That's not the best part. The best part is that somebody who directly reported to Jeff Bezos essentially told the team to go ahead and keep lying to the customer in order to "maximize free cash flow for the device". Which isn't something you can spin into yet another "rogue employee" case in which "we'll review our policies".
The division head asked something like "are we doing the right thing here?", and also said something like "we need to make money".
From the transcript provided it sounded like he didn't have the complete information about how they were screwing Discovery over: it sounded more like he was told that the campaign was costing Discovery more than Discovery had expected, but the plan was for Amazon to tell Discovery that they wanted to use money Discovery had already budgeted (and spent?) with Amazon but hadn't received a complete campaign for.
I've seen that kind of deal done before, and there isn't anything wrong with it provided both parties are transparent about it.
That's not the message I get from "At the end of the day, you should do what you need to do to maximize free cash flow for the device." The priorities are clear.
Because, you know, that could happen... 'some day'.
Whenever you think your boss is telling you to do something wrong, the best possible thing you can do is to write them a letter (and keep a copy) explaining how you think it's wrong, and that you want them to confirm that they want you to do it. If they refuse to confirm it, don't do it. People do actually have free will, you know.
You forgot the part where, after all that is said he goes "wink, wink".
Right -- just like they have the "free will" to decide to keep their jobs (and stay on the fast track). From the context, it's pretty darned clear what JB expected his subordinates to "freely decide" in this case.