In latest issue of Fortune 500 magazine, Jeff Bezos, Amazon CEO portrays as a Hindu god Vishnu on cover page. The move is highly criticized the Indian community in the US over “trivialisation of their venerated deity”.
In International edition of the January issue, Fortune Magazine features a story about Amazon’s expansion in India. The titled is ‘Amazon Invades India’ and it explained about how Bezos “aims to conquer the next trillion-dollar market”. An illustration of the Amazon CEO striking a customary form of Vishnu can be seen on the cover.
The Fortune cover page has been created by Sydney-based illustrator Nigel Buchanan. His clients include The Wall Street Journal, MTV, The New York Times, etc.
Amazon entered Indian e-retail space around three years ago and since then has focussed heavily on winning market share. With deep pockets and expertise in running e-retail operations the website has done well. “With only two years and nine months of operations in the country, Amazon.in has emerged as the largest store, with over 40 million products, of which one million are in-stock and available for immediate shipment. Amazon.in also has the largest fulfilment and storage capacity in India,” the company recently said in a statement.
Anger Over Twitter-
Ok, cool @FortuneMagazine now do one with Bezos as Jesus in honor of Black Friday? pic.twitter.com/deJ6fmhFCC
— Anil Dash (@anildash) January 9, 2016
Like with Dhoni, waiting for someone to file a case against Jeff Bezos for this Fortune magazine cover pic.twitter.com/dXolB7Lu16
— Siddarth Ravindran (@SidRavindran) January 12, 2016
Fortune Editor-In-Chief Alan Murray, however, was quick to apologise over the controversial cover. “Fair point, Anil. Apologies to those offended,” he tweeted.
CEO of technology firm Stripe, Patrick Collison, said Fortune wasn’t the only publication that had used the image of a CEO with shades of a religious figure. “I think these magazines *are* totally willing to be sacrilegious with Christian imagery too,” he tweeted with the image of a cover by The Economist that shows Steve Jobs as Moses, presenting the iPad.