Jeff Bezos Advice For young Entrepreneurs
Summary
TLDRThe speaker emphasizes the importance of choosing a life of service and adventure over ease and comfort, suggesting that one's legacy of improvement and customer obsession is more fulfilling. They advocate for learning from customer feedback to address root causes of issues, maintaining a nimble 'day one' culture even as a company grows, and the value of long-term thinking in business. The transcript also highlights the Amazonian principles of customer obsession, invention, and operational excellence as the foundation of their success.
Takeaways
- π **Life Choices**: The speaker emphasizes the importance of choosing a life of service and adventure over ease and comfort, suggesting that one's legacy of pride at 90 years old hinges on such choices.
- π§ **Continuous Improvement**: The message that no matter how good one is, there is always room for improvement is a recurring theme, encouraging a mindset of perpetual betterment.
- π **Listening to Customers**: The speaker highlights the value of customer feedback, especially the 'divine discontent' it represents, as a tool for identifying and addressing systemic issues.
- π **Root Cause Analysis**: A key takeaway is the necessity of not just addressing symptoms but finding and fixing the root causes of problems to prevent their recurrence.
- πΌ **Work-Life Balance**: The idea that one should strive to enjoy at least half of their work life is presented, acknowledging that every job comes with undesirable aspects.
- π§ **Stress Management**: The speaker advises on delegating stress and setting up life to minimize disliked activities, advocating for the importance of control over one's environment and time.
- π **Entrepreneurial Spirit**: Maintaining a 'day one' culture of agility and entrepreneurial spirit, even as a company scales, is identified as crucial for innovation and operational success.
- π‘ **Invention and Creativity**: The script stresses the importance of invention over imitation, aiming to offer something better to customers by putting a unique twist on existing solutions.
- π **Proud of Earned Achievements**: The speaker differentiates between celebrating gifts, which are unearned, and taking pride in achievements that result from personal effort and choices.
- π **Global Impact**: The transcript touches on the benefits of scale and scope, such as robustness and the ability to take punches, while also advocating for nimbleness.
- π **Long-Term Thinking**: Ownership and long-term thinking are linked, with the speaker urging a focus on the fundamentals of the business rather than short-term stock price fluctuations.
Q & A
What are the two life paths suggested for personal fulfillment?
-The script suggests choosing between a life of ease and comfort or a life of service and adventure, implying that the latter may lead to greater pride when reflecting upon one's life at an older age.
What is the importance of always striving to be better, according to the speaker?
-The speaker emphasizes the importance of continuous self-improvement, suggesting that no matter how good one is, there is always room for growth and becoming better.
How does the speaker suggest using customer feedback to improve operations?
-The speaker advises to listen to customers, especially their discontent, to identify patterns and root causes of issues. By understanding what went wrong, one can fix the system to prevent the same problem from happening again.
What is the speaker's perspective on the inevitability of job-related dissatisfaction?
-The speaker believes that every job comes with aspects that one may not like, and it's important to accept this reality rather than resenting these parts of the job.
What advice does the speaker give regarding work-life balance and stress for senior executives?
-The speaker suggests that senior executives should aim to minimize stress by delegating effectively and setting up their lives to maintain a balance, avoiding being over-scheduled.
Why does the speaker argue that hard work is not necessarily disliked by people?
-The speaker argues that people do not necessarily dislike hard work; rather, they dislike a lack of control over their lives and environment, which can lead to stress and dissatisfaction.
What is the speaker's advice for young people starting their careers?
-The speaker advises young people to find something they are passionate about and to focus on their choices rather than their innate gifts, as it is their choices that shape their lives.
What is the core principle of Amazon's culture according to the speaker?
-The core principle of Amazon's culture, as mentioned by the speaker, is customer obsession, which is prioritized over competitor obsession and underlies everything they do.
How does the speaker describe the challenge of maintaining a 'Day One' culture as a company grows?
-The speaker describes the challenge as maintaining nimbleness and entrepreneurial spirit despite the scale and scope of a large company, emphasizing the importance of avoiding bureaucracy and keeping decision-making processes lightweight.
What is the speaker's view on the relationship between stock price fluctuations and intelligence?
-The speaker humorously suggests that one should not feel smarter when the stock price is up or dumber when it's down, emphasizing the importance of focusing on the fundamentals of the business rather than daily stock price changes.
What are the key elements of Amazon's culture that the speaker highlights?
-The speaker highlights genuine customer obsession, a focus on invention, a willingness to think long-term, and operational excellence as the key elements of Amazon's culture.
Outlines
π Embracing a Life of Service and Continuous Improvement
The speaker encourages choosing a life of service and adventure over ease and comfort, suggesting that one's legacy of improvement and customer service will be a source of pride in old age. They emphasize the importance of listening to customer feedback to identify systemic issues and fix them at the root cause, rather than just addressing symptoms. The speaker also discusses the inevitability of job-related overheads and the importance of not resenting these aspects of work. They advise against over-scheduling oneself to maintain control and freedom, and highlight the importance of passion in one's work for achieving greatness.
π The Significance of Choices Over Gifts in Shaping Life
This paragraph delves into the difference between innate gifts and the choices that truly shape one's life. The speaker advises not to be overly proud of one's gifts, as they are unearned, but to take pride in achievements that result from effort and choices. They reflect on their own journey, realizing that being a good student was a gift, not something to be proud of, and that true pride comes from challenging oneself and stepping out of comfort zones. The speaker also touches on Amazon's core values, particularly customer obsession, which is critical to maintaining a 'Day One' culture of innovation and agility, even as the company scales.
π Cultivating a Culture of Long-Term Thinking and Operational Excellence
The speaker discusses the importance of maintaining a 'Day One' mentality at Amazon, which includes a focus on customer obsession, invention, and long-term thinking. They address the challenges of scaling a company while retaining its entrepreneurial spirit and nimbleness. The speaker warns against treating every decision as irreversible and emphasizes the need for maintaining quick decision-making velocity. They also stress the importance of ownership mentality, where employees take care of the company as if it were their own, and the focus on fundamentals over short-term stock price fluctuations. The paragraph concludes with a reiteration of Amazon's commitment to customer-centric innovation and operational excellence.
Mindmap
Keywords
π‘Ease and Comfort
π‘Service and Adventure
π‘Customer Obsession
π‘Divine Discontent
π‘Root Cause
π‘Operational Success
π‘Overhead
π‘Stress Delegation
π‘Day One Culture
π‘Invention
π‘Long-Term Thinking
Highlights
The choice between a life of ease and comfort or a life of service and adventure, and the pride one feels at 90 reflecting on their life choices.
The importance of continuous self-improvement and the concept that no matter how good we are, there's always room for being better.
The value of customer feedback, especially in identifying systemic issues that need addressing to prevent future problems.
The distinction between fixing symptoms versus addressing root causes to ensure long-term operational success.
The reality of work-life balance and the overhead that comes with every job, suggesting a realistic approach to job satisfaction.
The delegating of stress in leadership roles and the importance of setting up a life to minimize stress.
The dislike of being out of control and the importance of having freedom of movement in one's schedule.
The advice for young professionals to find passion in their work and the difficulty of achieving greatness without it.
The emphasis on making choices rather than relying on innate gifts, as it is the choices that construct one's life.
The Amazon core value of customer obsession over competitor obsession and its impact on long-term business success.
The challenge of maintaining a 'Day One' culture with the scale and scope of a large company like Amazon.
The importance of decision-making velocity and avoiding heavyweight processes that can slow it down.
The concept of ownership in business, including the mentality of long-term thinking and its benefits.
The focus on fundamentals of the business rather than daily stock price fluctuations to ensure sustainable growth.
The Amazon culture of invention, aiming to offer pioneering products and services that improve customer experience.
The value of operational excellence in reducing defects and its role in maintaining Amazon's customer-centric approach.
The emphasis on maintaining an entrepreneurial spirit alongside the advantages of scale and scope in a large organization.
Transcripts
you can choose a life of ease and
comfort or you can choose a life of
service and adventure which one of those
when you're 90 years old are you going
to be more proud of
good a guy like you no matter how good
we are we can still be better you can
always be better customers have a divine
discontent and they teach you if you
listen to customers so we watch for that
and you see pattern so we can find
places where it's not working
something's going wrong and that's
really how I get the feedback is from
customer input and often you know on all
caps angry
you ruined my child's birthday because
the gif didn't show up on time and we
take that and what you really want to do
is you take that it's an anecdote it's a
single example but you need to find the
root cause what went wrong deep inside
the system how did this happen because
then you can fix it for everyone so that
that particular problem will never
happen again
you don't just fix the symptom you have
to fix the root cause and that's been
the secret to our operational success
for 20 years a guy like you there are a
lot of things that are a waste of time
you know and you think about your life I
think I often tell people that I work
with if you can get because people
people have very high standards for how
they want their work life to be and and
I said look if you can get your work
life to be where you enjoy half of it
that is a home that is amazing because
very few people ever achieve that
because the truth is everything comes
with overhead that's reality everything
comes with pieces that you don't like
you could be a Supreme Court justice and
there's still gonna be pieces of your
job you don't like you can be a
university professor and it's still
going to be Peter if to go to committee
meetings and you have to do thing you
know there every job comes with pieces
you don't like and we need to say that's
just how that's part of it and and and
not resent those pieces or try not to
but also try to minimize them I tell
senior executives you should have the
least stress you know there's this weird
I think false
idea that CEOs I'm a CEO there's this
false idea that CEOs are under the most
stress well I look at like why you're in
charge
why don't you delegate the stress
it's your choice and so it's you have to
figure out how to set up your life in
such a way that you can minimize the
things and I find people don't dislike
hard work but people dislike and what is
being out of control like they can't
control their life they can't control
their environment this happens to me
when I get over scheduled
I hate being over scheduled I want some
time to be able to think and free myself
we all have the same amount of time in
the world nobody has more time than
anybody else and when you become a very
successful person one of the things you
start to get over scheduled you have
this event you had to agree to do this
and maybe last night you were like why
didn't I agree to do this I have to go
on stage tomorrow
I wish I were really with my family and
you know or I hope maybe not this case
let's say that you like this one but in
general that kind of thing happens and
so you have to guard your time and and
try to save a little bit flexible so
that's for me it's not a waste of time
but I like to have some freedom of
movement rather than having every minute
of every day
scheduled a guy like you so a young
person starting their career I think
they're probably a lot of things that
some of them are very well known and
people have heard that many times
they're still true one of those that you
should always focus on a young person
should find something that they're
passionate about to do and that's not
gonna surprise anyone it's a clear thing
to do it's very hard if you don't love
your work you're never going to be great
at it
I think the other thing I would suggest
too
any young person even before they start
their career is to really think about
their choices because I find young
people and I when I was young I had I
made this mistake too
you can get very fixed on your gifts so
everybody has gifts you know you you
have gifts and you have things that you
didn't get gifted maybe you're extremely
beautiful maybe you're extremely good at
mathematics maybe you there are a lot of
things that you can be given but those
things can confuse you because they're
not the things that construct your life
it's your choices that construct your
life not your guests you can celebrate
your gifts be proud of them be happy of
them actually don't be proud of them be
be celebratory of them but you can't be
proud because they're gifts they were
given to you you didn't earn them you
can only be proud of the things you earn
and so as I got older I started to
realize I wasn't proud of my gifts I was
always good at school school is always
easy for me and I was always proud that
I was a great student
I got aids in all my classes I was good
at math all of that and I thought I
thought that's who I was but it's not
true those are the things that are gifts
what was hard for me is deciding to work
hard deciding to use my gifts in certain
ways to challenge myself to do things
that I didn't think I could do to put
myself in uncomfortable situations we
all get I would say to a young person
you can choose a life of ease and
comfort or you can choose a life of
service and adventure which one of those
when you're 90 years old are you gonna
be more proud of okay we only have a few
principles of the Amazon kind of core
values that we go back to over and over
again and if you looked at each of the
things that we do you would see those
run straight through everything so the
first one and by far the most important
one is customer obsession and we talk
about it as customer obsession
as opposed to competitor obsession and I
have seen over and over again companies
talk about that their customer focused
but really when I pay close attention to
them I believe they are competitor
focused and that's just a completely
different mentality by the way
competitor focus can work but I don't
think it works in the long run as well
as customer focus for one thing once
you're the leader if your whole culture
is competitor obsessed it's kind of hard
to stay energized and motivated if
you're out in front whereas customers
are always unsatisfied they're always
discontent they always want more and so
no matter how far you get out there in
front of your competitors you're still
behind your customers so they're always
pulling you along so customer obsession
is a deep principle that underlies
everything we do and how do you it so
the real question for me is how do you
go about maintaining a day one culture
you know it's great to have the scale of
Amazon we have financial resources we
have lots of brilliant people we can
accomplish great things we have global
scope we have operations all over the
world but the downside of that is that
you can lose your nimbleness you can
lose your entrepreneurial spirit you can
lose your that kind of heart that the
that small companies often have and so
if you could have the best of both
worlds if you can have that
entrepreneurial spirit and heart while
at the same time having all the
advantages that come with scale and
scope I think think of the things that
you could do and and so the question is
how do you achieve that the scale is
good because it makes you robust you
know a big boxer can take a punch to the
head the question is you also want to
dodge those punches so you'd like to be
nimble you want to be big and nimble and
I find there are a lot of things that
are protective of the day one mentality
I already spent some time on one of them
which is customer obsession I think
that's the most important thing if you
can and it
it's harder as you get bigger when
you're a little tiny company figure ten
person startup company every single
person the company is focused on the
customer when you get to be a bigger
company you've got all the middle you've
got middle managers and you've got all
these layers and the those people aren't
on the front lines they're not
interacting with customers every day
they're insulated from customers and
they start to manage not the customer
happiness directly but they start to
manage through proxies like metrics and
processes and some of those things can
become bureaucratic so it's very
challenging but one of the things that
happens is the decision-making velocity
slows down and I think the reason one of
the reasons that that happens is that
people all say junior executives inside
the big company start to model all
decisions as if they are heavyweight
irreversible highly consequential
decisions and so even to a doors you
could make you make a decision it's the
wrong decision you can just back up back
through the door and try again
even those reversible decisions start to
be made with heavyweight processes and
so you can teach people that these
pitfalls and and and traps and then
teach them to avoid those traps and
that's what we're trying to do at Amazon
so that we can maintain our
inventiveness and our hearts and our
kind of small companies spirit even as
we have the scale and scope of a larger
company if the stock is up 10% this
month
don't feel 10% smarter because when the
stock is down 10% some month you're
gonna have to fill up 10% dumber and
it's not going to feel as good and so
it's you know ownership is we give most
of our compensation is is done in terms
of stock compensation and in part and
parcel with ownership is a mentality of
long term thinking you know you owners
think longer term than renters do so I
have a friend who rented his house to
some tenants and instead of getting a
Christmas tree stand at Christmas they
just nailed the Christmas
into the hardwood floors of the house no
owner would ever do that and but
sometimes there that's a bad tenant you
know they're a good good tenants but
that's a bad tenant and it's because you
know it's the same old thing about you
know nobody ever washed a rental car and
you you take better care of the things
that you own and and but but one of the
responsibilities of ownership and
definitely deep inside the Amazon
culture is to think about the
fundamentals of the business and not the
daily fluctuations in the stock price
it's not there's no information in it
what are you really focusing on so you
know I'm focusing on those things that I
think make Amazon unusual genuine
customer obsession so like every single
thing you just mentioned when you know
when our senior executives sit down and
review those programs they're looking
for customer obsession where how is
second one that we're focused on is
invention we don't like to do me two
offerings we want to take will be
inspired by something we've seen the
world we're not hermetically sealed but
we want to put our own twist on it we
want to try to do something better for
customers that's pioneering so where is
the invention you know why is this going
to be better for customers than the
already whatever is serving that need in
the world today and and then a
willingness to think long term so I'm
very focused on those things and also
the operational excellence is reducing
defects at their root those are the
things that's the culture of Amazon it's
the habits that we have those are the
things I'm focused on and those are the
things that all of our senior people are
focused on
[Music]
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