• Amazon drivers can earn up to an extra $25,000 for the holidays if you thank them for a delivery.
• The company has brought back its "Thank my driver" feature after first launching it in 2022.
• Amazon covered a limited amount of $5 thank-yous at no cost to customers.

Amazon brought back its promotion that'll allow you to thank your delivery driver this holiday season.

If you're pleased with your ride, you can participate by typing "Thank my Driver" into the search bar of your Amazon app or asking Alexa to "thank my driver." You'll have to thank them within 14 days of your last delivery.

It's already got a lot of traction in 2024.

The "Thank My Driver" promotion began on December 4 this year, and Amazon tipped drivers $5 for the first 2 million thank-yous from US customers.

Amazon hit the 2-million limit within six days. However, there are still ways to help your delivery person earn extra cash.

Similar to 2023, the company is offering "additional awards" for drivers who receive praise for their deliveries, according to a press release from Amazon.

Here's what Amazon is offering: "$100 each for the 1,000 most-thanked drivers each day through the rest of December; $10,000 for the seven top-thanked drivers each week until the end of December."

Meanwhile, the seven most-thanked Amazon drivers from December 4 to December 31 will receive $25,000 plus an extra $25,000 to be donated to the charity of their choice.

"Treat your customers like family, and they will do the same to you," driver Andrew Shearouse, one of the 2023 recipients of the $25,000 tip, said.

Only US-based drivers are eligible, and they must be an Amazon Flex partner, drive for a delivery service partner, or be a hub delivery associate. A delivery driver can only be thanked once per delivery. Amazon package deliveries from the Post Office and companies like UPS aren't eligible for the extra rewards.

Those looking for other ways to thank their delivery people can check TikTok, where creators are posting about the care packages they leave on their doorstep — especially during the busy holiday delivery season.

During the holiday season, Amazon drivers' shifts can be as long as 10 hours — and a serious workout. There are some Amazon drivers who earn $18 an hour compared to full-time UPS drivers who earn an average total compensation package of $145,000 per year, according to UPS.

In September, Amazon announced that it will spend $2.1 billion to give its delivery drivers a pay raise. Although the exact rate depends on location, the boost may bump drivers' pay to a national average of $22 an hour.

• "Beast Games" is the Amazon Prime Video game show from the YouTuber MrBeast.
• The show is family-friendly, but its message about the concept of money makes me uncomfortable.
• I'd say to enjoy the show but remind your kids that money doesn't work this way in real life.

"Beast Games," the game show on Amazon Prime Video from MrBeast, debuted Thursday, and I watched along with my elementary-aged son. As an adult, I enjoyed the spectacle and found the show highly watchable. But as a parent, I'm not sure I liked the message about money it was imparting to my young ward.

Elementary-school-aged kids, whether or not they're allowed to watch YouTube, all know who MrBeast is. He's a superstar to Gen Alpha. His candy bars are on grocery-store shelves, and his specter hangs over playgrounds and lunchrooms.

(My colleague reports that his teenage son says MrBeast isn't quite as cool in high schools anymore, perhaps because he's seen as being for little kids.)

Like most parents, I want to teach my kids the value of a dollar: that money comes from hard work and that saving and budgeting are important.

"Beast Games" flies in the face of all that. Money is tossed around as this strange easy-come, easy-go object. It opens with MrBeast standing on a pyramid of cash (allegedly the full $5 million prize in stacks of bills). We are repeatedly told this is the largest cash prize ever in a game show.

The show's premise is that a group of contestants will compete in challenges to win that big prize — a season-long version of some of his popular YouTube videos.

Later in the season there will be physical challenges (we see preview clips of people pulling a monster truck), but in this first episode the games are almost all psychological tests.

This first series of minigames aims to winnow the contestant pool to 500 people from 1,000. The games are variations on the prisoner's dilemma, pitting what's good for an individual against what's good for the group.

In the first game, MrBeast makes this offer: Anyone who quits the game immediately can share a pot of money — but the pot gets smaller as more people choose to take the early out. In another game, each team of about 100 people must have one person sacrifice themselves and leave the game with no prize money at all — or else the whole team is eliminated. People are sobbing, yelling at each other to be the ones to quit.

I worry about the message 'Beast Games' sends

It's a fascinating challenge to watch as an adult. But I'm not sure a kid can really understand what's going on — the wrenching pain of people losing what they thought could be a chance to pay off loans or buy a home.

In the game, money is an object to build into pyramids or toss around in bags — it's funny money; it doesn't feel real.

Representatives for MrBeast declined to comment for this story.

Other game shows have cash prizes, even kid-friendly ones like "Is It Cake?" or even the old "Double Dare" on Nickelodeon. But on other shows, the prize is an exciting treat at the end — it isn't the whole point of the show.

In "Beast Games," money is the point — and even the games themselves are about money. I'm not sure I like what subtle message that's sending to young minds not old enough to earn a real paycheck.

Update: December 20, 2024 — MrBeast representatives declined to comment when contacted by BI; the story has been updated reflecting that.

• Evercore says Amazon Pharmacy's revenue may hit $2 billion this year.
• Interest in Amazon's online pharmacy service rose to 45% in Evercore's survey from 34% last year.
• The US prescription market is worth about $435 billion.

Amazon's online pharmacy business is drawing significantly more customer interest, and it could generate roughly $2 billion in revenue this year, according to the financial firm Evercore.

In a note published last week, the Evercore analyst Mark Mahaney highlighted his firm's recent survey indicating rising interest in and usage of Amazon Pharmacy.

A record 45% of Amazon customers surveyed said they were "extremely interested" or "very interested" in buying online medications from the company, up from 34% last year and from 14% in 2020. The note said it was the largest year-over-year increase in purchase intent for pharmaceuticals among Amazon shoppers in eight years. Evercore ran the survey in June and included 1,100 respondents.

The survey also found that 13% of Amazon customers said they had purchased pharma products from Amazon, compared with 9% last year.

Evercore estimated, based on "several sources," that all this could result in roughly $2 billion in revenue for Amazon's pharmacy business. Business Insider previously reported that Amazon's internal forecast showed its pharmacy business generating $1.8 billion in sales after recording $1.25 billion last year.

Amazon's growth is squeezing retail pharmacy businesses too. On Tuesday, The Wall Street Journal reported that Walgreens was in talks to sell itself to a private-equity firm.

Evercore believes half of Prime membership households will eventually shop for online medications on Amazon, which could result in $33 billion in additional revenue and $1.6 billion in operating income over the next three to five years.

"This inflection in consumer intent to purchase prescriptions online, and on Amazon, may well be a sign of Amazon closing in on a potential Rx market unlock," Mahaney wrote in the note.

Mahaney also wrote that Amazon was aggressively expanding its same-day-delivery service for pharmaceutical products, noting a recent announcement that said it would cover nearly half of US consumers by the end of 2025. He also highlighted the sheer size of the US prescription market, about $435 billion, of which Amazon Pharmacy has penetrated less than 1%.

Amazon's spokesperson declined to comment.

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• MrBeast spent $14 million building a "city" for his "Beast Games" show.
• The show, premiering on December 19, features 1,000 contestants and a $5 million prize.
• Controversy has surrounded the show with complaints about conditions and a potential lawsuit.

MrBeast has shared some photos of the "city" he built as part of his upcoming game show, "Beast Games," which he says cost $14 million.

"We spent $14,000,000 building a city in a field for the contestants in Beast Games to live and compete in," MrBeast, whose real name is Jimmy Donaldson, wrote on X, alongside four photos of the set. "December 19th is almost here 🥰"

Donaldson, YouTube's biggest star with 335 million subscribers, has already shared some details about the scale of production on "Beast Games."

In an interview with fellow YouTubers KSI and Logan Paul, Donaldson revealed he'd "spent way more than $100 million" on the show and recently shared that the production had broken 40 world records.

Amazon has also promoted "Beast Games" as "the world's largest live gameshow" with the "biggest single prize in the history of television and streaming" of $5 million.

It premiers on Prime Video on December 19 and is supposed to kick-start Amazon's video ad sales efforts by attracting a wide audience and appealing to advertisers.

In one X post, Donaldson was asked how he planned to make up the money he spent on "Beast Games."

"The goal is to make the best content possible not make money," he replied.

In the trailer, which dropped on December 6, Donaldson promised that "Beast Games" would be "the most insane competition show you've ever seen" with 1,000 contestants. Clips included footage of the $5 million grand prize, a massive pirate ship, monster trucks, Navy seals, and stunts.

One of the photos Donaldson shared was "a render of the city," which had a moat running around the outside.

"We ran out of time and didn't get around to building the moat," he said in response to one query on X. "But everything else is accurate."

The set of the specially built "city" is in Toronto, CBC reported in September.

Toronto City Hall's film and entertainment department confirmed to the outlet that it was the site but declined to comment further for "confidentiality reasons."

Donaldson's rep confirmed the city's site as Toronto and told BI that Donaldson donated many of the goods used in the shoot, including mattresses, sleeping bags, and clothing, to local organizations afterward.

Paramedics and firefighters confirmed to CBC that they were aware of the production, and police told the outlet that its department's explosive disposal unit was consulted.

CBC drone footage showed a large cement tower and two rows of single-story houses surrounded by a red wall.

"Beast Games" aligns with Amazon's strategy of increasing spending on entertainment and sports content.

The show's coverage has not been entirely smooth sailing, though. Both Donaldson and conditions on set have faced bad press.

Some contestants have complained about inadequate living conditions, injuries, insufficient hygiene on set, and being subjected to sexism in a New York Times report. Five contestants are seeking to file a class-action lawsuit, though a rep for Donaldson told BI nobody has been served yet.

Amazon declined to comment on the lawsuit to BI. A spokesperson for Donaldson previously told BI that Amazon was not involved in the Las Vegas round of the show, where many of the allegations surfaced, which was "a promotional video shoot."

The spokesperson also said that this shoot was "unfortunately complicated by the CrowdStrike incident, extreme weather, and other unexpected logistical and communications issues."

Much of the rumors and allegations directed at Donaldson and the show went unanswered for months until Donaldson appeared on YouTube Oompaville's channel to address everything at once on November 23.

Donaldson said he could not address some of the allegations due to legal proceedings, but he described some of the claims about injuries on set as "disinformation."

• Ethan Evans, a former Amazon VP, led a failed project in 2011 that interrupted Jeff Bezos' launch plans.
• The failure involved a critical design flaw in the Amazon Appstore's "Test Drive" feature.
• It taught Evans to communicate in a crisis, take ownership of a problem, and rebuild trust slowly.

I worked at Amazon for 15 years, starting in 2005 as a senior manager. When I left in 2020, I was a vice president.

My biggest launch failure was in 2011 on a project Jeff Bezos personally cared about. The failure interrupted Bezos' plan to present the feature publicly, causing me to miss my promotion and almost leave the company. However, I went on to be promoted from director to VP and have a long and happy career.

I learned a lot about dealing with a crisis and rebuilding trust as well as a lot about Bezos as a leader. He taught me the importance of maintaining high standards while being willing to forgive and move on.

Here's the story of my biggest failure

When I started at Amazon, I was assigned to Prime Video and had periodic direct exposure to Bezos.

When I was promoted to director, I continued working with Bezos on creating Amazon Studios. Throughout my first six years at the company, I met with him at least once a quarter about one of my projects.

In 2010, I started working on the Amazon Appstore. We planned a new feature called "Test Drive," which allowed you to simulate an app on your phone before buying it.

Bezos was excited about this feature and planned to make it the focus of his launch announcement. At the time, when Amazon launched something new, the company would replace the normal homepage with a personal letter from him explaining the new offering.

Our launch's "Jeff Letter" focused on the "Test Drive" feature. The night before the launch, our team launched the new store.

Everything except the "Test Drive" feature was working well

We worked through the night to debug the intermittent failures, but as morning came and the announcement was supposed to go out, the feature wasn't working. At 6 a.m., I got an email from Bezos asking why his letter was not on the homepage.

I replied that we were working on some problems, hoping he would get in the shower, go on the treadmill, or do anything else to buy us more time. Within a few minutes, he responded and asked, what problems?

All hell broke loose.

The VP and SVP above me both woke up and started asking questions, and more and more leaders were CC'ed into the email thread. We quickly realized that our feature had some critical design flaws and wouldn't be a quick or easy fix.

The first three lessons I learned were during the crisis, and the next three were learned after.

Mid-crisis

Lesson one: Communicate clearly and predictably

I began sending hourly updates to Bezos and the other leaders, working to slowly re-establish trust. Each message briefly explained where we stood and what we would be doing in the next hour, and they each promised a further update in the next hour.

Lesson two: Accept help

Other leaders who had experienced similar problems reached out and offered help from their teams, so within a couple of hours, several very senior engineers were working with my team.

They quickly figured out the problems and announced that we had a design flaw that needed to be re-written. The temporary solution was to work around it with extra hardware. Without this workaround, it could've been days before the feature was up and running.

Lesson three: No all-night launches

Planning an early morning launch that required us to work all night became an obvious flaw. I needed to be sharp to manage the crisis, and my team needed to be able to help with the fixes. We started rotating people home to sleep in shifts, and we learned never to accept a launch schedule that would put us in this position again.

As my team and I became increasingly exhausted, Bezos became increasingly frustrated. He wanted a fix that day. This led to the other leaders ramping up the pressure, and the weight on us kept getting heavier.

We were finally saved when the CTO, Werner Vogels, intervened and said the team could not fix this problem in one day. Bezos fell silent on the email threads.

Over the next few days, we patched the design problem and rewrote the code to eliminate the issue, but as the technical obstacles were removed, the management problems only increased.

The "Jeff Letter" never went live on the website. By the time we had everything fixed and tested, the news cycle had moved on, and Bezos' moment to tell his customers about the exciting new feature was gone.

After the crisis

Lesson four: Own the problem

My direct report volunteered to take the fall. The engineer who wrote some of the code did the same. My manager also sought to take overall responsibility. Ultimately, Bezos knew it was my team and code, meaning I had to own the problem.

Amazon has a process called COE (Correction of Errors), which involves a written investigation of a problem's root causes and a plan to prevent similar problems in the future. I wrote this report and was asked to share it with all my peers in the organization. Publicly sharing an analysis of our mistakes was embarrassing, but doing a good job of it helped me re-establish trust in my leadership ability.

The week after the launch, I was scheduled to attend a meeting with Bezos about another project. I considered skipping it, but I decided that if I couldn't face Bezos, I should probably pack my desk and find a new place to work.

I went to the meeting.

Bezos always sat in the same chair in his conference room. I went early and chose a chair right next to where he would sit. He came in, sat next to me, and ran the meeting. As the meeting ended, he asked me how I was doing because it must've been a tough week.

Bezos showed empathy for my experience and concern for my well-being. He could've just as easily asked for a status report or taken me to task for the problems; instead, he chose to focus on me as a person rather than on any frustration or curiosity about the project.

Lesson five: Face your leaders

Don't hide. I understand the temptation to avoid those who might criticize you, but facing Bezos reassured me that he was over his initial frustration and was willing to give me the time to rebuild trust.

In short, going to the meeting allowed me to stay at the company. I knew my job was on the line, and a single word from Bezos would've sent me packing.

Lesson six: Patiently rebuild trust

I'd been close to a promotion to VP, but now I had to re-establish that I could operate a key business carefully and consistently. I was eventually promoted, but it took two more years.

I learned that trust can be rebuilt but that it takes time.

Bezos taught me how important it is to hold your teams to high standards but also be willing to forgive and move on. He chose to be kind, empathize, and offer encouragement to me, which inspired me to spend the rest of my corporate career with Amazon.

I left in 2020, less than a year before Bezos stepped down, to focus on teaching leadership lessons to the next generation.

An Amazon representative didn't comment on this story when contacted by Business Insider.

Ethan Evans is a retired Amazon vice president with over 23 years of experience as a business executive.

Amazon has been accused of secretly slowing down Prime deliveries in low-income parts of the District of Columbia and then lying to customers who complained.

In a lawsuit filed on Wednesday, DC Attorney General Brian Schwalb alleged that Amazon violated a local consumer protection law by overcharging approximately 48,000 "historically underserved" people in "two ZIP codes east of the Anacostia River"—20019 and 20020—by millions after "secretly" changing how delivery services work in these areas.

According to Schwalb's press release, Amazon switched from using its in-house delivery service for the last mile of deliveries to these DC ZIP codes sometime in mid-2022 to "exclusively" using third-party services. These third-party services—such as USPS or UPS—are "often slower" than Amazon delivery drivers, and "Amazon knew" the switch "would result in significantly slower deliveries for residents living in these two ZIP codes yet it never informed existing or prospective Prime members living there of that exclusion," the release said.

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Washington, D.C.'s attorney general has sued the retail giant for charging residents of two zip codes the same Prime price for significantly slower delivery speeds.

• MrBeast said his Amazon show "Beast Games" broke 40 world records.
• It comes amid allegations of poor conditions and a class-action lawsuit filed by some contestants.
• MrBeast finally addressed a lot of the accusations this week, but questions remain.

MrBeast said his upcoming $100 million Amazon reality show "Beast Games" broke 40 Guinness World Records.

"Guinness just dropped off some of the world records we broke while filming Beast Games lol," MrBeast, whose real name is Jimmy Donaldson, wrote on X on Wednesday. "IM SO EXCITED TO DROP THIS SHOW IN 22 DAYS 🥰"

While he didn't reveal the full details of the records, he hinted at a few, including the largest cash prize in a game show, the most cables for a show, and the "largest island given away in a show."

It's not been smooth sailing

Donaldson, 26, is YouTube's biggest creator, with 332 million subscribers. He rose to fame with his ambitious stunts, including recreating Netflix's "Squid Game."

"Beast Games" is along the same vein, featuring at least 1,000 contestants.

Amazon has promoted it as "the world's largest live gameshow" with the "biggest single prize in the history of television and streaming" of $5 million.

Amazon announced the reality competition in March. It was supposed to kick-start Amazon's video ad sales efforts, attracting a wide audience and appealing to advertisers.

However, coverage of the show has not been entirely smooth sailing.

As well as complaints from contestants about inadequate living conditions, some have also said they were injured, not given access to hygiene products and medical care, and subjected to sexism in a New York Times report, and a class-action lawsuit five of them filed in September.

Amazon declined to comment on the lawsuit to BI. A spokesperson for Donaldson previously told BI that Amazon was not involved in the Las Vegas round of the show, where many of the allegations surfaced, which was "a promotional video shoot."

The spokesperson also said that this shoot was "unfortunately complicated by the CrowdStrike incident, extreme weather, and other unexpected logistical and communications issues."

Much of the rumors and allegations directed at Donaldson and the show went unanswered for months until Donaldson appeared on YouTube Oompaville's channel to address everything at once on November 23.

Donaldson said he could not address some of the allegations due to legal proceedings, but he described some of the claims about injuries on set as "disinformation."

Since then, Donaldson has also been more outspoken on his social media.

"We have tons of behind-the-scenes dropping when the show does to show how blown out of proportion these claims were," he wrote on X in response to a user who enquired about the "terrible conditions" on the show. "Just can't release it now because it would spoil the games."

None of the above has tempered production of "Beast Games," with Donaldson releasing a teaser on November 25, saying he had "poured everything I have into this show."

"I'll see you December 19th," he said, confirming the show's release date.

Future projects could be more difficult

Donaldson previously revealed he'd "spent way more than $100 million" on "Beast Games." He didn't clarify if this was the budget for one season, but the show has only been commissioned for one so far.

The move lines up with Amazon's strategy of increasing spending on entertainment and sports content, which "Beast Games" was supposed to be a benchmark for.

Donaldson has largely shrugged off bad press over the years, but partnering with a giant like Amazon has put more eyes on him than ever.

Creator economy experts previously told BI that "Beast Games" would not be going anywhere despite the negative headlines. But they warned that the top YouTuber may find it harder to fund his next big project because of the headache it caused Amazon.

"They'll still do partnerships with him," Diana D'Angelo, the CEO of Breaking Creatives Agency, told BI. "But maybe they'll put a bigger check on what he's actually doing and how it's being done."