Matt Levine

speaker

3,472 appearances 9 recordings 1 series first heard Jun 2026 last heard 6d ago

Matt Levine’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

Trend

recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 9 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 5.

Appearances

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Money Stuff: The Podcast · Learn More Gooder · 4 Sep 2026 podcast

It doesn't pay the soft reserve. voice-verified

It pays its own highest bid, which is because voice-verified

In fact, Amazon introduces a thing called a soft reserve price, which is sort of like a phantom bid, where it's like Amazon's bid. voice-verified

It's what Amazon thinks the slot is worth. voice-verified

So if you bid more than the soft reserve price, then you get the soft reserve price because that's the second best bid. voice-verified

And if you bid less than the soft reserve price, then you get your price because that's the second best bid. voice-verified

So in any case voice-verified

You get the second best bid, but in a in an auction with an extra bidder who bids high. voice-verified

And so the FTC finds this deceptive. voice-verified

And I think Amazon's defense is fascinating because they don't say like, we don't do that. voice-verified

They do say we disclose it clearly. voice-verified

You know, they say we actually are not lying about this, like we actually disclose things. voice-verified

But yeah, the FTC quotes all these things where they like send out like educational materials explaining second price auctions to advertisers. voice-verified

And the FTC is like, but that's not what you do. voice-verified

And Amazon's like, look, nobody buys ads based on like simplified descriptions of the auction mechanics. voice-verified

They buy ads based on like return on ad spend, right? voice-verified

So if you spend a dollar and you get four dollars of revenue, you're like, Yeah, great, I'll keep buying ads. voice-verified

Amazon's defense here, which I think is true and is just interesting to me because it's like not how the financial industry works. voice-verified

Amazon's defense is like basically this is a black box. voice-verified

Like we do not expect our advertisers to actually understand like the auction mechanics, because like voice-verified

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