Dutch teen astronaut tells Jeff Bezos on space flight that he’s never shopped on Amazon

Trust Dutchies to be controversial about corporations. Oliver Daemen, the Dutch 18-year-old that went into space with Jeff Bezos, admitted to the Amazon CEO that he has never purchased anything from the billion-dollar company.

I bet that was an awkward ten minutes — which was the total duration of the flight. Daemen nonchalantly said to Reuters that “I told Jeff, like, I’ve actually never bought something from Amazon. And he was like, ‘oh, wow, it’s a long time ago I heard someone say that’.” Talk about Dutch directness! 😅

Youngest person in space

The 18-year-old physics student found out he would be the fourth passenger on the Blue Origin flight a week before take-off. With Daemen on board, the launch had both the youngest and the oldest person to ever go into space. The latter was 82-year old American, Wally Funk.

Daemon and his father had entered an auction for the place on the spacecraft. He found out he would be the fourth and final passenger after the top bidder dropped out last minute. The highest bid was $28 million, which is nowhere near what the Dutch teen paid.

What do you think about the Dutch teen’s honesty with Bezos? Rude, funny, heroic? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!

Feature Image: 3DSculptor/Depositphots

Chloe Lovatt 🇬🇧
Chloe Lovatt 🇬🇧http://globeshuffler.wordpress.com
A British native, Chloe has a love for other languages and cultures, having lived in Spain before moving to the Netherlands. She is keen to explore the Dutch landscape, cultural spots and — the most important — food! After being here for a few months she already has developed a mild addiction to kibbeling.

10 COMMENTS

  1. Being honest is rude or heroic? It’s not like was in a job interview. He was a paying customer and didn’t need to patronize Bezos.

  2. It’s important to note that for years amazon.nl has only been a book store, only relatively recently has the Dutch version of the webshop started offering as wide a range of products as it does in other countries.

    In fact, right now much of amazon.nl is offered through amazon.de.

    This results in other webshops in the Netherlands far exceeding Amazon in both the amount of products offered, delivery time and popularity.

    So him not having bought from Amazon makes a lot of sense. Amazon is not as big in every country as some might expect.

  3. I don’t think “heroic” was ever on the table.
    It is kinda funny that he said it directly to Lex Luthor’s face, though.

  4. Most Dutch people have never spent any money in the Amazon shop. Amazon is a minor player in the Dutch online retail market. They only launched their Dutch store last year. So it’s not surprising. Take the non hierarchical culture we have, we would answer honestly if asked instead of lying or kissing up. Not sure if this was the context of the comment to Bezos.

  5. Unfortunately, I may have paid for a large part of his penis rocket. That being said, it’s what I love about the Dutch. Many may have considered it rude, but that’s the Dutch not rude, but honest and out front! Love it

  6. I don’t think of the young man’s comment to Bezos of anything other than a matter of fact convo. Nothing clever, brave or anything special just like, well, Bezos.

  7. The Netherlands didn’t have amazon untill couple months ago.

    Also here we have a website called Bol.com which is far more popular than Amazon. I personally order a lot from amazon.de (german amazon) since they also ship to the netherlands however many dutch people never ordered at Amazon yet.

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