Amazon's Bezos takes on larger civic and business challenges

Palos Verdes, California

JEFF Bezos built Amazon into an e-commerce and computing powerhouse. Now, his ambitions are more sprawling as he takes on ever larger civic and business challenges.

Those diverse interests were on display on Tuesday when Mr Bezos, Amazon's chief executive, spoke onstage at the Code technology conference, where he commented on an array of topics, including workplace culture, privacy and his decision to buy The Washington Post in 2013.

Mr Bezos said that he bought the newspaper because he wanted to make it into a more powerful national - and even global - publication, and that the Post was well situated to be a watchdog over the leade…