The special details the events before, during, and after Shatner's life-changing flight - which made him the oldest person to ever travel to the cosmos - and the growing friendship between the Star Trek icon and Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos, whose dreams of space travel, like many, were inspired by the original Star Trek series.
The special is in partnership with The Washington Post and staff writer Christian Davenport, whose depth of experience allowed him to gain inside access to key players.
Along with Google, Apple, Microsoft and Facebook, Amazon is one of the Big Five companies in the US tech industry. It has become one of the most influential companies in the world. In 2018, it surpassed 100 million subscribers worldwide. It took someone like Jeff Bezos to build the revolutionary business. The American audacious entrepreneur, one of the worlds’ richest business leaders…and founder of the giant tech company and world’s largest marketplace. As of February 2021, he was reported to be the second-richest person in the world, with an estimated worth of $185 billion, after Elon Musk.
Jeff Bezos is not only one of the richest men in the world, he has built a business empire that is without precedent in the history of American capitalism. His power to shape everything from the future of work to the future of commerce to the future of technology is unrivaled. As politicians and regulators around the world start to consider the global impact of Amazon — and how to rein in Bezos’ power — FRONTLINE investigates how he executed a plan to build one of the most influential economic and cultural forces in the world.
Amazon has become one of the most powerful corporations in the world, and only the second company ever to be valued over US$1 trillion. This film investigates its strategies, inner workings and ideologies and asks whether the services that we have become so dependent on could eventually cost us our hard won freedoms, and how one of the world’s most trusted brands has influenced our individual behaviour, labour force and culture.