avatarJake Teo

Summarize

Lessons and Advice from Jeff Bezos

Snippets from his podcast with Lex Friedman, from his day 1 mentality to long-term thinking in his tech-driven companies

Exploring the experiences and insights of accomplished individuals is a way that we can gain valuable lessons to enhance our own lives. This is why I love reading biographies. Likewise, lengthy podcasts that allow guests to express their thoughts without interruption also provide the same window of opportunity to learn from the very best.

Screenshot from YouTube, Lex Friedman channel, podcast #405.

In his first in-depth 2 hour long podcast with Lex Friedman, Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon and Blue Origin, shared candidly about his companies and personal life. There were so many useful and interesting analogies and mantras from him that I decided to take out my notebook and write down all these goodies to structure them before I could pen this article.

[Post-Script] After writing and reading some of his writings and speeches online, what he shared in the podcast is something he has been preaching for years. Perhaps these are more prominently used for senior leadership roles, but they are, IMO, highly relevant to technical roles and teams which we are in too. I have attached four other reference links which also touched on these and expanded on other points that he did not elaborate on as much.

Always in Day 1 Mode

In his 1997 and 2016 letters to Amazon’s shareholders, Jeff Bezos highlighted the success of his company because they are always in the “Day 1" type of thinking, which can be framed as being fast, agile, and in a constant state of start-up, renewal or rebirth.

In contrast, he notes the dangers of falling into “Day 2”, which is in “stasis”, and will be “followed by irrelevance. Followed by excruciating, painful decline. Followed by death”. This means falling into a certain complacency once reaching a level of maturity and success. Some of the defences to guard against Day 2 are as follows.

High Velocity Decision Making

2-door vs 1-door decisions

Most decisions to be made in a team or company are “2-door” decisions, being such that when implemented, can be easily reversed if failed. The top leadership should entrust their staff to make such decisions so that they can be quickly tested and validated. Technology can sometimes be enabled to transit to this, e.g., canary testing.

In contrast, “1-door” decisions are those that when implemented, are very costly, hard and complicated to reverse. Think of them as quick-drying cement. These are the types of decisions that leaders need to ensure that they are deliberated carefully and not rushed through. The key to decision-making is to know how to differentiate between these two types.

Disagreements in decisions

There will be many times when opposition to decisions arises. One of the worst ways to resolve this is through a compromise, or taking the middle ground. This is the easy, or in his words, a low-energy way to resolve conflicts and it does not lead to the truth.

Similarly, winning an argument by seeing who is more stubborn, and eventually exhausting the other person into agreement should be highly discouraged as part of the culture. Escalation should instead be done for the boss to make the best call.

Another common way to resolve a conflict is to disagree and commit. This comes when the boss or team member disagrees with you, but they still put the trust and full backing on your choice with the understanding of your competency and closeness to the ground truth.

Ultimately, the goal of making a good decision about a problem is to see if it can bring us closer to the truth. With a framework to make high-quality decisions quickly, the team or company will be in a better state to compete with others.

Long Term Thinking

Amazon is always working on the Big Things, which are lofty goals and trends that will never change even after 10 years or more. He illustrated an example like Amazon customers will always want fast deliveries, low prices and big selections. He said that it is not natural for humans to plan beyond 5 years, hence we need to consciously think longer to 10 and even 25 years.

It does not help that present technology has evolved humans to have shorter attention spans, and he emphasises the need to reprogram our brains by occasionally engaging in long attention activities which require singular focus like reading books, which is a goal for his popular Kindle e-reader. His obsession with thinking, planning and executing for the long term has him investing $42 million in the construction of a giant clock that can last up to 10,000 years.

This is also embodied in his personal life, where despite his busy schedule, he also makes sure that he always exercises daily with 30 minutes of cardio and 45 minutes of resistance training. This is because he not only wants to have a long lifespan but also a long “healthspan”.

Skeptical View of Proxies

It is essential to understand that a lot of the data, e.g., metrics collected to measure performance are proxies of the actual truth, but not the truth itself. In circumstances where you have anecdotes that are opposite of your metrics, more often than not, the anecdote is right and your data is wrong. He gave an example where during the early days of Amazon, there were customer complaints that the helpdesk took more than 10 sec to respond to, but his staff argued against it since all the metrics were reporting fine. He immediately tested this by calling the support line again and it took more than 10 minutes to get through. The metrics were changed as a result.

This is not to say that metrics are not important but we have to be wary about granting them 100% trust since they do not represent the absolute truth, and even if they are, can be bound to shift from it over time.

Culture Making in Meetings

Jeff Bezos shared a lot about cultural settings in an organisation. This includes ensuring that junior staff are not afraid and are encouraged to speak up, and even allowed to override the most senior person if they can back it by data. One way of encouraging this is for the leader to always speak last and the juniors the first.

His perfect meeting is defined by a crisp document and a messy meeting. This document should be written with such clarity that it's like angels singing on high. This document is more famously known as the 6-page memo. The meeting schedule will start with the first 30 minutes of study hall where the attendees will read the memo and write notes, before starting the discussions and brainstorming.

This format in his view, in contrast to the typical PowerPoint presentations, ensures that the presenter/author puts in the best efforts and research and does not hide behind bullet points in the slides. The study hall also ensures that everyone is prepared for the meeting, and also prevents interruptions from the audience since they are required to read the complete document before questioning. While an intimidating process for the author, this forces growth and makes them very good in their work.

Summary

Jotting down notes while listening to the podcast on the plane to Malaysia. (Photo from author)

In all, this was a fascinating podcast which I encourage all to listen to even after reading my article. Being technically skilled in our work does not always make a good and successful product, but a strong culture with good principles and leaders does.

References

  • Lex Friedman YouTube Podcast #405. Jeff Bezos: Amazon and Blue Origin. Link.
  • Elements of Amazon’s Day 1 Culture. Link.
  • Leading and Innovating with Leadership Principles. Link.
  • Letter to Amazon Shareholders 1997. Link.
  • Letter to Amazon Shareholders 2016. Link.
Success
Leadership
Work Culture
Technology
Programming
Recommended from ReadMedium