What are we to make of the wedding between Jeff Bezos – the creator of Amazon and said to be the world’s third richest man – and Lauren Sanchez, due to take place here in Venice tomorrow?
The venue is supposedly the 16th-century basilica on the tiny island of San Giorgio Maggiore, which is almost opposite the Doge’s Palace across a small stretch of water. If I crane my head out of the window, I can see the distant outlines of the bell tower that stands next to San Giorgio.
Opposite me, at a distance of perhaps 300 yards across the Giudecca Canal, a large blue superyacht has just moored. One of Jeff’s billionaire wedding guests, I expect. Bezos’s much grander boat, Koru, was meant to fill this berth until he was scared off by security worries. It is said to be floating somewhere out in the Adriatic Sea.
Yes, dear reader, I am in Venice – though not for the Bezos-Sanchez nuptials. But now I’m in the world’s most beautiful city, it is dawning on me that this wedding is an event of great cultural significance in the strange times in which we live.
Some Venetians are up in arms about the influx of a couple of hundred very rich people, but by no means all. The water taxi drivers, who will ferry around guests and their hangers-on, are happy. So, too, are restaurateurs and hoteliers, who will cater for the world’s Press. I suspect many Venetians are largely indifferent.
No, it’s the intellectuals who are grumpy – the anti-capitalists and usual bolshie types. Last week, activists unfurled a banner on the Rialto Bridge, bearing the message ‘No Space for Bezos’, an allusion to the rocket-building billionaire’s plans to extend his empire into outer space.
A banner with Jeff’s surname crossed out in red was hung on the bell tower on San Giorgio. Meanwhile, Greenpeace Italy and the group Everyone Hates Elon (i.e. Elon Musk) placed a huge banner in Piazza San Marco that read: ‘If you can rent Venice for your wedding, you can pay more tax.’
This was a not unreasonable reference to Jeff Bezos’s famous reluctance to open his pockets to the taxman.
All this explains why Koru has been bobbing about nervously in the Adriatic. Jeff and Lauren eventually arrived in Venice yesterday afternoon by helicopter, before taking a water taxi to the luxurious Aman Venice hotel on the Grand Canal.
Where should the sympathies of those of us who aren’t billionaires lie in this stand-off between anti-capitalists and arch-capitalists? I see the protesters as symbolising the once great empire of Venice, now reduced to a bewitching tourist resort, situated in a larger decaying empire, otherwise known as Europe.
A few days ago, US B-2 bombers pulverised nuclear sites in Iran. It was a formidable demonstration of American power. But if anyone really wants to look at American power that has transformed – and continues to transform – the world, they should cast an eye towards Venice.
Of course, Jeff and Lauren and some of their friends are brash and somewhat vulgar. An enterprising photographer snapped the couple enjoying a ‘foam party’ on Koru earlier this week. He is 61 and she is 55. Neither was wearing many clothes.
Lauren (who happens to be a former journalist) has reportedly received the close attentions of cosmetic and breast surgeons. She was, in my humble opinion, prettier before they were let loose.
Some of their friends may not be the sort of people you would necessarily wish to take home to introduce to your parents – or indeed to your children. Kim Kardashian will be in Venice, along with her sizeable bottom. So will the singer Lady Gaga. Celebrity interviewer Oprah Winfrey is expected.
So, yes, they may not have attended the best finishing schools, and possibly in some cases no schools at all. If this lot had pitched up in Venice 400 years ago, the Doge of the day would have probably consigned them to the Piombi prison and dropped the key into the lagoon.
All true. And yet the fact remains that Jeff Bezos is a kind of genius who has created an enterprise – Amazon – that supplies an indispensable service for hundreds of millions of people, besides offering employment to many hundreds of thousands.
I realise that Amazon has driven some traditional shops out of business. I accept that it has often enjoyed the benefit of lower business rates. I acknowledge that it has been criticised by many governments for not paying its fair share of tax.
Nevertheless – and I can only speak for myself, though I daresay I’m not untypical – I must have been saved hundreds of hours by Mr Bezos. Instead of trudging along to the local ironmonger to be told that they have run out of the required size of wing nuts, I turn to Amazon, which sells every wing nut imaginable.
I bet that even some of the Lefties who have been trying to scare off Jeff and Lauren surreptitiously use the services of Amazon Italy. Plucky little boats regularly make their way from the mainland carrying Amazon’s wares for the denizens of Venice.
We don’t have to use Amazon. We can go to the local bookshop and enjoy a cup of coffee as we browse. We can even continue to patronise the local ironmonger, despite his poor selection of wing nuts. But for those who want it, Amazon is there – and for many it is a boon.
As for governments who complain that Amazon doesn’t pay all the taxes that it might, they should simply try harder to outwit Jeff. He and his employees are only human.
What’s true of Bezos applies to other titans of the American tech revolution, some of whom will also be in Venice.
Like many people, I have a love-hate relationship with my smartphone. I’ll nonetheless make another bet – that some of the anti-capitalists hanging up banners have a sleek iPhone nestling in the back pocket of their jeans.
For better or worse, American companies have shaped the modern world: Amazon, Meta, Apple, Google (now called Alphabet), Microsoft (whose co-founder Bill Gates is expected here) and even Elon Musk (SpaceX, Tesla, and X, formerly Twitter).
The billionaires who built up these enormous businesses are seldom very nice men. They and their companies must be interrogated by governments. For all I know, some of these are so big they should be broken up, as were American monopolies at the end of the 19th century.
But the point is that the United States is a dynamic economy, which even Trump can’t destroy, and Jeff Bezos is one of the most dynamic entrepreneurs on the planet. Venice is a beautiful place but its beauty was created by great men who are long dead and will never be replaced.
We can mock Jeff and Lauren if we wish. In fact, we should do so if it makes us feel better. They are in their way comic figures. But the future lies with them and their ilk, not with poor, lovely Venice, nor with our own declining continent.