Amazon reportedly invested in startups and gained proprietary information before launching competitors, often crushing the smaller companies in the process

Amazon has been using the startup investment process to help it make its own competing products, according to a new report from The Wall Street Journal's Dana Mattioli and Cara Lombardo. The Journal spoke with dozens of startup founders, investors, and advisers, who said Amazon met with or invested in their companies, only to later build its own products that directly competed with the smaller company. The Amazon-made products often went on to crush the competition, the Journal found.

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