraveling of a Wall Street Legend by Rob Copeland ($32)

The unauthorized, unvarnished story of famed Wall Street hedge-fund manager Ray Dalio.

When Ray Dalio, billionaire founder of Bridgewater Associates, the world’s largest hedge fund, announced in October 2022 that he was stepping down from the company he founded forty-seven years ago, the news made headlines around the world. Dalio achieved worldwide fame thanks to a mystique of success cultivated in frequent media appearances, celebrity hobnobbing, and his bestselling book, Principles. In The Fund, Copeland draws on hundreds of interviews with those inside and around the firm to reveal what really goes on with Dalio and his cohorts behind closed doors.

Tracing more than fifty years of Dalio’s leadership, The Fund peels back the curtain to reveal a rarified world of wealth and power, where former FBI director Jim Comey kisses Dalio’s ring, recent Pennsylvania Senate candidate David McCormick sells out, and countless Bridgewater acolytes describe what it’s like to work at this fascinating firm.

Dalio has stepped down from Bridgewater before; will the legacy of his Principles continue to chart the course of the firm? The Fund provides unique insight into the story of Dalio and Bridgewater, past, present and future.

About the Author

Rob Copeland is a finance reporter for the New York Times. He was previously the longtime hedge-fund beat reporter at the Wall Street Journal and has also covered Silicon Valley and the hidden worlds of the wealthy and powerful. His front-page investigations into Bridgewater Associates won a New York Press Club award; he was also awarded an honorable mention twice by the Society of American Business Writers (SABEW) and was named a News Media “Alliance Rising Star” (formerly Top 30 Under 30). He has appeared on ABC’s Good Morning America, NPR and other major news networks.

About the Moderator

Lauren is the Advocacy and Campaigns Manager for ILSR’s Independent Business team where she brings her background in advocacy, economic development, and independent business support. Lauren executes campaign strategies and manages relationships with allied organizations and coalition partners, including a coalition of nearly 30 independent business groups and alliances – Small Business Rising – advocating for antimonopoly reforms.

Prior to her work at ILSR, Lauren worked at organizations including the Trust for Public Land, the Pratt Center for Community Development, and Lowcountry Local First. Her nearly 10 years at Lowcountry Local First included leading policy and advocacy, government relations, the Good Business Summit, special projects, and acting as the Director of Operations. Lauren’s educational background includes a B.A. from the College of Charleston for Preservation and Planning, and a M.S. from Pratt Institute in City and Regional Planning. Lauren lives with her family in Charleston, South Carolina.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Commonhouse Aleworks, 4831 O'Hear Avenue, North Charleston, United States