Tag Archives: jeff bezos

Long-Term Thinking Escapes Competition

How did Amazon succeed? By playing the long game. Jeff Bezos, the founder and CEO of Amazon, is known for his long-term thinking approach to business. And, long-term thinking has paid off for Amazon. Think about AWS and Kindle, bets that have changed the world.

Top 10 Most Powerful Lessons From the Book: “Invent and Wander: The Collected Writings of Jeff Bezos”

Invent and Wander: The Collected Writings of Jeff Bezos

Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, is a titan entrepreneur. Many books, articles, blog posts have been written by people about how Amazon works, but Jeff Bezos has written his own take on it: Shareholder letters that give a unique insight into how Amazon operates.

What is Customer Obsession?

customer obsessionOne of Amazon’s core values is customer obsession, it’s a keystone that holds together everything they do. Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, 2017 Letter to Amazon Shareholders outlines four key principles that he believes are critical to keeping his company, any company, relevant, competitive and dominant.

We Need To Think About Failure Differently To Drive Innovation

Mistakes aren’t a necessary evil. They aren’t evil at all. They are an inevitable consequence of doing something new

Yesterday I gave a talk to Foxconn employees and Directors about culture and how it drives innovation. A good way to frame culture is like this: what you reward and what you punish.

With that said, turn your attention to the following tweet:

Focus On What Won’t Change

focys on what won't change

The most common strategy all innovators use to create new industries is to take advantage of an emerging trend or technology. It’s becoming harder to pull that off because we’re living in the “next big thing” economy, one where every new product and service is a gimmick looking for a market.

Still, a good 99% of the conversations about the future are about what’s changing, what that means and what to do about it. I’m guilty of it myself. And while it’s important to discuss these matters, the flip side of that is even more important: what won’t change.

Jeff Bezos on Culture: Failure and Invention are Inseparable Twins

jeff bezos on corporate cultureFailure can’t be separated from invention, it’s not optional. It’s also why you can’t mandate innovation, only inspire it. You can create the conditions necessary for it to happen, but it’s not a set-it and forget it deal.

It’s something that Amazon CEO, Jeff Bezos, understands well and repeated this message once more in the latest letter to shareholders:

If You Don’t Value Brilliance, You Don’t Value Innovation

A small team of A+ playerscan run circles around a giant team of B and C players

Talent hits a target no one else can hit, genius hits a target no one else can see. In a perfect situation, you have both on your side. On most situation, you have neither.

No traditionally managed corporation would ever hire a Steve Jobs, Elon Musk or Larry Page type of person. Why? Because genius needs to be left alone, to be unleashed, to operate in chaos. And corporations want to put a leash on anything that challenges the status quo; they are afraid of genius because they can’t predict and control it.

But, black sheep are precisely the type of people you need if you truly want to innovate. It’s the truth.