Bezos Makes First Visit to Washington Post as Owner

Jeffrey P. Bezos, the new owner of The Washington Post, kicked off a packed, two-day visit to the paper on Tuesday, his first since purchasing the newspaper for $250 million on Aug. 5. Mr. Bezos was meeting with managers on the editorial and business sides, according to people with knowledge of his schedule, at times chaperoned by Katharine Weymouth, the publisher and a member of the Graham family from whom Mr. Bezos bought the paper.

On Wednesday, he is expected to meet with reporters, hold a noon lunch with editors, tour the Post’s printing plant in Springfield, Va., and answer questions during a meeting with the newsroom staff at 3:30 p.m.

While Mr. Bezos can often be reticent with the press, he gave an interview to The Post that ran on Monday’s front page and said he was ready for The Post to start a new “golden era” under his ownership. Mr. Bezos, the founder of Amazon.com who now serves as the company’s chairman and chief executive, bought The Post as a separate investment from Amazon.

But he told The Post that he planned to bring to the newspaper some of the same approaches that had been successful for Amazon.

“We’ve had three big ideas at Amazon that we’ve stuck with for 18 years, and they’re the reason we’re successful: Put the customer first. Invent. And be patient,” he said. “If you replace ‘customer’ with ‘reader,’ that approach, that point of view, can be successful at The Post, too.”

Mr. Bezos said he did not expect to be involved with the daily operations of The Post. Instead, he said, he will offer his “point of view” and financial support. “I’ll be there with lots of advice from a distance,” said Mr. Bezos.

Mr. Bezos is expected to close on the deal in October. The Graham family had controlled the paper for about eight decades.

Google Executive to Visit Myanmar

Since Myanmar’s military stepped aside and a quasi-civilian government was installed in 2011, setting off a wave of political and economic changes, the country has enjoyed a surge of interest from overseas businesses.

Myanmar, formerly Burma, is the last unexploited territory for businesses in Asia, with untapped markets including the telecommunications sector: Mobile penetration in the country of 60 million is estimated to be a meager 5 percent to 10 percent.

The country’s planned modernization of mobile infrastructure and the expected boom in cellphone use will pave the way for companies like Google, which could profit greatly through sales of inexpensive smartphones built around its Android platform.

Mr. Schmidt “is visiting several countries in Asia to connect with local partners and Googlers who are working to improve the lives of many millions of people across the region by helping them get online and access the world’s information for the first time in the next few years,” Google said in a statement.

The Myanmar trip, which will be followed by a visit to India, will be Schmidt’s second this year to a country off the beaten track and unaccustomed to Western telecommunications. In January he went to North Korea, saying it was a personal trip to talk about a free and open Internet.

Mr. Schmidt is due to give a speech at the Myanmar Information and Communication Technology Park in Yangon on Friday before making his way to the capital, Naypyidaw, to meet senior government officials, said Zaw Min Oo, secretary general of the Myanmar Computer Society.

For the Friday speech, “there will be an audience of about 400, comprising entrepreneurs, executive committee members of the computer association and young leaders,” Zaw Min Oo said.

In February the U.S. Treasury Department issued a general license for four of Myanmar’s biggest banks, two of which are owned by tycoons associated with the former junta, before a visit by 50 U.S. executives that month to explore opportunities.

The delegation, led by the U.S. Agency for International Development and including representatives of Cisco, Google, Hewlett-Packard, Intel and Microsoft , visited Myanmar to look into projects to increase access to the Internet, strengthen transparent government and expand digital literacy, according to a statement from the agency.

Many leading firms in Myanmar are still largely controlled by businesspeople subject to sanctions, but Western companies are starting to move in after the implementation of a new foreign investment law.

Myanmar is offering two operating licenses for companies to build a new telecommunications infrastructure.

MTN Group, the largest African mobile phone company, is bidding for a license and has said about 90 companies have expressed interest.