{"id":18357,"date":"2018-09-19T23:55:15","date_gmt":"2018-09-19T15:55:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/transcript-chief-slowdown-officer-jeff-bezos-shares-amazon-management-tips\/"},"modified":"2018-09-19T23:55:15","modified_gmt":"2018-09-19T15:55:15","slug":"transcript-chief-slowdown-officer-jeff-bezos-shares-amazon-management-tips","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/transcript-chief-slowdown-officer-jeff-bezos-shares-amazon-management-tips\/","title":{"rendered":"Transcript: \u2018Chief slowdown officer\u2019 Jeff Bezos shares Amazon management tips"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_448747\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-448747\" style=\"width: 630px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full-width wp-image-448747\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/180919-bezos2-630x450.jpg\" alt=\"Jeff Bezos\" width=\"630\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/180919-bezos2-630x450.jpg 630w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/180919-bezos2-768x549.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/180919-bezos2-1260x901.jpg 1260w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/180919-bezos2.jpg 1502w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px\"><figcaption data-nosnippet=\"\" id=\"caption-attachment-448747\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos speaks at the 2018 Air, Space and Cyber Conference in Maryland. (DVIDS \/ DOD)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>When Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos spoke today at the Air Force Association\u2019s 2018 Air, Space and Cyber Conference, his head wasn\u2019t just up in the clouds.<\/p>\n<p>To be sure, he devoted a lot of attention to his Blue Origin space venture and what it could offer for U.S. space dominance. But Bezos also talked about two-way vs. one-way doors in decision making; experimentation vs. operational excellence, and other strategies from Amazon\u2019s management playbook. There were even references to Amazon\u2019s HQ2 search, and the value of putting square pegs in round holes.<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s a lightly edited transcript of Bezos\u2019 50-minute talk with retired Gen. Larry Spencer at the conference in National Harbor, Md., in front of an Air Force audience:<\/p>\n<p><strong>Spencer: So, I have a wife who spends a lot of money, and I live in the D.C. area, and I could be looking for a job soon. So, any announcement you want to make about the headquarters?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Bezos (laughing):<\/strong>&nbsp; We\u2019ll make a decision before the end of the year. That\u2019s all I can say on that topic. We\u2019re excited to make that decision. And I hope your wife is spending some of that money on Amazon. \u2026<\/p>\n<p><strong>Spencer (laughing): Oh, absolutely. <\/strong><strong>One of the reasons we\u2019re happy to have you is that you are right in the wheelhouse of everything that\u2019s been going on here in the last few days, especially as we talk about innovation. If anyone epitomizes innovation, it\u2019s you and your companies. How do you encourage employees to be innovative? We\u2019ve talked a lot here about the \u201cfrozen middle,\u201d how folks will have ideas and they can\u2019t get them through. A lot of folks worry about the risk: \u201cWhat\u2019s going to happen if I make a mistake?\u201d How do you encourage your employees to be innovative?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Bezos:<\/strong> This is fantastic and important question. To be innovative you have to experiment. If you want to have more invention, you need to do more experiments per week, per month, per year, per decade. It\u2019s that simple. You cannot invent without experimenting. And here\u2019s the other thing about experiments: Lots of them fail. If you know it\u2019s going to work in advance, it is not an experiment.<\/p>\n<p>What happens in big organizations \u2014 and Amazon\u2019s a big organization now, the Air Force is a big organization&nbsp;\u2014 is that we start to confuse experimentation with operational excellence. Operational excellence is one of our four key principles at Amazon. We\u2019ve built over 150 large fulfillment centers around the world now. We know how to do that. That is not an experiment. If we build the 151st fulfillment center and screw it up, that\u2019s just a failure.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s not the kind of failure we\u2019re seeking. We want failures where we\u2019re trying to do something new, untested, never proven. That\u2019s a real experiment. And they come at all scale sizes. So you need to teach people that those two kinds of failure are different.<\/p>\n<p>You said something about that \u201chard middle,\u201d where ideas don\u2019t go up. I think this is such an important thing. At Amazon, one of the things we try to do is have multiple paths to \u201cyes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s a little thought experiment for you. If you are a junior executive at&nbsp;Amazon, and if Amazon did this in the typical kind of corporate hierarchy way, let\u2019s say you have an idea: You need to get your boss to greenlight that idea, and then your boss\u2019s boss needs to greenlight that idea. And then your boss\u2019s boss\u2019s boss needs to greenlight that idea. There are probably five levels or more before that idea gets the go-ahead.<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Jeff Bezos at 2018 Air, Space and Cyber Conference\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/PNUUuaveZ4g?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\" data-ratio=\"0.5625\" data-width=\"800\" data-height=\"450\" style=\"display: block; margin: 0px; width: 800px; height: 450px;\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Assume instead that you\u2019re an entrepreneur with a startup company idea, and you need venture capital. You go to Sand Hill Road [in Silicon Valley], and you go to the first venture capitalist and they tell you \u201cno.\u201d You go to the second one, and they tell you \u201cno.\u201d Maybe your 20th one tells you yes. You\u2019ve got 19 no\u2019s and one yes, and you\u2019re still good to go.<\/p>\n<p>In that venture capital model, there are multiple paths to yes. There were 20 people who could give you a yes, and it didn\u2019t matter how many gave you a no. So if you want innovative thinking, hire a large number of high judgment people empowered to greenlight ideas. You want multiple paths to yes. You want a system where, as a junior Air Force officer with a good idea, the first five people tell me no, but somehow I can still go pursue that idea.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s a challenge that big organizations have to figure out. And by the way, this happens all the time: I\u2019ll say, \u201cI don\u2019t think that\u2019s a good idea,\u201d but somebody else will greenlight it. I\u2019m fine with that, because usually the cost of the experiments is pretty small.<\/p>\n<p>Things only get expensive when they work, right? Once something works, you\u2019re like, \u201cWhoa, we need to double down on that.\u201d Then the spending can get heavy, and then those can become big, consequential decisions. That\u2019s where the hierarchy and using the judgment of the most senior people really helps.<\/p>\n<p>You also have to select people who like to invent, When you\u2019re in your hiring and your promotions process, you need to say, \u201cDoes this person like to be innovative? Do they have a bit of the pioneering spirit?\u201d Maybe they\u2019re also a little bit annoying because they might be, you know, a little bit radical or a bit of a rebel. They\u2019re not always the easiest people to get along with, but you want them in your organization.<\/p>\n<p>They\u2019re a spice.&nbsp;I wouldn\u2019t recommend having 90 percent mavericks.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Spencer: What I found, at least in my military career, is that often mavericks, as you mentioned, are not welcomed. One of the phrases I really didn\u2019t like when I came up in the Air Force was \u201cif it ain\u2019t broke, don\u2019t fix it.\u201d That doesn\u2019t mean you shouldn\u2019t make it better.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Bezos:<\/strong> Yeah. And by the way, your adversaries may be making it better.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Spencer: Exactly. So how do you handle these mavericks, and how do you protect them from the institution destroying them?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Bezos:<\/strong>&nbsp;You have to teach the value that these people bring. But also I would push hard on the mavericks to say, you also have to be organized. You can\u2019t just be a crazy person. It\u2019s fine to be a maverick, but write your ideas down. Sell your ideas. Persuade. Create the conditions where the ideas can blossom. If you\u2019re just purely a creative person with zero organizational skills, you\u2019re probably not going to get much done. So I would push back on the organization and say, look, these people have an important role to play.<\/p>\n<p>By the way, all of us are a little bit of a maverick. It\u2019s not like there are these people who were born mavericks. We all have this inside of us. If you look at kids, they\u2019re all inventive. They\u2019re all doing crazy things.<\/p>\n<p>I actually saw one of my kids put a square peg in a round hole, and as he was doing it, I would say \u201cthat\u2019s never going to work.\u201d And then it fit, and I was like, \u201cGosh, that\u2019s amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Little kids try things. We all do that when we\u2019re little, and some of us lose it.<\/p>\n<h4 class=\"callout clearfix\"><strong>Read more<\/strong>: Jeff Bezos sells the Air Force on Blue Origin rockets and Amazon Web Services<\/h4>\n<p>One of the great paradoxes of inventing at a high level is that you need to be an expert in your domain area, and you need to have a beginner\u2019s mind. You absolutely need both of those things. The world is too complex to actually just be a beginner.<\/p>\n<p>No matter how inventive I am, I can\u2019t go invent a new kind of brain surgery. You have to be a neurosurgeon. You have to already know all there is to know about brain surgery, and then take it to the next level.<\/p>\n<p>The problem is, for many people, by the time they become true experts, they\u2019ve lost that ability to see things in a fresh way. They\u2019ve lost the beginner\u2019s mind. And so that\u2019s another thing: If I\u2019m an expert in launch vehicles or whatever it is, I need to step back and say, OK, if I were looking at this for the first time, what would I be seeing?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Spencer: For roughly 80 percent of my career in the Air Force, we would launch satellites and not think twice about it. Space was considered a sanctuary. Obviously that has changed. So what do you see as the biggest challenges or risks in operating in the space domain?&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Bezos:<\/strong> Let\u2019s start with a fundamental principle. You never want a fair fight. That\u2019s for a boxing ring. Outside of a boxing ring, a fair fight is just bad strategy. It means you didn\u2019t prepare properly. As you pointed out, this nation has enjoyed incredible space dominance for so long, but it\u2019s changing because some of our potential adversaries are getting very sophisticated.<\/p>\n<p>If I were in your shoes, the way I would think about this is, in this new era, how are we going to maintain space dominance? What does it really mean? You\u2019re going to need some fundamental capabilities. You have to be able to go to space more frequently, with less lead time.<\/p>\n<p>If you said, \u201cJeff, I have a mission for you. I need you to control this piece of terrain over here, but there are some constraints: You can only visit it once a month, with a lead time of two years,\u201d I\u2019ve just been given an impossible mission.<\/p>\n<p>So it\u2019s not surprising that it\u2019s&nbsp;difficult to do that. One of Blue Origin\u2019s missions is to make access to space more frequent, ready to go on a moment\u2019s notice, lower cost \u2014 which requires reusability. All those things are going to be required, in my view, to move into a new era of U.S. space dominance. And believe me, I don\u2019t have to tell you guys, you do not want to see that era end. That\u2019s a big deal.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Spencer: We have a lot of industry partners here in the audience. \u2026 What are some of the benefits for your companies partnering with commercial industry?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Bezos:<\/strong> It\u2019s so&nbsp;important for the DOD, for the Air Force, for every government institution, when they can, to use commercial solutions. What I find is that when the requirements get written, they\u2019re not written necessarily taking that into account in all cases. And so you end up getting a custom-built system which meets the requirements, when a commercial system would have met a different set of requirements in a much better way for&nbsp;the capability that\u2019s required.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s a big problem. It\u2019s very costly. It slows you down. You want to reserve your custom requirements for things where you really need special sauce. Something where there really isn\u2019t and shouldn\u2019t be a commercial avenue.<\/p>\n<p>On writing requirements, I tell our engineers at Blue Origin: \u201cGood engineers build to requirements. Great engineers push back on requirements.\u201d You need to say, \u201cIs this requirement really needed? Because if we&nbsp;can waive this requirement, then we can use this commercial system.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_448746\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-448746\" style=\"width: 630px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full-width wp-image-448746\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/spencer-630x506.jpg\" alt=\"Bezos and Spencer\" width=\"630\" height=\"506\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/spencer-630x506.jpg 630w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/spencer-768x617.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/spencer.jpg 1074w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px\"><figcaption data-nosnippet=\"\" id=\"caption-attachment-448746\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Jeff Bezos chats with retired Air Force Gen. Larry Spencer. (DVIDS \/ DOD)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>If you look at an example from my own world, which is Amazon Web Services, we\u2019re now seeing fantastic growth from both companies and government institutions,&nbsp;the CIA, the DOD, using our compute cloud instead of building their own systems. And the reason these companies are doing that&nbsp;\u2026 is because the capabilities they get keep improving, kind of automagically, without any effort. Part of what\u2019s going on there is, in a system like that, you want co-customers because the co-customers drive the product forward.<\/p>\n<p>If you\u2019re the only customer of a software system, you\u2019re the only one driving it forward. If thousands customers share that system, then the other 999 that are not you are also driving it forward, and you get that as a tailwind.<\/p>\n<p>The analogy I\u2019ll give you is that of a personal physician. The last thing you want, Larry, is a personal physician who only services you, because that person \u2026 sure, they\u2019d be available, they\u2019d show up and do house calls, they\u2019d be there anytime. But you want a doctor who\u2019s seeing hundreds of sick people so that when you have a problem, that doctor has a bunch of data points.<\/p>\n<p>How could a personal, private physician ever diagnose something? It would be so challenging. You don\u2019t want a private doctor, you want a bunch of co-patients, because those patients are teaching that doctor every day. If you can use a commercial system, you effectively have a doctor who has lots of patients teaching,<\/p>\n<p><strong>Spencer: Let\u2019s get specific about the Air Force. How would you recommend fostering innovation specifically with an organization like the Air Force, and with velocity?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Bezos:<\/strong> Velocity is so important, and in large organizations, it is about decision making. What you really want is scale and nimbleness, right? So if you take the U.S Air Force, one way to make it nimbler would be to make it much smaller, but that\u2019s a really bad solution because the scale brings so many advantages.<\/p>\n<p>I see the same thing at Amazon. Because of our scale, we can do things that we just couldn\u2019t ever have done as a garage startup. There are some things that only big organizations can do. I love garage startups. I <em>was<\/em> a garage startup. But you can\u2019t build a Boeing 787 in your garage. You need a big organization like Boeing to do that.<\/p>\n<p>So we want scale, we love scale, and you would never trade the scale of the U.S, Air Force for anything. But the question becomes, \u201cHow do I keep the advantages of scale but still have the advantages of a nimble startup? How do I get the nimbleness, too? I want to be able to absorb a punch because of my scale, and I want to be able to dodge a punch because of my nimbleness.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The way to stay nimble is by making decisions fast. In a 20-person startup company, the decision-making speed is so quick. That\u2019s why they\u2019re so nimble. In a big company or a big organization like the Air Force, that decision making has a tendency to lose speed.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"icon-quotes-left\"><\/span>&nbsp;I\u2019m the chief slowdown officer. \u2026 I say, \u2018No, I want to see this one more way,\u2019 and&nbsp;the team that\u2019s working on it rolls their eyes.<span class=\"icon-quotes-right\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p>You get high-quality decisions. I think sometimes people think the decisions are low-quality. You just get them slowly, which is a problem. This is what we do at Amazon: We acknowledge that there are two types of decisions. There are decisions that are \u201ctwo-way doors.\u201d If you make the decision, you walk through the door, and if it turns out you made the wrong decision, you turn around, come back, and the consequence of that misstep is small.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s a Type 2 decision. There\u2019s a Type 1 decision, where it\u2019s really hard to reverse course once you walk through that door. It\u2019s going to be expensive or impossible and time-consuming to reverse that decision, so you have to get that right.&nbsp;That\u2019s a high-consequence decision. Those decisions should be made deliberately, carefully, slowly.<\/p>\n<p>At Amazon, I find myself on those decisions. I\u2019m the chief slowdown officer. I slow those decisions down. I say, \u201cNo, I want to see this one more way,\u201d and&nbsp;the team that\u2019s working on it rolls their eyes. I\u2019ve already seen it 18 ways, but I thought of a 19th way and I want to see it. That\u2019s correct. For a high-consequence, irreversible decision, you owe it to your teammates to make those decisions.<\/p>\n<p>The problem that comes in with large organizations is that junior executives \u2014 I\u2019ll switch it to \u201cofficers\u201d \u2014 junior officers see senior officers as their role models. So they\u2019re looking around and watching, and it turns out \u2014 rightly \u2014 that senior officers are mostly making high-consequence, Type 1 decisions that require a slow, deliberate decision-making process. So then the junior officers are like, well, that must be how we should make all decisions.<\/p>\n<p>So now even trivial decisions end up going through a lot of extra unnecessary process to be made. Really, many of those decisions should be made by very small teams, or even by single individuals with good judgment, knowing full well that they can be reversed.<\/p>\n<p>Senior leadership can set the tone on that. They can say, \u201cWhy are so many people involved in this decision? I want Jill to make this decision, and whatever Jill decides is fine. And guess what, Jill, if you get it wrong, it\u2019s OK. We\u2019re just going to back up and do it again. I don\u2019t want you to talk to anybody about this. Just go make the decision.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Spencer:&nbsp;So I\u2019ve been here since in the hotel since last Thursday, and I decided to run home quickly last night to change out some clothes. Typical of my wife, I walked in the door after being gone for several days, and she asked me to take out the trash.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Bezos:<\/strong> She saved it for you.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Spencer: She did, but I didn\u2019t want to take out the trash. So I was considering \u2026 OK, she asked me to take out the trash. Now, what\u2019s the risk to me by not taking it out?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Bezos (laughing):<\/strong> Over a beer, I want to hear how this ended up.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Spencer: The Air Force was birthed on innovation, so you have a generally innovative crowd here. However, there is a balance between innovation and risk. How do you balance those two?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Bezos:<\/strong>&nbsp;Well, here\u2019s what I would say: When you\u2019re doing these experiments, winners pay for thousands of losers. To put it in Amazon terms, we\u2019ve had a few gigantic winners at Amazon. We\u2019ve had Amazon Prime, our membership program. Amazon Web Services has been a gigantic winner. Our Marketplace business, where we let third-party sellers compete against us on our primary retail real estate. Those are huge winners for Amazon. Each of those winners has more than paid for&nbsp;thousands of experiments.<\/p>\n<p>So when you\u2019re talking about the kinds of experiments that you would be doing here at the Air Force, that I do at Amazon and Blue Origin, the positive outcome is very long tail. There\u2019s an analogy in baseball. Everybody knows that if you swing for the fences, you\u2019re going to hit more home runs, but you\u2019re also going to strike out more. In baseball, the most runs you can score when you\u2019re up at the plate is four. Your upside is capped. It\u2019s not long-tailed. But in business, and I bet it\u2019s true here at the Air Force as well, that upside isn\u2019t really capped. Every once in a while, in business, you step up to the plate, you swing as hard as you can, and you get a thousand runs.<\/p>\n<p>That long-tail distribution of those possible outcomes is what makes experimenting worthwhile. When you\u2019re balancing the risks, you say, \u201cThe most I can lose is the cost of the experiment, and the value of the invention could be uncapped.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Spencer: We obviously live in a very diverse world, a very diverse country and a very diverse Air Force. What role does diversity play in innovation? Not just race, ethnicity or gender, but also background?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Bezos:<\/strong>&nbsp;I think all of those types of diversity play a role in invention and innovation.The kind of invention that I see every day is team invention.<\/p>\n<p>Amazon\u2019s Echo speaker with Alexa is&nbsp;an example of an invention that no customer asked for. If we had gone to customers, six years ago or seven years ago, and we said, \u201cLook, would you buy a black cylinder that you plug into the wall in your kitchen, and you can ask it what time it is, set timers, ask it what the weather is, ask it to play music for you,\u201d they would have said, \u201cNo, I will not buy that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>So, we invented that. But there was no single person who invented it. It was team invention. People come at these things because of their diverse backgrounds&nbsp;\u2014 which I think does include gender and race and everything else, but also certainly \u201cDid you come from a wealthy family? Did you come from a broken home?\u201d All these things lead people to think in slightly different ways. And so when you do that team invention, you want people in the room thinking very differently. You\u2019re going to end up with a more robust invention.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Spencer: When you recruit folks for your company, and you mentor folks in your company, how are you recruiting and mentoring and raising the next Jeff Bezos?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Bezos:<\/strong> Well, it depends on the seniority of the person you\u2019re talking about. I teach a senior leaders class at Amazon, which I enjoy, and there I teach a bunch of different things. One of the things that really resonates with the folks I teach there is stress management. I offer to people that it\u2019s part of their job to make sure that they don\u2019t get burned out. I\u2019m a member of the Business Council, and I meet with lots of other Fortune 500 CEOs from time to time. And I often hear them talking about how stressed they are. There seems to be this idea that the more senior you are, the more stress you should have. I think that\u2019s the opposite, because the more senior you are, the more control you have over your environment.<\/p>\n<p>To a large degree, you get to pick who your senior staff is. To a large degree, you get to pick your schedule. To a large degree, you get to decide how you interact: Do you like to do lots of one-on-ones, or do you like to have small-group meetings? As a senior leader, you have a lot of control. And what I find is sometimes people forget that they have that control as a senior executive or as a senior officer. They forget that they can construct to a certain degree their work environment every day.<\/p>\n<p>One of the things I try to do is preserve some time that\u2019s unscheduled, because I realized several years ago that hard work never stresses me out, but being overscheduled does stress me out. So I started working on ways that I can be less scheduled. I want to have a series of meetings that are just on standby, that I can do whatever I want.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"icon-quotes-left\"><\/span>&nbsp;If you\u2019re working 60 hours a week, that\u2019s completely sustainable for most people, and if you\u2019re burned out by that, it\u2019s not the number of hours. You\u2019re doing something wrong.<span class=\"icon-quotes-right\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Most speaking engagements that I do, I say, \u201cI can\u2019t do it unless I can tell you the day before. If I can tell you the day before, there\u2019s probably a 50 percent chance or better than I can do it, but I don\u2019t want to let you down by canceling. And if I put this in my schedule, I know by the time the date arrives, I\u2019m going to regret it either way.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The weird thing that happens when I do that is, I find I\u2019m really excited to say yes and to go do it. It\u2019s just kind of human nature that you don\u2019t want to be forced into things. You want to know that it\u2019s your choice. And so, senior leaders have more choice.<\/p>\n<p>The other thing that I try to teach in that regard is, I get asked by people in all age ranges, all levels of seniority, what do I think about work-life balance?&nbsp;My view on work-life balance is that I prefer the phrase \u201cwork-life harmony.\u201d To me, \u201cbalance\u201d implies a strict tradeoff. And I have seen situations where people have all the time in the world, maybe they\u2019re out of work, and they\u2019re so stressed that they\u2019re actually terrible at home. Everybody at home is like,&nbsp;\u201cBoy, I sure wish you\u2019d get a job.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>My sister-in-law says, \u201cFor better, for worse, but not for lunch.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>So you really want harmony. They call it work for a reason. It\u2019s not going to be fun all the time. That\u2019s a pipe dream. None of us enjoys every minute of every day. And to have that kind of idea would just be naive. But there should be fun at work. You should be laughing. There should be moments of joy, and if you\u2019re getting energy from work instead of your work draining your energy, then you\u2019re going to come home and you\u2019re going to be a better mother, a better father, a better wife, a better husband.<\/p>\n<p>You\u2019re going to want to take out the trash \u2014 even before being asked. That\u2019s what\u2019s going to happen, Larry, your wife is just going to say, \u201cWho <em>is<\/em> this guy?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>So if you\u2019re starting to get to the point where you are worried about work-life balance, I would challenge you to think it\u2019s just something out of whack.&nbsp;It\u2019s probably not the hours.<\/p>\n<p>Look, if you\u2019re working 120 hours a week, you\u2019re also doing something wrong. That\u2019s too much. It\u2019s not sustainable. Maybe you can do that for a week or two, but that\u2019s it. But if you\u2019re working 60 hours a week, that\u2019s completely sustainable for most people, and if you\u2019re burned out by that, it\u2019s not the number of hours. You\u2019re doing something wrong. You need to figure out what it is, because you\u2019re going to take that home and then your home life is going to be stressful. And then you\u2019re bringing that back into the office, so it\u2019s going to be a negative spiral. That spiral will also be a positive one as soon as you turn it around.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Spencer: Now, I\u2019ve only known you for a few minutes, but just talking to you in the green room, it\u2019s obvious that you like to have fun. So how do you create fun for your company, for folks who work for you?&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Bezos:<\/strong> First of all, I think that the work itself should be fun. It\u2019s also great to layer on fun. If I think about the people that I work with, we have dinners together, we have Super Bowl parties together, we have impromptu concerts together. We do a lot of fun things, but the real thing is, when you\u2019re in a meeting and you\u2019re going through the important topics of the day or the year or the decade, whatever you\u2019re working on. Is that fun? You know, there are these people, when they walk in the room, they bring energy. That person walks in the meeting and everybody gets a little lift. Those people are worth their weight in gold.<\/p>\n<p>And by the way, there is another kind of person who, when they walk into a meeting, you feel it. As soon as they walk in the room, it\u2019s very deflating. Everybody is like, uhhh. Don\u2019t be that guy. Figure out how to be the first guy, the person who when you enter the room, everybody is kind of excited. It\u2019s not that hard.<\/p>\n<p>Every meeting should start with some encouragement and end with some encouragement. You can tell people very candid truths in the middle of the meeting, things they don\u2019t like and don\u2019t want to hear, but you can end it on an up note.&nbsp;You can also just say, \u201cLook, we screwed this up, and we all know it.\u201d Even that can be fun, if you acknowledge it. We screwed this up, we all know it, let\u2019s figure out how. Let\u2019s find the root cause. I believe in root causes, finding root causes, fixing root causes. Slow is smooth, and smooth is fast. Everything I\u2019ve ever succeeded at in life is because of that philosophy.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Spencer: There are a couple of things that are certain in life. We\u2019ve all heard about death and taxes, but there\u2019s a third certainty that I\u2019m pretty confident about, and that\u2019s that your bank account is quite a bit larger than mine. Not much keeps me up at night, but what keeps you up at night?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Bezos:<\/strong>&nbsp;Well, I sleep extremely well. Even when I\u2019m worrying over issues, it doesn\u2019t stop me from sleeping. I\u2019m a gifted sleeper. But I know the way in which you mean the question. Amazon is such a big company now. It\u2019s grown so quickly.<\/p>\n<p>I started the company in 1995. We opened our doors 23&nbsp;years ago. I was delivering all the packages to the post office myself. I don\u2019t know if you know anything about my personal background. I was not born with a silver spoon in my mouth. My mother was pregnant with me in high school in Albuquerque, New Mexico&nbsp;\u2014 and believe me, in 1964, it was not cool to be pregnant in high school. My grandfather went to bat for her.&nbsp;They tried to kick her out of high school, and my grandfather said, \u201cYou can\u2019t do that. It\u2019s a public school. She gets to finish high school.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The principal finally capitulated, but he said his terms were that my mom could not do any extracurricular activities or have a locker. My grandfather said, \u201cOK, done, we\u2019ll take that deal.\u201d So she finished school.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"icon-quotes-left\"><\/span>&nbsp;Senior leaders need to be broken records on the things that are important to the organization.<span class=\"icon-quotes-right\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p>My dad is a Cuban immigrant, and like most immigrants, he loves this country even more than those of us who were born here. And so I started this company, and I\u2019m driving the packages to the post office myself. My big dream was that we would one day be able to afford a forklift. It was a tiny, tiny company.<\/p>\n<p>Today it\u2019s almost 600,000 people. It\u2019s a very large company. And so the answer to your question, you know, metaphorically what keeps me awake at night, I worry about somehow losing our way with respect to our culture. Our culture is four things: customer obsession instead of competitor obsession; willingness to think long term, with a longer investment horizon than most of our peers; eagerness to invent, which of course goes hand-in-hand with failure; and then, finally, taking professional pride in operational excellence.<\/p>\n<p>The professional pride part is so important, because 90 percent of what all of you do, nobody ever sees. It\u2019s something that\u2019s inside the work.&nbsp;People see something finished, but they don\u2019t see what\u2019s inside it. Only you see that while you\u2019re doing the work.&nbsp;Nobody\u2019s going to be inspecting it. You\u2019re not going to get any credit for it. The only thing that\u2019s going to make you have high standards on that piece of the work that nobody\u2019s ever going to see is your own professional pride in operational excellence.<\/p>\n<p>Those are the four cultural attributes that are used at Amazon. We use the same ones at Blue Origin, we use the same ones at AWS. If those things start to erode at the edges, that would make me very nervous. So I spend a lot of time trying to inspect that, audit that, teach that. Teaching things like that is about repetition. Senior leaders need to be broken records on the things that are important to the organization.&nbsp;You have succeeded when you start to see people roll their eyes because of your repetition on certain important things.<\/p>\n<p>Senior leaders don\u2019t have to do a lot of things. They have to pick a few big ideas, and enforce tough execution against those big ideas. That requires a lot of repetition.<\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=BTEhohh6eYk<\/p>\n<p><strong>Bezos narrates a short video about<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos speaks at the 2018 Air, Space and Cyber Conference in Maryland. (DVIDS \/ DOD) When Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos spoke today at the Air Force Association\u2019s 2018 Air, Space and Cyber Conference, his head wasn\u2019t just up in the clouds. To be sure, he devoted a lot of attention to his [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[437,275,4455,509,1046,21],"class_list":["post-18357","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-air-force","tag-amazon","tag-amazon-web-services","tag-blue-origin","tag-jeff-bezos","tag-space"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18357"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18357"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18357\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}