I’m With Stupid ⇥ allthingsd.com

What happens when a guy who likes to stretch the trust of shareholders of his company quotes an idiot in a memo to shareholders? Peter Kafka, AllThingsD:

We build automated systems that look for occasions when we’ve provided a customer experience that isn’t up to our standards, and those systems then proactively refund customers. One industry observer recently received an automated email from us that said, “We noticed that you experienced poor video playback while watching the following rental on Amazon Video On Demand: Casablanca. We’re sorry for the inconvenience and have issued you a refund for the following amount: $2.99. We hope to see you again soon.” Surprised by the proactive refund, he ended up writing about the experience: “Amazon ‘noticed that I experienced poor video playback …’ And they decided to give me a refund because of that? Wow … Talk about putting customers first.”

I don’t know why Bezos didn’t want to identify Blodget as “the industry observer” by name.

Because it’s embarrassing to quote a guy who was banned from the securities industry by the SEC in an SEC-approved memo as to why you’re an awesome company.

Anyway, Blodget scratched Bezos’ back. So what’s Bezos to do? Invest in Blodget’s company, that’s what.