Smart Things Jeff Bezos Has Said

http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2013/09/09/the-25-smartest-things-jeff-bezos-has-ever-said.aspx

by lazydon • 13 years ago

307 107 13 years ago

6ren• 13 years ago

  7. "If you're not stubborn, you'll give up on experiments too soon. And if you're
  not flexible, you'll pound your head against the wall and you won't see a different
  solution to a problem you're trying to solve."

burgerz• 13 years ago

Yes I read the article too.

rmason• 13 years ago

Here's another favorite of mine:

Because, you know, resilience - if you think of it in terms of the Gold Rush, then you'd be pretty depressed right now because the last nugget of gold would be gone. But the good thing is, with innovation, there isn't a last nugget. Every new thing creates two new questions and two new opportunities.

dredmorbius• 13 years ago

Two words: diminishing returns.

anuragramdasan• 13 years ago

I think the best thing he ever said was at a commencement speech. This one I could never forget.

Smartness is a gift, kindness is a choice.(paraphrased)

untilHellbanned2• 13 years ago

think both are choices if you consider the context in which people commonly compare each other's "smartness

Alterlife• 13 years ago

It depends on how you define 'smartness'.

If it means intelligence (which is what I think it means in this context), I do believe it is not yet possible to "choose" to be born free of debilitating mental conditions.

mseebach• 13 years ago

That's pedantry. To the extend smartness is a choice, it's not something you can decide to do from day to day. Being nice very much is.

Malician• 13 years ago

I would say that the context of the sentence ("is a gift") makes it clear that he is talking about biological predisposition to intelligence - for example, working memory size, and not, say, whether you've spent lots of time doing interesting things and learning useful information.

harigov• 13 years ago

One quote that really made quite a bit of difference in how I approach problems in life:

"Good intentions never work, you need good mechanisms to make anything happen"

the1• 13 years ago

my favorite: "Developers, developers, developers"

astine• 13 years ago

I think you're conflating Bezos and Ballmer.

CrankyPants• 13 years ago

I think he's being ironic.

Negitivefrags• 13 years ago

If you are a company selling a platform, those are some wise words to live by.

rtpg• 13 years ago

The tenth one is funny in its own little way

"We did studies and we didn't listen to them"

kbutler• 13 years ago

We did studies, but decided they didn't measure what was most important.

um304• 13 years ago

"If you double the number of experiments you do per year, you're going to double your inventiveness."

sergiosgc3• 13 years ago

Bezos is a contender for the best manager of my generation. That being said, don't take these statements as absolute truths. They reflect the very successful strategy at Amazon, but they are by no means absolute.

Examples:

- "(...) keeping our prices very, very low, we earn trust with customers over time, and that that actually does maximize free cash flow over the long term." This is violated by luxury goods. Louis Vuitton purses must be expensive, it's part of their "contract" with their customers.

- "There are two kinds of companies: Those that work to try to charge more and those that work to charge less. We will be the second." The alternative is to deliver ever increasing value, at constant prices, which is the very successful strategy at Volkswagen.

Don't take this as it being my opinion that Bezos is wrong. He's my ideal CEO: long term oriented, customer focused, innovation driven. There are faults at Amazon, but in the grand scheme of things, Amazon is a great feat in itself.

smu• 13 years ago

Out of curiosity: who else would be in contention for "best manager of the generation"?

sergiosgc3• 13 years ago

The one I admire the most is from a previous generation: Amancio Ortega, from Inditex. The innovations in logistics by Inditex are amazing. As for current(ish), and with a heavy skew towards IT, my list would be, in no particular order:

- Bill Gates, for MS strategy during the 90s. Evil and Borg-esque but ultra effective.

- Steve Jobs, for Pixar and the early 00s turnaround at Apple.

- Elon Musk, not so much for co-founding PayPal, but rather because of Tesla

Now that I'm at it, let me nominate the worst CEO: Eric Schmidt. Title earned for destroying engineer culture at three great companies: Novell, Sun and Google. Novell and Sun tanked, Google will be the first to survive Schmidt's effects, albeit scarred. There are financially worse CEOs, but Schmidt attacked companies that I particularly liked with the same repeat effects.

arethuza• 13 years ago

"ever increasing value, at constant prices, which is the very successful strategy at Volkswagen"

That might be strategy for the VW brand, but VW Group very cleverly uses its huge array of brands to segment the market very nicely (SEAT, Skoda, VW, Audi, Porsche, Lamborghini, Bentley, Bugatti).

mcv2• 13 years ago

This is violated by luxury goods. Louis Vuitton purses must be expensive, it's part of their "contract" with their customers.

That's because the actual product you pay for isn't the bag itself, but a symbol of exclusivity.

joshstrange• 13 years ago

I read the URL and after hitting #20 I was like "Where are the other 5?". It took me a while to notice the title of the post said "20" so I assume they created a page with 25 then removed 5 and forgot to update the URL.

GuiA• 13 years ago

More like writer started writing, got lazy, bumped it down to 20 and changed the title, but their CMS didn't update the permalink :)

jhull• 13 years ago

the 5 other are things that go without saying

maxmzd_• 13 years ago

Love this one "...you need to have that long-term willingness to be misunderstood. It's a key part of invention."

seunosewa• 13 years ago

They missed the most important and generally applicable one: "People who are right a lot of the time are people who often change their minds.

"The smartest people are constantly revising their understanding, reconsidering a problem they thought they’d already solved. They’re open to new points of view, new information, new ideas, contradictions, and challenges to their own way of thinking."

http://37signals.com/svn/posts/3289-some-advice-from-jeff-be...

chrisgd• 13 years ago

Well said.

Basically the theme of Nate Silver's book as well. Don't stick to your forecast in the face of new information that might contradict your forecast.

rhizome3• 13 years ago

Also: "pivoting."

mhartl• 13 years ago

It's a nice quote, but I'd change "smartest" to something like "wisest". Many smart people are quite stuck in their beliefs.

jacquesm4• 13 years ago

In that sense the 'flip flopper' insult from American politics should actually become a mark of distinction. It is as if changing your opinion due to additional insight/input/thinking is a bad thing instead of a good one.

arbitrarywords• 13 years ago

with the proviso that the "additional input" is something more substantial that an opinion poll...

StavrosK• 13 years ago

Ugh, I hate it when I get new data and change my opinion and people look at me as if I'm easily swayed or something. I have new data that invalidates the old one, do you expect me to keep the same opinion even though I now think it's wrong?

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, etc.

veidr2• 13 years ago

The negative connotations of 'flip flopper' are mostly based on the implicit assumption that the politician in question changed their[1] opinion for reasons of political expediency, i.e. for reasons more to do with polling data than new data actually pertinent to the issue at hand.

It is true that this makes it harder for conscientious politicians to legitimately change their mind, though.

[1]: they as singular gender-neutral pronoun FTW

joseph_cooney• 13 years ago

"When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?"

nl• 13 years ago

"Strong Opinions, Weakly Held" is the best version of this I've heard.

I had it taped up above my desk at one point.

sidjoshi• 13 years ago

One of my favorite (and a recent one): People who are right a lot often change their minds. One of the best ways to end a heated debate is to say "Wait a minute.. I think I am wrong!".

bizbody3• 13 years ago

I found it very interesting, but this quote stood out in a bad way:

"If you're long-term oriented, customer interests and shareholder interests are aligned."

This statement smelled like bullshit since large successful corporations don't tend to be incredibly ethical. The fast food industry has an interest in making you eat shitty food with a smile: this is not in the customer's interest (i.e. health), but because customer perception is what matters it's a great business decision, even in the long term.

I also noticed I was subconsciously confusing his statement with the claim that shareholder interests and society's interests are aligned. And it's a radically different question indeed, because Bezo's statement completely ignores employees. Yes, there is tremendous pressure to deliver consumer and shareholder value, but there is no pressure to deliver value to the kind of disposable workforce that Amazon needs. We all know what kind of workplace Amazon is.

Sorry if this is all a bit incoherent, but I'm curious about how CEOs of big companies really feel about ethical questions. It can't possibly be all rainbows and candy.

willvarfar• 13 years ago

Isn't this what makes his outlook special, though?

bizbody3• 13 years ago

There's no denying that Amazon have a great product and think long term, but saying you have the customer's best interests at heart sounds a bit like a generic "corporate values" statement.

Fishkins• 13 years ago

I also noticed I was subconsciously confusing his statement with the claim that shareholder interests and society's interests are aligned.

I noticed this, too. If you don't pay close attention it seems like he's saying there are not ethical concerns if you think long-term, but the statement is actually narrower than that. In addition to employees, there can also be people with no involvement with or even knowledge of the business who are affected by negative externalities.

bizbody3• 13 years ago

I've seen the score oscillate up and down several times. Would any downvoter care to comment?

Florin_Andrei• 13 years ago

3. "Your margin is my opportunity."

Very scary and very aggressive. Also, smart (if you can pull off that sort of thing).

7. "If you're not stubborn, you'll give up on experiments too soon. And if you're not flexible, you'll pound your head against the wall and you won't see a different solution to a problem you're trying to solve."

Making a note to tell this to my kids.

14. "[don't] get addicted to being shiny, because shiny doesn't last."

This one, too, sounds like a good general-purpose life advice.

lbarrett• 13 years ago

3. "Your margin is my opportunity."

Isn't that just Microeconomics 101?

mfringel• 13 years ago

If you;re in a commodity business and there are no other comparative advantages, then sure.

martincmartin• 13 years ago

It's also central to The Innovator's Dilemma.

millstone2• 13 years ago

Very scary and very aggressive.

I would not want to work for a company whose explicit strategy is locating other successful businesses, copying their model, and leveraging economies of scale to undercut them. Wringing out margins also decreases innovation, lowers wages, and drives out all but the biggest players.

jacquesm4• 13 years ago

This is because Bezos is going for the endgame from day 1 rather than to get stuck in the middle. It definitely is aggressive but it also is where things will end up eventually anyway so entering the game with that in mind is a definite strategy to avoid having someone else do that to you instead. Capitalism is brutal, just how brutal you can see in that quote.

hef198982• 13 years ago

Only that all the bigger players are doing basically the same thing. Only difference being that the big players use the results to drive up their margins instead of lowering prices for customers.

And most of innovation is payed for by cash instead of mergin anyway. I, for my part, like that strategy.

joonix• 13 years ago

I find #14 odd, as shiny luxury brands, especially fashion brands, are some of the oldest in the marketplace.

pazimzadeh3• 13 years ago

"A company shouldn't get addicted to being shiny, because shiny doesn't last."

This may be true of some companies, but we can see that Apple is quite successful at making products which continuously make last year's invention seem outdated. Of course, if making highly polished products takes a huge toll on your resources and impedes your greater strategy, then you may be better off not being "shiny".

njharman• 13 years ago

"Last" means 25, 50, 100 years. Apple is the poster child, cause they only have "shiny"(well and customer service) and must continually be shinnyer, it's not sustainable. The new iPhones failed to achieve a sufficient shininess delta.

pazimzadeh3• 13 years ago

I don't think that I said anything particularly controversial, though I realize that every company can't be like Apple.

Apple has lasted 37 years, and has a cash balance of 150 billion dollars. Jeff Bezos' Amazon is 19 years old and has a low cash balance due to famously razor thin margins.

Apple's model is clearly sustainable for them, but not necessarily for others. Do you disagree with that?

With regards to the new iPhones not being shiny enough, perhaps you should withhold judgement until the devices go on sale.

anjc2• 13 years ago

If people's reactions to iOS7, and the keynote, are anything to go by, you could possibly argue that their pursuit of 'shininess' has overtaken their pursuit of innovation and novelty, which now makes it look like they're playing catchup with other companies. I'm not saying that this is the case, but it seems to be an increasingly pervasive and snowballing attitude.

The comments in the iOS6 vs iOS7 thread are almost all variations of "now it looks like Android/WP8". That's not a good perception for Apple, even if it's not a fair perception for people to have.

melange2• 13 years ago

Those comments are self selecting and don't represent anything meaningful other than that all three OS's no longer rely on textures.

Given that most people say that WP8 is radically different from Android, it makes no sense that people would say that iOS7 looks like both of them simultaneously, unless it has somehow captured the best of all 3 operating systems.

hobolobo• 13 years ago

They don't mention

"We should set up on a reservation. Taxes are for little people."

Possibly because he might not have worded it like that.

taopao• 13 years ago

Is it a smart choice that the store feels like 1998 web applications? Given the size of their workforce and the amount of revenue they make, why can't they invest some time in making the interface any good?

asdasf• 13 years ago

What do you mean? Feels like 1998 as in it is simple, easy and works? Doesn't have enough javascript errors to prevent you from making purchases?

rhizome3• 13 years ago

You mean you don't like when pages hang with spinners because they're waiting 40sec for a Comscore (et al) tracker to download?

dageshi• 13 years ago

Probably because there's no extra money to be had from altering the interface.

nohuck13• 13 years ago

11. "The framework I found, which made the decision [to start Amazon in 1994] incredibly easy, was what I called a regret minimization framework. I wanted to project myself forward to age 80 and say, 'OK, I'm looking back on my life. I want to minimize the number of regrets I have.' And I knew that when I was 80, I was not going to regret having tried this. I was not going to regret trying to participate in this thing called the Internet that I thought was going to be a really big deal. I knew that if I failed, I wouldn't regret that. But I knew the one thing I might regret is not ever having tried. I knew that that would haunt me every day."

Amen.

scanr• 13 years ago

Woah. I independently came up with something similar. I used to wonder what kind of advice I'd give myself if I could go back in time. At some point, I realised that I could change it around and project myself forward in time instead and imagine what future me would say to me right now. What the advice lost in accuracy it made up for in actionability.

networked• 13 years ago

Sounds like a way of hacking near/far thinking (http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Near/far_thinking).

graeme• 13 years ago

Thanks for posting that. I've tried it since I read it, and it made it easier much to make the right decisions all day, with less drain on willpower. We'll see if that keeps up.

princeb• 13 years ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regret_(decision_theory)

gbog• 13 years ago

Don't want to be pouring cold water here but there are much more important things that should be fine in order to avoid later regrets: traveling in another culture deep enough to really know what is different and what is similar, having kids and spend time with them, etc. Say you get to be the next dropbox founder, good for you, but will that count that much when you will be 80?

ledon• 13 years ago

Hearing Bezos's regret minimization framework was one of the things that helped to make an easier decision to leave my job to start a company (I left Amazon, ironically). Here is the original video which this quote is taken from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwG_qR6XmDQ

boomzilla• 13 years ago

One could also argue that Bezos already made up his mind and he just needed to find a line of reasoning that supports his decisions. Well, isn't that how science works, when you do experiments and then come up with theories to support the results?

hawkharris• 13 years ago

I love the sentiment that Bezos expressed through this quote, and I sincerely hope to apply his advice to my career.

Having said that, this long-term way of thinking about happiness and regrets may conflict with human nature. The vast majority of us are incapable of predicting what will - or will not - make us happy:

http://scienceblogs.com/purepedantry/2008/04/22/happiness-pr...

mathattack• 13 years ago

That's a great quote.

I like this one:

6. "I very frequently get the question: 'What's going to change in the next 10 years?' And that is a very interesting question; it's a very common one. I almost never get the question: 'What's not going to change in the next 10 years?' And I submit to you that that second question is actually the more important of the two -- because you can build a business strategy around the things that are stable in time. ... [I]n our retail business, we know that customers want low prices, and I know that's going to be true 10 years from now. They want fast delivery; they want vast selection. It's impossible to imagine a future 10 years from now where a customer comes up and says, 'Jeff I love Amazon; I just wish the prices were a little higher,' [or] 'I love Amazon; I just wish you'd deliver a little more slowly.' Impossible. And so the effort we put into those things, spinning those things up, we know the energy we put into it today will still be paying off dividends for our customers 10 years from now. When you have something that you know is true, even over the long term, you can afford to put a lot of energy into it."

I enjoy the irony of getting his wisdom at a site called Fool.com.

thwarted• 13 years ago

I enjoy the irony of getting his wisdom at a site called Fool.com.

From http://www.fool.com/legal/the-motley-fool-disclaimer.aspx

Our name derives from Elizabethan drama, where only the court jester (the "Fool") could tell the King the truth without getting his head lopped off. We're dedicated to educating, amusing, and enriching individuals in search of the truth.

russgray• 13 years ago

This whole 'deathbed' theory has always seemed entirely bunk to me. At 35, my values and thought processes are almost entirely different to what I /thought/ they would be when I was 20, and so any decisions I'd made at 20 to please the 35-year-old 'me' would almost certainly have missed the mark.

The idea that at 35 I can predict what will or won't please my 80-year-old self is preposterous. The best thing I can do for that guy is make sure he has the resources available to do what makes him happy.

ivanbrussik• 13 years ago

url structure says "25 smartest things..."

michalu• 13 years ago

"All businesses need to be young forever. If your customer base ages with you, you're Woolworth's."

This made me think of facebook.

jacquesm4• 13 years ago

As in young forever or in Woolworths?

gamegoblin• 13 years ago

According to various younger folks I know around here (in the 12 +- 2 years range) most kids just use instagram and whatnot nowadays rather than facebook.

marincounty• 13 years ago

1. Hay Benzo's--work on your Prime Account page--especially the term and conditions--like 13 month interval for free 30 day prime trial membership. How many people click on that trial by accident; forgetting they once had it? I noticedyou don't send a receipt either?

2. Require your 2 party sellers to tell customers up front about the availability of an item.

3. Require sellers to state more than they just paid for shipping.

4. Bye

5. Oh yea--the company's main phone line needs "to be set up" at least today.

Smart Things Jeff Bezos Has Said

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