#405 – Jeff Bezos: Amazon and Blue Origin

Notes by JY

1. Invention VS Incremental improvement
1. invention needs wandering.
2. group invention
1. new ideas
2. objections to the new ideas
3. solutions to the objections
4. back and forth
2. A thoudsand ways to be smart
1. Physics to Computer Science, even Bezos cannot be the best physics
2. Admit the limits and accept it and explore what you have strengths
3. Critical Decisions
1. One ways doors, once made, they are difficult to change and come with a big risk. like amazon prime.
4. Some industry can have lots of winners
1. eg internet and space
5. You can’t know anyone by his public persona
6. Day one thinking kernel
1. day two is stasis, followed by irrelevance, followed by excruciating, painful decline, followed by death. And that is why it's always day one.
2. Embracing 'day one thinking' means renewing and starting fresh every day, making new decisions without being trapped by past identities or self-consistency. It involves constantly reevaluating and potentially changing principles and tactics, while remaining open to better alternatives. This approach emphasizes learning from history, but not blindly following it, and encourages a mindset of continual reinvention and rebirth.
3. It doesn't mean you discard history or ignore it. There's so much value in what has worked in the past and but you can't be blindly following what you've done. And that's the heart of day one. You're always starting fresh.
4. Customer obsession, a skeptical view of proxies, the eager adoption of external trends and high velocity decision making.
5. In business, over time, metrics are developed to manage certain aspects, such as efficiency metrics around customer contacts per unit sold. However, these metrics can become proxies for the truth or the real underlying factors, such as customer happiness. Over time, inertia can set in, causing individuals to forget the original purpose of the metrics and lose sight of the truth behind why they were being monitored in the first place.
6. Building a culture that enables uncomfortable truths to be brought up in meetings is crucial for high-performing organizations. Humans are naturally social and not always inclined to seek the truth. In ancient times, conformity was essential for survival, while being a truth teller could lead to harm. Important truths are often uncomfortable, awkward, exhausting, impolite, and can make people defensive. However, high-performing organizations in any field prioritize truth telling to drive success.
7. identify and prioritize the big things in business
1. Businesses should focus on managing and prioritizing the big things, which are stable over time and essential to customer experience. Identifying these big things, such as low prices, fast delivery, and large selection, is crucial as they are unlikely to change over the next 10 years and therefore worth investing energy into. These big things are distinct from small, internal issues, often referred to as 'paper cuts', which also deserve attention but should not overshadow the focus on the big things.

Notes by Snipd

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