This week, I watched Lex Fridman’s podcast episode with Jeff Bezos and OBVIOUSLY took notes.
If you’re not going to spend 2 hours watching the episode (you really must), then read this. I’ve put together some thoughts that I believed were worth coming back to.
1. Resourcefulness
Jeff worked at his grandfather’s ranch from age 4 to 16. Initially, his grandfather was predenting to let him help. As he got older, he actually got to help. Did all kinds of jobs you do at a ranch.
And the greatest gift Jeff got from that experience was this skill – resourcefulness. He learned that you can solve any problem with enough persistence and ingenuity. It was powerful to watch his grandfather be self-reliant and operate from a problem-solving mentality.
If you’re young and ambitious, this is one skill you CANNOT let slip away. Learn to be relentlessly resourceful (in PG’s words). I am too.
2. Why go to space?
We humans have gotten so impactful, large, and sophisticated. We will never want to go backward. Good old days are an illusion. In almost every, life is better for us than it was 50 years ago. Think global literacy rates, mortality rates, or any metric you choose.
And, we will continue to want to use a lot of energy.
The natural world is depreciating. The only way to have this natural, pristine beauty and to continue using the energy we do, is to go to space. Jeff says, you cannot credibly argue about going to the solar system, you can about the when, but not about the why.
3. WANDER
Real invention requires wandering. When Jeff sits down to work on a problem, he’s okay with the fact that he doesn’t know where he’s going.
I think I resonated with this because like most people, I also end up feeling that wandering is inefficient. That I am wasting time. And I think it is because I am uncertain of the outcome. Maybe what Jeff meant was to trust the process. To do justice to it.
Each time I feel that way, this is what I’ll come back to: Good ideas don’t come fully formed. They’re kernels. So, when you spot that kernel, allow yourself to WANDER.
4. Every startup is unlikely to work.
It helps to be realistic about that. But it doesn’t mean that you cannot be optimistic. This duality is important.
This part reminded me of the phrase, “reasonable optimism” that Saurabh Garg talked about (from Morgan Housel’s Same As Ever). To be reasonably optimistic means that we’re not unaware of the statistics, but we operate from a lens of certainty and self-belief.
The question is, are you reasonably optimistic?
5. DON’T get comfortable
In some of his letters to shareholders, Jeff talked about day 1 thinking.
What does it mean? Quite simply – every day is day 1. You start afresh and make new decisions every day.
For instance, here’s how folks at Amazon adopted day 1 thinking. With every project, they put down some tactical principles. And at the end of that list, they said, “unless you know a better way”.
The idea was to never get trapped by dogma. To always start afresh. To learn from history, but not blindly follow it.
6. Create a culture of truth-telling
We humans aren’t truth-seeking animals. ALL important truths are uncomfortable.
But, every high-performing organisation NEEDS to have a culture that encourages truth-telling.
For instance, one of the ways to encourage truth-telling in a boardroom is to have the most senior person go last. Jeff realised if he spoke first in meetings, even the most intelligent folks in that room would wonder, “If Jeff thinks that, maybe it is true and I am not right”.
Make the younger ones speak first. It is how to get to hear everyone’s unfiltered opinions.
It’s natural to change our opinions after listening to someone we really respect.
That’s why it’s important to explicitly give people the chance to share their opinions.
We do this at C4E. And I believe it has been super helpful for us considering we’re a group of younger and experienced folks.
7. What does your business stand for?
With Amazon, since the beginning, they had decided they’d become the world’s most customer-obsessed company. That everyone (from every industry) would study them and learn how they did it.
With Blue Origin, it was to become the world’s most decisive company. Speed. Sense of urgency. Quick decision-making.
It made me think about C4E and Decoding Draupadi.
At C4E, we want to become the world’s most reliable company. (This is me nudging us to talk about this on our next call).
With Decoding Draupadi, I am yet to figure that out.
Oh, finally, this – there are 1000 ways to be smart. IQ isn’t a single dimension. People are smart in VERY different ways.
That was all. Again, if ANY of these made you think, I URGE you to watch the video. There’s SO much about Blue Origin, the space, and Jeff’s work that I may not have captured here.