Jon Stewart has come out with guns blazing against billionaire Amazon founder Jeff Bezos .
On his podcast, Stewart described a chance encounter he had with Bezos at a White House dinner with Barack and Michelle Obama a few years back.
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Although the encounter obviously happened years ago, one of the topics they touched on that night is perhaps even more relevant today, and it’s led to a fascinating discussion.
Stewart shared the story on a recent episode of his podcast.
On “The Problem With Jon Stewart,” Stewart explained that he had a conversation with Bezos at the dinner where they compared and contrasted their visions of the future.
It’s safe to say that their visions weren’t in alignment.
Bezos sees lots of service workers in the future.
According to Stewart, Bezos saw armies of service workers in the future, workers who would perform and fulfill tasks. If that sounds familiar, it should: it’s basically how Bezos runs Amazon’s massive fulfillment centers.
Stewart views things differently.
Rather than having fulfillment workers “running errands for people that have more than you,” as he described Bezos’ vision, Stewart says that people need to have a sense of pride in their work, rather than just a sense of duty.
“I think that’s a recipe for revolution.”
Stewart says this is what he told Bezos at the dinner.
“And then, like, kind of a hush falls over,” Stewart continued. “And then you hear Obama from across the couch go, ‘I agree with Jon.'”
Bezos and Amazon have been embattled recently.
While Amazon’s been around for years, it’s only been in the last few years that the company has really been under the microscope for the conditions its employees work under.
Some stories from employees paint a picture of corporate crunch and profits above all else.
Does everyone agree?
Unsurprisingly, Stewart’s story led to some interesting discussions online. A thread on the r/Futurology subreddit went in-depth on the debate. Some users pointed out that while finding fulfillment in work is nice, sometimes all you care about is pay at the end of the day.
“Sometimes I want fulfillment from my job. Sometimes I want my job to just compensate me enough and demand less of my time so I can find/have fulfillment outside of my job,” one user wrote.
Everyone wants fulfillment in their jobs.
“Even the cleaners and garbage collectors want to feel like the job they’ve done will help someone do even better things,” said one Redditor.
While we might not always find fulfillment in our jobs, the desire is always there.
Are billionaires just playing a game?
When you have Bezos money — heck, even if you have one one-hundredth of what Bezos has — it’s difficult to see workers as anything but commodities. After all, much of their success comes from the way they’ve moved the pieces on the board rather than how they’ve related to actual human beings.
Just like The Sims.
“We assume they design their businesses for efficiency etc, but in most cases I think it is just a sick game to them,” one commenter pointed out . “Bezos is literally playing the sims with real human lives, move a bathroom over here, change the algorithm this way and watch a grown man/woman wet themselves in a factory!”
What do you think?
How fulfilling is your job? How fulfilling would you like it to be? How do you see the future shaping up for workers? Could there eventually be a revolution?
These are big questions and we don’t have the answers — but we do want to know your thoughts, so be sure to share them in the comments!
You can check out Jon Stewart’s video below.
