Jake Hanrahan investigates the inner workings of the world’s largest corporations in ‘Megacorp’

February 4, 2022

“Megacorp” host Jake Hanrahan stopped by Podsauce to chat about the podcast’s first season that takes a deep dive into Amazon’s business practices. Jake told Podsauce hosts Alesha and Dax why this series is journalism, not activism, and the episodes address many of the company’s controversies – from tax evasion to surveillance concerns. In this interview, Jake shares the tech giant he’s eyeing to feature next season and why he’s hesitant to use digital assistants.

“Megacorp” is a Cool Zone Media and iHeart series that has released over 10 episodes thus far. Stream “Megacorp” from episode one, running 35 minutes each on average.

Season 1, episode 1 started by talking to Amazon’s warehouse workers and looked at the workers’ alleged mistreatment, safety issues, and taxation. Alesha tuned into a recent episode of “Megacorp” that explored if digital assistants and home security systems are spying on you.

In the home security systems episode, Jake’s research made him more skeptical about digital assistants – that he believes these devices are geared more toward monitoring and cataloguing information on the devices’ owners.

Dax asked Jake why he chose to investigate Amazon this season, and he said it was one of the few companies that grew even larger during the pandemic, and there are so many alleged scandals to report on. Other episodes dove into reported unsafe and sketchy working conditions. For example, due to apparent negligence, people died in an Amazon Warehouse when a tornado struck. And employees’ bathroom breaks are allegedly timed. The company is legally able to avoid taxes, and there’s a potentially illegal situation attempting to stop workers from unionizing.

At the end of the day, Jake is still an Amazon customer. He currently has a book for sale on Amazon (Gargoyle: Reporting from frontlines, jail cells, and trap houses) and does not cast Bezos as an evil character. Jake also runs a journalism platform called Popular Front and explained that its Instagram account has been banned several times and brought back. He is considering investigating Facebook/Meta for a future “Megacorp” season.

Lastly, Jake shared his podcast picks including “Hood Politics,” “Angry Planet,” and “Unresolved.” Check out all podcasts picks below: