Today's edition of Inside Business covered Amazon's Acquisition of Whole Foods & Twitch. You can read the entire issue here, but we've also summarized some of the findings below:

• Since its founding in 1995, Amazon has completed 102 acquisitions and spent $20b on its 10 biggest acquisitions.
• Perhaps nothing speaks clearer to Amazon’s acquisition strategy than Jeff Bezos’ 1997 shareholder letter that has been attached with every succeeding annual shareholder letter.
• In 2017, Amazon acquired Whole Foods Market for $13.7b and has since seamlessly integrated the retailer into the e-commerce giant's business model.
• Twitch is an online streaming platform focused mainly on live streaming video games that Amazon bought for $970m in 2014.

Amazon plans to hire 2,000 employees in its new Manhattan office as the company continues to invest in major cities despite the remote-work trend. Amazon purchased the home for its NYC office, the 630,000-square-foot Lord & Taylor building, from WeWork for $1b. The hiring in NYC is part of a 3,500 employee hiring plan across six major cities, including Phoenix, San Diego, Denver, Detroit, and Dallas.

More:

• Facebook has agreed to lease the 730,000 square feet James A. Farley Building to bet on New York as well. 
• Facebook's expansion comes after Mark Zuckerberg announced about 50% of its employees would move to permanent remote work in the next 5-10 years. 
• With the typical duration of office leases exceeding 100,000 square feet lasting 12+ years, this looks to be a long-term bet by Amazon and Facebook on not only their business but the importance of major cities in their talent equation. 
• Amazon is the second-largest private employer in the U.S. with 600,000+ employees and about 100,000 in corporate positions.
• From Twitter: WSJ editor Anthony DeRosa notes Amazon's Manhattan expansion comes more than a year after it withdrew plans for an HQ2 in Long Island City, New York.

A version of this story first appeared in our newsletter Inside Business.

Jeff Bezos' net worth reached $197.8b yesterday, the highest ever recorded in Forbes' 40-year history of listing billionaires. Amazon stock recorded a 4.1% gain yesterday and ended the day at a $1.66 trillion market capitalization. That boosted Bezos' fortune by $7.2b in a single day. (He owns an 11.1% stake in his company.)

More:

• For every second on Tuesday, Bezos earned $83,333.
• Bezos' former wife MacKenzie Scott, who received a quarter of Bezos' Amazon stake in their divorce settlement, saw her wealth rise by $2b yesterday. Scott — now the world's third-richest woman at $62.7b — recently donated nearly $1.7b to 116 organizations focused on racial equity, climate change, and other issues.
• Earlier this month, Bezos sold one million shares of Amazon stock worth $3.1b.
• The gap between Bezos and the world's second-richest person, Bill Gates, is now roughly $83.8b. Trailing them on the Forbes wealthiest list are French billionaire Bernard Arnault, Facebook owner Mark Zuckerberg, and Tesla CEO Elon Musk.
• The wealth of the top 12 billionaires in the U.S. is now over $1 trillion, according to the Institute for Policy Studies. The so-called “Oligarchic Dozen” has seen their wealth rise $40%, or $283b, during the pandemic.

Deep Dive: Amazon vs. Walmart online grocery battle

For the first time, Walmart has outsold Amazon in online grocery sales, according to a new report. This comes as Americans turn more to online grocery shopping during the pandemic, with Amazon claiming that it's one of its fastest-growing businesses.

It's unclear if the trend favoring Walmart will continue, or if it's a temporary side effect of Amazon's supply chain issues during the pandemic.

The findings:

Walmart now boasts a 30% share of online grocery retail transactions, higher than Amazon's 27.1%. Last year, Walmart was at 30.4% and Amazon led at 32.6%.

In 2020, 30% of survey respondents said they had purchased groceries at Amazon, a drop from 35% in 2019.

For online food and beverage purchases per buyer per year, Amazon grew from 6.1 to 6.8 and Walmart from 7.0 to 7.4...

Amazon's take:

• Amazon disputed the findings and said it's seen online grocery orders more than double in August YoY. Amazon's online grocery sales tripled YoY based on Q2 earnings results...

Amazon issued new requirements for third-party sellers to ensure Prime products are delivered in 1-2 days. Starting in Feb. 2021, merchants in the Seller Fulfilled Prime program will be required to support Saturday pick-up and delivery and deliver nationwide.

More:

• This comes after Amazon said fewer than 16% of the program's third-party retailers actually meet the two-day delivery window, largely because most don't ship on weekends.
• The Seller Fulfilled Prime program allows merchants to designate Prime inventory for two-day shipping without paying for Amazon fulfillment services. 
• The new changes will make it more difficult for sellers to ship products themselves. This could force many to pay Amazon for logistics services rather than other carriers.
• Sellers who fail to meet goals risk losing the Prime banner. Amazon has declined to share the number of sellers enrolled in the Seller Fulfilled Prime program.
• After delays in delivery times were reported during March and April, most delivery times have gone back to normal.
• Word on the Street: Legal fellow Shaoul Sussman said Amazon is holding sellers "to a very high standard that Amazon itself doesn’t even follow." Spencer Soper tweeted that the changes may be "of interest to #antitrust regulators examining Amazon's market power."

Amazon removed a T-shirt from its marketplace that used a sexist slur against vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris. Seller Oxygen Bandit was selling T-shirts, hoodies, and sweatshirts that read "Joe and the Hoe," an apparent reference to debunked claims about Harris spread by conservative radio show host Rush Limbaugh.

More:

• The phrase stems from a smear campaign against Harris that claims she used her romantic relationship with former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown to gain political traction.
• Harris dated Brown from 1994-95, when he was still married but estranged from his wife for years. Harris first took office a decade later in 2004 as San Francisco's district attorney.
• Amazon said the products in question were removed because they defied its selling guidelines. Other items still available for purchase on Amazon include clothing with the words "Kamala smelled the best."
• From Twitter: Some users have called for people to submit complaints or boycott Amazon and Prime for selling the products. @mistergeezy told Amazon: "I definitely know that your brand doesn’t want to be associated with misogyny and racism."

QUICK HITS

General news

• Amazon is launching an online drugstore in India that begins with a trial in Bangalore. 
• Amazon's Alexa struggles to understand Irish accents, according to a study.
• Toyota is working with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to develop its mobility services platform.
• Entrepreneur and former reality star Lauren Conrad launched an Amazon storefront for fair trade products and home goods.
• MV Transportation, which employs Amazon shuttle drivers for its Washington headquarters, laid off 145 drivers for the e-commerce service.
• The late Ayrton Senna, a Brazilian racing driver, ranked as the fastest Formula 1 driver of all time in a data-driven project led by Amazon's Machine Learning Solutions Lab.
• Vidyard and Hubspot have partnered to create an in-depth guide with proven video scripts and email templates for selling remotely.*

Amazon Prime News

• "Supernatural" star Jensen Ackles will join the cast of Amazon's "The Boys" for its third season.
• Actor Rachel Weisz will star in and produce a series re-imagining of the 1988 psychological thriller "Dead Ringers" for Amazon.
• Amazon Prime Video reached a three-year deal to stream Seattle Sounders FC matches, starting on Aug. 26.
• Amazon Prime Video Germany ordered a new sketch comedy series, "Binge Reloaded," from the creators of the popular "Switch Reloaded."

*This is a sponsored post.

Note: Some of this information was provided by our newsletters Inside Streaming and Inside Transportation.

Tweet of the Day: Teacher Lisa Mauro thanked an anonymous donor who supplied her with $500 worth of classroom supplies from her Amazon wish list.