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Readers! A November fund-raising drive!

 

It is unfortunately time for another November fund-raising campaign to support my work here at Behind the Black. I really dislike doing these, but 2025 is so far turning out to be a very poor year for donations and subscriptions, the worst since 2020. I very much need your support for this webpage to survive.

 

And I think I provide real value. Fifteen years ago I said SLS was garbage and should be cancelled. Almost a decade ago I said Orion was a lie and a bad idea. As early as 1998, long before almost anyone else, I predicted in my first book, Genesis: The Story of Apollo 8, that private enterprise and freedom would conquer the solar system, not government. Very early in the COVID panic and continuing throughout I noted that every policy put forth by the government (masks, social distancing, lockdowns, jab mandates) was wrong, misguided, and did more harm than good. In planetary science, while everyone else in the media still thinks Mars has no water, I have been reporting the real results from the orbiters now for more than five years, that Mars is in fact a planet largely covered with ice.

 

I could continue with numerous other examples. If you want to know what others will discover a decade hence, read what I write here at Behind the Black. And if you read my most recent book, Conscious Choice, you will find out what is going to happen in space in the next century.

 

 

This last claim might sound like hubris on my part, but I base it on my overall track record.

 

So please consider donating or subscribing to Behind the Black, either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. I could really use the support at this time. There are five ways of doing so:

 

1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.

 

2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation. Takes about a 10% cut.
 

3. A Paypal Donation or subscription, which takes about a 15% cut:

 

4. Donate by check. I get whatever you donate. Make the check payable to Robert Zimmerman and mail it to
 
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652

 

You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.


Bezos sells an additional billion dollars in Amazon stock

Jeff Bezos this week sold an additional billion dollars in Amazon stock, bringing his total cash-in in 2019 now to $2.8 billion, and his total cash sales of stock to about $5 billion since he said several years ago that he would sell about $1 billion per year to finance his space company Blue Origin.

He still owns 12% of Amazon.

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 

The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.


The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
 

"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

5 comments

  • wodun

    If he had a product and customers, he wouldn’t have to sell all his stock.

  • Dick Eagleson

    Even at $3 billion a year, Bezos has about 40 years worth left. And that’s without allowing for future growth in the share price. Even if one of Bezos’s other billionaire buddies cracks the life extension problem, he’ll be able to peel off $3 billion a year effectively forever. But I don’t think he’s going to keep doing that once Blue Origin actually starts making serious money.

  • wodun

    That he has extra money to waste could be part of the problem because there isn’t pressure to actually get something done. In the long term, he may not run out of money but it could create a company culture that stagnates the company and prevents it from being able to respond to competition. I think Bezos’ efforts to capture government are an effort to deal with competition and it could be very successful but I don’t like that way of doing business.

    To be clear, I want BO to be successful. My criticism comes from a place of wishing they would get there faster and not engage in some practices with perverse incentives for corruption.

  • Edward_2

    Where do you put $2.8B in cash???? Under a VERY BIG mattress?

  • wayne

    from the article—
    “The sale marked Bezos’ first since October of last year, when he sold $33 million worth of stock, according to forms filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. This time, Bezos sold more than 950,000 shares over three sales between July 29 and July 31 at a price of about $1,900 per share. After the most recent sale, Bezos still owns 58.1 million shares in Amazon. The sale appears to be Bezos’ largest over such a short period in the history of the company based on dollar value.
    >Bezos told reporters in 2017 that he plans to sell about $1 billion in Amazon stock each year to fund his space exploration company, Blue Origin.
    >Separately, Bezos and his now ex-wife MacKenzie pledged $2 billion in 2018 to launch the “Day One Fund” to help homeless families and create preschools.
    >In his divorce settlement with his wife MacKenzie Bezos, Jeff Bezos kept 75% of the couple’s Amazon stock and voting control over MacKenzie Bezos’ shares.
    Amazon declined to comment further on the recent filings. After the sale, Bezos’ net worth will be about $115 billion, Forbes estimated.”

    SEC Filing is here
    https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1018724/000101872419000079/xslF345/wf-form4_156462152514345.xml

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