Lessons from Amazon growth

small portfolio of philanthropy Amazon has done in the city for homelessness.

For the first two decades in existence, Amazon.com’s business blossomed quietly in Seattle, starting as a literary dot-com darling and expanding into the “Everything Store.” In fact, Amazon in 1994 was warmly embraced by a city proud of its innovative legacy tied to Boeing and Microsoft, but also committed to being an affordable, creative enclave out West.

It’s in the last five years that the acceleration of change has been so intense that the growing pains between Amazon and Seattle have been stark and visceral.

Knute Berger, a longtime Seattle columnist who has chronicled the city from a native perspective, recalls the days when Amazon hired local journalists and writers to produce highquality content to help sell books on its platform. But Amazon’s widespread success was later seen as a threat on traditional bookstores and print publishing on the whole.

“At some point, they crossed the line from being a creative dot-com to ‘The Man,’ ” Berger said.

With all of this in the rearview and looking forward to its new headquarter cities, Margaret O’Mara, a tech industry historian and University of Washington professor, said there’s an opportunity for an Amazon fresh start. She urged the company to forge a new path as a community-conscious tech giant who will support local taxes as needed.

“Building a neighborhood that’s a really great place to be a tech employee but not built for anyone else, from a city’s perspective, it’s not the kind of sustainable development you want to have,” O’Mara said. The Washington Post contributed.