jeff bezos

episode 3

Jeff Bezos is at the top of his game. It started with him driving the delivery van for Amazon and dreaming of being able to afford a forklift.

Today he's been Time Magazine's Person of the Year and has an estimated personal wealth of over $80B. He runs the world's biggest internet retailer, and at the same time, he's re-inventing the Washington Post and pioneering Space. Not bad for a 53-year-old.

Join Mike and Chad as they deconstruct how Jeff does it. 

Jeff Bezos Interviews

Elon Musk's boring machine completes the first section of an LA tunnel
Inside Travis Kalanick’s Resignation as Uber’s C.E.O.
The Verge
Published Jun 28, 2017

The Recode Interview with Jeff Bezos
Recode
Published on May 31, 2016

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos talks with The Verge's Walt Mossberg about the "gigantic" potential of artificial intelligence to change everything from shopping to self-driving cars.

Bezos also discusses his purchase of the Washington Post in 2013, which he says is transforming from a local to a global institution. He explains why he opposes both Peter Thiel's campaign against Gawker Media and Donald Trump's attempts to "freeze or chill" press scrutiny.

Plus: Why Bezos's other company, Blue Origin, is trying to lower the cost of entrepreneurship in space.

Chad's Book Recommendation

The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon
Brad Stone

Play with Amazon's Echo technology
Echoism

TRANSCRIPT

Welcome to the moonshots podcast. I'm your cohost might pass and is joined by the one and only Chad Owen. Hi Mike. Hey, good morning. New York. Good evening Australia. Thanks Q. And it is, uh, with great delight that I've stayed up late to record this very exciting show. And I thought it would be helpful for everyone.

We actually mentioned, this is June 30 because as you'll know, our listeners last week found that the timing of our show seems to be. Very important. So welcome one. And, or, uh, here on June 3rd, ready for our third episode. And we're going to go and learn from some of, if not one of the greatest ever innovators, not any of our time, but yeah, I think of history and we're going to grab lunch inspiration along the way.

So who do we have for this episode? Jeff Bezos who's known for founding amazon.com. Um, but as we will find out later in the show, he's, uh, spun off many other businesses and acquired many Benz businesses along the way. He's like, you know, he is so busy. He is not only just doing Amazon. His laundry list is, is off the charts.

But before we get into Jeff, now that the show's been going for several episodes, I think we need to touch into the famous moonshots news track. Yeah. And, um, both, uh, Ilan and Travis who have featured on our show. Uh, of the last few weeks have been busy. Um, I don't know if you saw this chat, but did you actually realize that Ian has, and he's boring company has actually started the boring of tunnels in Los Angeles?

I didn't until very like a few days ago. I didn't realize that they had actually even started. I thought they were just in discussions. Yeah, no, I, I thought they were still just doing the testing out in the desert. I had no idea that they were already underneath the city. So, um, The news is that they've actually can completed the first section of, uh, their first tunnel in Los Angeles.

And, uh, I was completely flooded by this, the speed at which, uh, you know, on mercies is pretty tremendous. So it felt like only a few weeks ago there having positive discussions, uh, with the, uh, The different bodies that, that govern transport in, in Los Angeles in already now they've completed the first section, which is pretty breathtaking, isn't it?

Yeah. Yeah. Pretty hard to believe how, how fast he moves. So very exciting to see where that, um, brings the whole idea of tunneling on the city. And if you're interested in that in much more about Elan, you can go and listen to. Our very first episode, but really that news is kind of trivial compared to what happened in the last week with, uh, Travis kalonie Kat, the now former CEO of Uber.

What, what did you think when you, we just recorded the show and literally later that day, the news came out. What was your first reaction? Chad? I, I think we saw it coming. Um, I don't think we saw it coming quite as soon as it had happened. Um, that was actually quite a shock to stop podcasting and then open up the, the New York times website and see that the investors had essentially given Travis and ultimatum to step down as CEO or he'd be forced out.

Yeah. Um, it, it was, um, pretty dramatic stuff and, um, Very, uh, I mean, you can you really feel for the guy in the space of a few months, he's once shiny company is thrust into the limelight for all the wrong reasons, let's be honest. And, uh, there's the passing of his mother, the injury of his father, and then forced resignation.

Um, nobody wishes that upon anyone and very tiny trying times for him, I think right now, Yeah, I just, I hope that the what's it, the council of 13, um, is able to, to interview and vet, you know, a leader to take the home. Uh, I don't think you can have a company like Uber, you know, B could continue to grow like it has without someone very.

I'm very strong at the helm. So it'll be very interesting to see where Uber goes in the coming months in terms of their executive search. Yeah. And the funny, the funny thing is that, um, you remember our conversation and I was saying, you know, Travis really needed a Sheryl Sandberg and she's actually been named, um, in several speculative pieces as the potential.

Uh, CEO for, for Uber, which would be in my mind, that would be a killer move. I think. Um, there's a young man called Mark living down there in Palo Alto. Who's probably not so keen on the idea. Who would you go for if you could, um, put in a new CEO, Chad, who, who, who's your pick for a new Uber CEO? I don't know that I have one, uh, I'd have to give, give some long, hard thought to, uh, who'd be best suited for that role, because I think you'd have to be well suited to respond to the kind of endemic, cultural and, and, and, and hiring issues that, that Uber has had in it and its scale, but also be really familiar with operations and know how to launch, you know, Essentially a new multimillion dollar business in a city, you know, in a matter of weeks as they're doing is they're continuing to do as they expand.

Yeah. So let's, let's think about who's floating around. Well, there's, there's a, there's a very talented lady. Who's uh, recently become the former CEO of Yahoo. Could you see Marissa Mayer perhaps, or somebody who you could put in place there is, is. Is that the kind of person, or is that still a little bit too tech?

Would you go with someone who's a little bit more large scale operations? I mean, I would look into industry into like logistics industries in something like FedEx or ups. Um, even someone at Amazon, I think just the way they've designed their logistics and fulfillment centers. Um, I think that kind of thinking could do well applied to Uber.

I agree. I totally agree. And in our show notes on moonshots.io, we will have links not only to, to the, uh, announcement about the, uh, the boring company in Los Angeles. We'll also have a great article that we really encourage you guys. The out there, the listeners to check out, which is the New York times follow up piece to the announcement, um, around, uh, Uber and Travis.

And they sort of sketch out the lines, lost that last day and how it went down. It's great reading. Um, so, um, check out the link at moonshots dot HIO. And stay tuned for, uh, another big piece of news related to, uh, Jeff's newest acquisition, but, um, I have to wait a little bit longer. Uh, For that as a, as we get into the, into the show.

Yeah. So we have a, we have a fabulous, um, interview that he did with re code, which, um, is by far one of the, the leading, uh, sort of tech and, you know, get togethers where the biggest and the best we'll get on stage, uh, with Kara and Walt and a fantastic interview. From 2016, so many goodies in there in this, um, lots for, for our listeners to learn, to use and to apply in their daily work.

But I just want to take a moment, Chad, just to. To sketch, um, what Jeff has achieved now. We all, probably everybody knows Jeff Bezos. Uh, yes. He's been on the cover of time magazine as person of the year. He's been named on every single list that there could potentially be. He is even a member of the Bilderberg group.

Um, now Chad, have you ever heard if this, this little a auspicious group called the Bilderberg group? I have not, but it sounds what's it like the booth, the Bohemian Grove, that sort of thing. I didn't know how Bohemian is, but it's generally considered to be the people who run, uh, who run the world. So it's a very high end group of people.

And, uh, mr. Teal, another famous tech, uh, innovator is a member of Bilderberg as well. And they get together in these annual summits. And, uh, generally talk about. The future of the world and what they can do to make it happen. And, um, uh, one of those things, that's hard to get an invite to that's for sure.

But, um, you know, Bezos for me, uh, Chad is remarkable in so many ways. He's, um, he's really built the company at Amazon from scratch, but everybody associates him with that. But do you realize. The amount of things he's done, obviously, uh, we have his, uh, his efforts in space and, uh, he's acquisitions of Zappos.

But when I looked up the list of, uh, companies that he is an investor and he referred to the umbrella organization is the basis expedition. Um, I was amazed at how many, he amazing companies. He's also an investor in it. Were you surprised when you saw this list of his bayzos expeditions and all these participations?

I think the most surprising thing to me was to find out that he was a very, very early investor in Google and that. His investment of, you know, probably just a couple of hundred thousand dollars alone is probably worth a couple billion dollars at this point. So it completely outside of building Amazon to like a $450 billion market cap company, this small investment he made in Google so many years ago also turned him into a billionaire till that's crazy.

So how early was he involved in Google? I don't want to misspeak, but I mean, he was in, I think the very first official round around. Yeah. And he was kind of late to the party. Um, but he was a, he's such a hard negotiator that he was able to get the same terms. Um, as, as, as the, as the first moving investors.

That's incredible. So, so let me hit you with a couple of the real standouts for me. So I'm just going to go off the bat, medically through the list. So this is for everyone listening. Just remember, this is outside of doing the world's biggest online retailer. He is where he's also invested in one, a little, uh, travel and accommodation.

Uh, Application called Airbnb. Um, obviously he has blue origin fee space, business Domo, which is really talented, um, in the beers as being the longterm winner of business intelligence software. Huge valuation as well at Domo general assembly. For anyone who's trying to learn a technology, you'll probably bump into general assembly.

You mentioned Google. Um, and then when I, when I go through this, some really, really interesting, I love have you heard of next door? Yeah, I have great tool used at a heap when I lived in San Francisco, really taking off as some sort of local, uh, community hub and crazily enough. There's like Workday and a bunch of other cool companies.

But one that I didn't realize is, uh, and very close to our show. He's actually an investor in Uber, which I didn't actually know. Yup. Yup. I, he, uh, has his. I think he's just so interested in the industry and in technology and is just such an educated, uh, business person that he just wants to be a part of, of all of these companies.

That's true. And I think the other thing to note about this, and this is very particular to Silicon Valley. Is who comes in, um, and invest particularly in your early rounds is such a vote of confidence and creates a lot of, a lot of momentum. I would even go as far as saying it kind of creates this fear of missing out, um, with a lot of the crazy valuations.

I think what our listeners can take away is that once you get beyond family and friends, um, And if you need to raise capital, if you can go and get someone who's really recognized as an industry leader, it does way more than just get money into the organization. It does more than raise capital. It really brings a vote of confidence.

Um, and you can just imagine that Larry and Sergei would have. Obviously appreciate it. How important to say Jeff Bezos was an investor in Google in those early times with such a big, a vote of confidence for them? I think. Anyone who's staying. If you're standing company and raising capital really think about, uh, very, very, uh, special people that you can get, uh, to come and participate in your organization from a capital perspective.

And not only looking at the terms of the deal, but also getting those names on the board, on the share holder list as a vote of confidence. Yeah. And Sergey and Larry from Google actually approached. Jeff, um, really just for advice and some mentorship at first, you know, because they were still at Stanford building their search algorithms.

Um, at the same time that Amazon was, you know, building out their internal search engines on amazon.com. Um, so that relationship started very early. And then of course, when they came back to him and, um, you know, presented an opportunity for him to invest, he, he jumped at the chance because he was already familiar with them and had kind of been following their story for quite some time.

Yeah. Yeah. Very smart. Very smart. Okay. So let's talk about, uh, this interview that, um, we've pulled some clips from, uh, it's the Recode conference from 2016 and. Uh, it's really interesting because Jeff doesn't go on to these kinds of conferences a lot. So we're very lucky to have this, uh, this interview to work with.

And he's sitting with Walt Mossberg. Who's um, he's actually just retired, but he's a very famous review. Have you ever read any of well, most Berg, um, review use or interviews, Chad, when you've been thinking about that next Mac. I can't remember the first time I came across him. But yeah, he's kind of one of the, I'd say three or four, you know, technology writers that I'm sure to, to read.

Um, whenever some, you know, new fangled piece of technology comes out. Yeah. And he's definitely sort of the grandfather of the thorough consumer electronic review and he sits down, uh, With Jeff in a very far reaching, uh, I mean, they go everywhere. I mean, it was it's, it's a really broad, um, and deep interview at the same time.

And it was, it was just wonderful, uh, to go through it, frankly, I. I picked so many clips. I was so excited. I just got clipped crazy. I had to reign you in there. Mike Mike showed up with 16 audio clips for us to listen to which should've made the show about three, three and a half hours. So we paired, we paired, we paired the clips down to a much fewer than that.

Yes. And thank you for that. My excitement really shone through it. And I want to say that to all of our listeners, as we go through these clips and decode them and break them down, I want them to really appreciate the breadth of, of what we've covered and to also know that. We thoroughly recommend going in and watching the full interview, but it's really our job for the, for the next 45 minutes is to really break down the thought, the behaviors and the skills that Jeff has, and really try and build bridge to some of the practices that you can have.

I have today to actually put this up live innovation, uh, in practice. So Chad, do you think it's time we go to the first clip? Yeah, I'd love to hear, uh, hear what Jeff has to say. Okay. So the first one is very, it's a very big, inspirational thought. And, um, it's Jeff really getting into the role of, you've probably heard of Amazon Alexa and echo, which more broadly said is.

You know, a form of artificial intelligence and he comes, uh, Jeff talking about what, uh, these technologies promise to bring and how important it is for Amazon. The, the, the combination of new and better algorithms, vastly superior compute power, uh, and the ability to harness huge amounts of training data.

Uh, those three things are coming together. To solve some previously unsolvable problems and they're gonna drive a tremendous amount of utility for customers and customers are gonna adopt those things. So I, is this at Amazon in particular, are you deeply committed to this becoming a huge part of your business and what you do, right?

Absolutely. We've been working on it. You know, we worked on it, um, kind of behind the scenes for, uh, four years. We have more than a thousand people dedicated just to Alexa and the echo ecosystem. Uh, we have now a big third set of third party apps, the Alexa skills, um, that people have built using our SDK.

And, uh, it's a, uh, and there's so much more to come. It's just the tip of the iceberg of what you can do with these kinds of say, I mean, tip of the iceberg is it's the first inning or is it's the first sinning. Okay. I knew you might even be the, you know, the first jurist guys up at bat it's really early and it's, it's gonna it's I think we're on the edge of the golden era.

It's going to be so exciting. Hmm. Okay. So he ends with this, this thought of, of artificial intelligence and the ability for machines to learn and do deep thinking on behalf of its, uh, of customers and, and, you know, artificial intelligence is so much better than, than human thought when it comes to at least seeing patterns and data and digging out that sort of stuff, he's really promising a golden.

Era, and it just makes me one to Chad. Like when you think of a golden era of artificial intelligence and all these intelligence devices in your home and in your computers and the way you work. I mean, what's got you excited about that sort of technology. I'm most curious to see like how quickly, uh, these types of technologies can learn?

Um, I think, uh, I think Jeff kind of hints at this deep learning capability that Amazon has. Um, with better algorithms, more computing power and, uh, in a large data set. And it will be really curious to me to see how Amazon can cause those are really three core parts of their business with Amazon web services and all the data that they collect on, on people's shopping habits.

Um, I think, um, You know, the very specific use cases for this type of artificial intelligence will be really interesting to see, because I think we're many years away from the singularity where there will be an all intelligent, uh, machine intelligence. But, um, as far as you know, something that can, um, help me do something very specific really well.

I mean, just. As one example that we use here on the show, there's a, uh, natural language transcribing service. Um, that takes, I think, less, less than, you know, a minute to transcribe a 20 or 30 minute interview. And it gives you with like 95% accuracy. Um, what, what is in that transcript? So things like that I think are going to become more and more prevalent.

That's a great example. And because if you think about how long it would actually take a human to transcribe, there's no way they could do it that quickly. So. That's a great use case. I think the, the thing that struck me about that clip they have, what was it, a thousand developers working on this? Yeah, a thousand only on the Alexa echo system.

So think about it. Like what startup in the world has a thousand developers zero, right? No one has that many, but then think about the scale that Amazon really has just in web services and. And retail data. It's incredible. And it would really signal signify to me. If I was an entrepreneur right now, I would ask them the question.

Well, if the next plan form for Amazon is all about if artificial intelligence, how could I build products, services, tools that make use of, he talked about the API that, uh, that, where they actually. Allow third parties to actually make use of their technology. I think that's, that's a low hanging fruit right now that you can go and attack.

But I think the bigger question is, um, it's actually a bit of a juxtaposition to Mark Zuckerberg. For example, he's saying that virtual reality is really the next big platform. And so actually, you know, you have Jeff saying it's all AI. You've got Mark Zuckerberg saying it's it's virtual reality. There's a lot of big bets going on out there.

When you chat. When you think about via versus AI, do you feel like, you know, basis is the man that's got the winner here or did you Zuckerberg at Facebook's got something. At, we haven't done a show on Zuckerberg yet, but right now I have to say hands down, it's artificial intelligence, machine learning, deep learning, um, and the horse, you know, that, uh, that, that Jeff is betting on.

I just. I think the opportunity for these very intelligent, nimble, and fast apps built on this artificial intelligence platform that they're building is, is going to have much more rapid adoption, not only by developers building the apps, but also by consumers. Um, I think virtual reality is, is still a little ways away and augmented reality.

Yeah. And I can, I can tell you that, you know, AI and VR both have incredible promise, but building a virtual reality environments requires a lot more horsepower and resources than that, of artificial intelligence. And, uh, that would, that would really get my vote. Uh, for the short term near term. And I think also what we need to remember is there's a little company called IBM.

Who've built Watson, which is a competing technology, but also AI. So it looks like the AI ecosystem is getting, you get pretty rich, full of a number of players with a lot of resources. So. I mean, I just think it's very exciting just to think about what can come over over the coming period with, with this.

And, um, there is some great tools that you can play with. You can actually use a web based demo of a Alexa, which, you know, we'll put this in the show notes for you, so everyone who's listening can comply with that. So it's, it's something definitely worth checking out. Now in all of my excitement, Chad, we have to get into, uh, this next clip, which is really about the big three of Amazon.

So here, we're going to have, uh, Jeff talking about what, what he calls the big three. And as we're listening to this, I want everybody really to think about how he can strip down this entire universe of everything that Amazon does. He can just break it down into three simple things. And here's what it means for Amazon.

When, when, when he talks about the big three, the three big needle movers, in my opinion, we've thought this for 20 years, our selection, price, and speed of delivery, delivery, convenience delivery, speed. And. Uh, uh, an assistant sort of attributes, and I think there's still a lot of progress to be made on those things.

And then I, you know, I see, and also discovered, and I think if you get category by category, there's tons of invention remaining. You know, I'm very excited about, uh, apparel and fashion, because I think that's a, uh, product category where you can do so much invention online. So I don't over a 20 year timeframe.

I predict that, um, Selection price and delivery accuracy and speed will still be major drivers. Okay. So this is quite a trust to the, to the first case where he's, you know, waxing lyrical about the golden era in the future to come. What was, what was really fascinating for me is that he's like, we've only just started with selection, price, and speed, and there's plenty more work to do.

And he's so right. And all the clues are there. Like this, this just confirms to me. He's thinking around drones and, and, um, know what was missing for me. Uh, that's kind of the albatross and I hinted at this earlier, like his acquisition of whole foods. Right, right. Huge. And, and, and what, what in your mind.

The logic of, of this, you know, $13 billion acquisition, where do you see this fitting into his needle movers and, and the ecosystem. Well, interestingly enough, I really see it as broadening the selection, you know, for, for the Amazon consumer. Um, and also kind of this convenience, um, thing that he's talking to, the interesting kind of juxtaposition is price, right?

Because people have no whole foods, his whole paycheck. Um, and I think the biggest struggle between Amazon and whole foods I think is going to be around just that is around. Price. Um, so we'll have to see how that shakes out, but, um, having that retail network to, for Amazon to then test out, you know, what is the best way to, uh, to, to pick the best produced from, you know, from producers and get it to a retail store and then into a consumers refrigerator?

Um, I think whole foods is the perfect customer for Amazon too. In internal customer for Amazon to test out all, all of that right now. Here's the interesting thing. I agree. There's a lot there in, in selection. Okay. But I also would say, this is a distribution play. He's just got. Hundreds and hundreds of distribution centers in the U S like that he's just picked them up.

The other interns thing is that perishables have been, you know, perishables being food that, you know, obviously parishes over time requires refrigeration and sealing and so forth is a really tricky business that, which they have not really mastered. Have they, I mean, Amazon grocery is not that big as it.

No. And it's been around almost 10 years. Really? Is it 10 years? Yeah, Amazon fresh. I think started deliveries. Uh, I want to say in 2008,  in the Seattle area. So, so the interesting thing here is this helps them on speed and selection for sure, because they can be much closer to their customer using their retail network.

And again, this is like, once you at first listen, you might think, Oh, whole foods, whole paycheck, a very expensive Amazon. Uh, very affordable, but actually you can see how it fits in. And the one thing to also mention here is that the stock price on the whole foods was on a, on a two, three year decline. It really had taken a big hit.

Uh, there was actually a scan. If I remember a rideshare, wasn't there a scandal in New York with pricing with, uh, which really kind of started the, the turn against whole foods a couple of years ago. I don't remember if there was one. Yeah. Yeah. So there was this thing where, um, there was price discrepancies on the weighing of fresh produce.

Um, and it started a whole thing. And what it would really came in sort of aligned with was that many of the competitors such as Safeway and Kruger's. Um, bolt up on organic whole foods and really started competing, uh, aggressive simply with whole foods. So the net of all of this is that the stock price was very depressed.

So Amazon moved in with its buckets of cash, picked it up for a song and has. Built out its network and its ability to deliver better selection and speed. And yes, just like you said, like for $13.7 billion, they now have 450 distribution centers, you know, essentially ready to turn online today. Exactly now what's, what's interesting around the, these needle moves.

Yeah. Uh, and this big three is you can now see that this is why they actually built their own physical store in Seattle, which is all about a different way to discover their selection and what was really interesting. We didn't actually, uh, the clip didn't actually make our final list here. But Jeff actually went on to say that the reason that he's so excited about what they're doing in physical retail is they're using all of the data from amazon.com to inform the selection of the 5,000 titles that goes into the physical store.

So once again, it's just laddering up into just another way to select the right book. Yeah. And did you see the really cool launch video for Amazon go their convenience store? No, no, no. What happens? Oh, well, it's just, it's a really slick video, but Amazon now has a convenience store kind of like a mini grocery store where you can just walk in and walk out.

Oh, that's what's in your basket. Yeah. Yeah. It's all RFID. So there is no checkout. You just walk out, out and eat already tallies out what you've got. And, uh, and bills you so that the checkout is dead, right? Yeah. And I think just the work that they're doing there and this acquisition of whole foods and experimenting with, you know, a retail bookstore, um, we're going to see.

A lot more manifestation of Amazon in the real world than we have before. You know, you usually, we're just used to the Amazon being like, you know, the Brown ups truck showing up with lots of boxes, but, um, you know, it won't be long before we can all be walking in and out of Amazon retail. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

There's, there's a lot, a lot happening there. And I thought what was really interesting about the next clip we're going to play for everyone was. There's actually a real art picking winners here and Amazon have had their failures. You might remember that the Amazon fire phone, which was a total dud, so they don't get it right all the time.

But what was really striking was when Jeff, uh, started to get into some of their vision. So do you want to set up this, this next clip? Because I I'm really excited to learn how, how they do this. Wait, going back to the big three. It's interesting how Jeff kind of single-mindedly has chosen selection, price, and speed, and convenience as, as his core drivers of what's going to, you know, take Amazon, you know, to be successful.

Um, and he's been very stubborn about it over, over the years. And so here he is kind of talking about how he's. Know how he thinks about choosing what Amazon should be working on. The most important things have always seemed dumb to industry experts at the beginning. So you have to get really good results.

You have to be, you have to defy conventional wisdom. And the problem of course is the conventional wisdom is usually correct. And so  a simple test. Like let's go talk to S experts in them. If we should do Amazon web services, that would be a huge failure. They would all tell you this is stupid. Stick to the knitting.

Um, you've got a great retail business, whatever you do, don't do this AWS thing. It's. You know, you can't possibly work and of course that would have been wrong. Um, so you, you, you, you, you, you can't listen to people at the beginning when they say it won't work, but you do have to sort of say, what are we doing differently?

What's going on now? Let's say you you're being stubborn on the vision and flexible on the details, which I think is the right recipe. We want always to be very flexible on the tactics and the details, but very stubborn on the vision and the strategy. And at some point, though, you may need to give up even on the vision.

So you've planted the seed, you know, great teams worked on it for multiple years. How do you know when, when is that day where you say, you know what, let's try the next one. Um, and I think it's when the last high judgment champion folds his or her cards. So there he is explaining why it's so important. To not only, uh, you know, choose a direction, but to stick to it, very stubbornly, um, you know, as long as he has kind of some champions around him, um, um, this also kind of leaves out a little bit about, I think what's also very core to Jeff and how he sees what Amazon does is they really are solving their own problems first.

Yes. Yes. And like, and really, truly believing in that like, well, let's become our best customer and learn from ourselves and just continue to do that. And, you know, and scale it in such a way that we can take it out to the market because he mentions Amazon web services. Well, their, their website infrastructure was growing so fast that, you know, their developers didn't have.

You know, they couldn't build build servers fast enough. And so their team looked internally and said, how can we solve this for ourselves? And how can we turn it into a platform? And so, you know, they worked away kind of just within Amazon solving that problem for themselves. And people said, you're crazy building these data centers and w w Y and then, well, of course now it makes sense and it's a multibillion dollar business.

Um, but he had kind of that singular focus. Um, and stubbornness to do it because he knew that he was solving a problem for himself first. And I think that's where he had, he has that conviction. Um, and you might argue that's where the vision comes from. They see what an operating problem that it was for them.

And then you're like, well, if we solve it for ourselves, Hey, look at that. Maybe others have the same problem, which is, and he's right. If you, if you go back in time, even if I take you back, say five, six years and say, Hey, guess what, Chad, Amazon's going to be the biggest web hosting company in the universe.

You'd say it's a retail, it's a bookstore. What are you talking about? Um, and I think it's the courage to hold onto the vision. And what was really interesting for Alison's is. You can have like an almighty rock, solid vision, but how you get there, like what he refers to as those tactics be you can be as flexible as you want.

And I think that's really interesting as a behavioral approach. Um, hold on to the vision, you know, if you see a big problem, But just be completely open to many different parts costs of getting the job done. And when you think about the conventional wisdom, peace, if I said to you that Amazon was going to win a golden globe five years ago, you'd say crazy, uh, uh, winning Emmys.

I think they're one of the largest Emmy winning studios last year. You'd say crazy, but the reality is that they have this great vision, um, and they'll use all sorts of tactics to get there. And the, the craziest thing I learned from, from this talk was he was explaining the flywheel effect of how.

Providing movies and TV shows on amazon.com helps them sell shoes. The people who watch the most vice versa. Yes. Yes, because it's the shoes help them make the content cheaper to provide to the customers. But this is kind of this magic flywheel that is very core to Jeff's understanding of the business and how it needs to run.

And this is something that he learned. Um, from other retailers very early on. Yeah. And his experience. Um, something I think that he actually picked up from, from Walmart is this idea that more customers allow you to make things, you know, cheaper, which then brings in more customers and that it becomes this virtuous cycle or flywheel as he calls it where you just keep.

Uh, you know, improving on those metrics and that keeps spinning faster and faster and faster. Yes, exactly. And so what I think is, uh, something that I take from this is where do you have, where can you create this leverage in your business idea or your new product or service? And I think a great example.

I'm and I'm just thinking about, uh, how he mentioned. In the, in the talkie mentions how excited he is about fashion and. Anybody working in the fashion world heads up. When you hear him say that you either have to get on the Amazon, uh, boat or run for your life because, uh, when they bring all their scale and selection and price and speed to, to a, to an industry, watch out.

But the interesting thing is I think about, uh, um, services that have similar characteristics and they use data to understand and to extrapolate and to see patterns, the more clients they get on platforms like that. Like I think about stitch fix in the fashion world. Um, and they basically use, uh, data like Amazon does to improve the recommendations of outfits to its customers.

These platforms. Have this exponential characteristic where the more customers come on, the better the recommendations get. So the more they buy. So the more the customers they get and it's again, a flywheel effect. And this creates enormous momentum, which is when you look at the breadth of their innovation from one click shopping.

To the world's biggest online store to goodness knows me AWS and beyond. When you look at that, they have flywheel effect on several businesses, operate writing independently to almost create a Metta flywheel and a that's why I would recommend if you want to invest the college fund anywhere. It has to be in businesses that have this characteristic because it's, it's quite powerful.

Isn't it? Well in looking at our own buses as to, you know, he identified his big three selection, price, and convenience and speed. And then just invests in those because he knows that every time he improves one of those, it improves all the rest. Mm mm. And the crazy thing is we've only done three of the clips.

We've, we've caught so many more goodies from, from Jeff Bezos to come. We're going to talk a little bit about, um, Getting into space and he's got some very interesting parallels with Elon and then diverges a little bit as well. So we're going to get into that also coming up. Um, he's I got some really some great thoughts that we can all get something from around culture and the meanings of our work.

But before we get into two of those clips to come, um, we've got to do your, your favorite segment, Chad, um, your, your. Avarice Rita. You've been reading up on Jeff. What's your, what's your book recommendation for, for this episode? Alright, so the, uh, this, this, the oddness of it was not lost on me. The fact that I'm reading a book about Amazon on a Kindle and listening to it through audible and an Amazon company, um, it's just, it's so fitting.

Right. But, um, I really loved the book, the everything store by the author, Brad stone, who, um, covers a lot of technology, uh, companies and, and figures. Um, this book was written, um, over a number of years and to me gives a really great. Foundational understanding of not only, uh, Jeff as an individual, um, but also his thinking that led to the founding of Amazon and how that thinking kind of guided each new era for Amazon.

I mean, over the past 20 years, they have 22 years now. Um, They have, they've just done so many things. I think people forget how old in, in, in relative terms a company like Amazon is. Um, but I would just say, um, Some of the things that, that stood out the most to me were do a funny little experiment for me, Mike, in your browser, open up a new tab.

Sure, sure. And, and type in the domain, relentless.com. Okay, here we go. Relentless.

So I'm really devoted to, uh, to amazon.com. Yeah. So one, one of the early ideas for the name of that company, um, Was relentless. And I think that that is really terrible of how devoted and, and single-minded Jeff was. I mean, he literally just wanted to take over the world from one. So he, he registered relentless.com.

Right. As one of the domain names, as you know, in case he chose that as, as his, the name of the business. So, so let me ask you, um, how, when you, when you kind of decode this idea of him being so relentless, what do you take from that? Like, what's the advice you give to yourself? Uh, how do you use that for, for you and your work and making films?

I think for Jeff, it's a relentless pursuit of truth. Um, it seemed like everyone that, that worked directly or closely with Jeff was really taken aback by just how, um, how important core truths are to him. So that could be the core truth of like, why does this business unit exist? Like, what is our purpose?

Um, why are you as an individual here at this company? You know, what's your, your truth? Um, And so for me, yeah. Um, as a storyteller, Uh, you know, the pursuit of that core truth is, is kind of like, that's the goal? That's the treasure, right? Yeah. Yeah. I related to, to the relentless and it's like, he was at the driving, the delivery truck.

Like he wasn't sitting on a throne behind three monitors writing code. He was quite prepared to get out there. And ship the product to his customers and that, that all had the whole mocks of this relentless, uh, drive any other last surprises or interesting tidbits that came to you from the everything store?

Oh, there's so many. I mean, I really encourage everyone to read it. Um, you know, I think if you listen to it, it's about a six hour, uh, and I'm sorry, a 12 hour listen, um, There's there's so many anecdotes that I wish I could get to all of them. But another story that I found really interesting is, you know, people within Amazon.

The thing that they're one of the things that they're afraid of the most is a forwarded email from Jeff with just a question Mark at the top, and what will happen is because he's so focused on the customer, everything is about, um, I think Amazon's mission statement now is, uh, Amazon will be the most customer centric company in the world.

And, you know, so instead of, you know, being a store or anything, like it's, they're just, you know, a customer centric company, that's their mission statement now. But what happens is, you know, somewhere in the customer service ecosystem, um, it goes wrong and, and Jeff will find out about it. You know, you can email him@jeffatamazon.com.

Mmm. And so these customer requests will then get forwarded to, you know, some business unit leader. With a question Mark, and essentially that overrides every single priority, um, you know, that they have in the system and they need to, they need to fix that problem, like in the next few hours, because Jeff is going to be getting on the phone or coming and seeing you about that particular problem.

And it was just really fascinating to me, um, how obsessed he could be. About the customer, which, and again is kind of his core, core focus. And I would say that it draws a very interesting parallel for both Uber and Tesla, who we've covered in the show before, because this shared characteristic, these three incredibly successful companies is that they have.

In sane, focus on solving customer problems, creating solutions that are 10 times better than anything else in the market at that time. And that, that is the, the interconnecting thought that you can wrap all three companies into the same. Basket with it's making, making things dramatically best at benefit customers.

They're all in some way, shape or form obsessed about user experience, customer experience. And I think that's what really sets them apart. Um, so that's a great, uh, book recommend  it's actually been on my, my list. Um, I think you've put me across the threshold. So I'm getting on a plane in two days. So I'll put that one on there.

Actually. I have the, have the Steve jobs on, um, the, the bio, which is sitting on there, so that one we'll get it going over as well. So, great book recommendations. Before we go to the last, uh, two clips, just a quick recap on, on where we've, what we've covered so far. I think without a doubt. Jeff is very strongly putting us into the upcoming golden ear of artificial intelligence.

So I'm pretty big for that one. Chad, I think that got your vote. Uh, no, VFU, it's it's AI all the way, right? Oh yeah. Deep learning, deep learning. And, um, What was really interesting to, to, to kind of push off. That was those rural fundamentals of the big three selection, price, and speed, and how the entire business strategy yeah.

Of Amazon is kind of coming back, um, to those three core and essential. Uh, pillars that he's, he's building the business around. I thought you were clear Chad around define conventional wisdom, really gave us a bit of an insight into how they pick these winners. That a lot of people on the outside don't pick, it really is.

He really does have this ability to defy conventional wisdom. Doesn't he? Yeah. And this, this next clip I'd like to introduce, um, I think very well encapsulates Jeff's where I think some of his biggest innovation is, and that's around, you know, conceiving of new business models and new structures for business models around, you know, providing meeting simple services as a platform that other people can leverage.

And, and he kind of, it pays homage to, um, Everything that was in place for him to be in the right place at the right time to start Amazon. So here he is. If you go back to, when I started Amazon, all of the heavy lifting infrastructure to support Amazon was already in place. We did not have to invent a remote payment system.

It was already there. It was called the credit card. We did not have to invent transportation, you know, local transportation last mile, there was this thing called the us postal service and ups. If we had had to deploy last mile transportation 20 years ago, it would have cost hundreds of billions, of dollars of capital.

It would have been impossible for a company like Amazon conceive of doing that same thing, deploying compute infrastructure. There was already a computer on every desk and it wasn't put on every desk. So that. People could do eCommerce or there was a competitor in the house so people could play games.

And there was also, how did the internet grow so fast? Even there, the heavy lifting infrastructure had already been done for another purpose, which was the long distance phone network. So when it comes to space, I see it as my job. This is what I'm, I'm building infrastructure, the hard way I'm, I'm using my resources.

To put in place, heavy lifting and infrastructure so that the next generation of people can have a dynamic entrepreneurial explosion into space, explosions into space. I love, I love that, that visual metaphor, and I think it's really telling it, you know, all, everything that Amazon is doing aside, um, blue origin, uh, the, the, the space.

A delivery company that, that Jeff has has started is, is doing it so that he can enable more entrepreneurs to innovate in space. And it's a natural outgrowth of, of two things. One his success at Amazon for building platforms like fulfillment by Amazon, Amazon web services, um, the Alexa API and platform.

And extending it into kind of his boyhood passion for space. And he says like, if we're going to get into space, we need to make it cheaper. Very, very much Elon thinks about it. I'm not so that, you know, no blue origin can be the company that goes into space, but that blue origin can be the platform upon which thousands of companies.

Can then be sent into space. Yeah, this, this, this, this really fascinated me because, um, I, I must admit. As, as passionate and is curious and interest as I am in Amazon, I haven't spent a lot of time, uh, studying here all his space initiatives. And I had just assumed it was a bit sort of the same flavor as Ilan.

When you hear him saying I'm building, you know, I think of you hear the word software as a service he's building space as a service. Alright, he's building like a whole new galaxy of possibilities and putting in all of the essential plumbing for entrepreneurs and innovators to build this whole new. A universe of opportunity and possibilities, and it's a radically, quite radically different view than say that of Elan and fascinating, uh, nonetheless it's.

Yeah, it's actually the fact that he could decode everything that Amazon already had and says, I just need to put the spice equivalents in place and then we'll have a prosperous space economy. Yeah, and I, I have to give him a lot of props for taking his wins from Amazon and doing that. Like it, it's no small feat to be launching rock reusable, rockets into space consistently and safely, you know, To make that happen.

So I guess building blocks in space kind of looks and feels like everything from space stations, to fueling stations, to all the things you need because distances. Is the real challenge, um, and, and existing power paradigms, just, I mean, we can't even get to Mars. So I feel like he must be thinking about, you know, launch platforms where you can launch your own rocket, rocket building services, then refueling and delivery services actually space.

Like it's fascinating how he's just looking to create all those underlying conditions for, for a whole entire new. Galaxy isn't he? Yeah, the kind of Uber strategy that a lot of people have kind of alluded to in a lot of the writings that I've, I've been reading, especially after the whole foods acquisition, is that Jeff Bezos and Amazon want to take a slice of essentially all consumer spending, you know, groceries, electronics, um, Computing power machine learning right now.

He's, he's just extending that into space. So anyone that's doing any kind of activity into space, Amazon, he wants Amazon to be. A part of that. Yeah. And I would say what this, where I see this being very powerful, we're thinking about. Okay. Yeah. All right. So it's Jeff, he's thinking about space. Good for him.

I don't have a few billion to launch rockets into space. What you can do if you're listening to this podcast and you're thinking about new inventions, new innovations, or you want to scratch. The, the entrepreneurial itch. I think what he's doing is he's studying the patents of success, what it took for Amazon to be successful.

And he's then applying that and looking for those same drivers, the same factors in other spaces. So I think this, this is an opportunity for us soul to, to think about. An area in which we want to do something very innovative and look for some of the signal, uh, some of the evidence of things that are there that promise success, but also look for some of the missing pieces and we can ask ourselves, what can we fill in there?

Yeah. So there's, there's a real pportunity here. I think, uh, to understand that he studies success, he looks at the formula and then he applies it into a new space, which, which is really interesting. Hmm. And I I'd love for you to introduce the next clip Mike, cause I think it's a great kind of ending to our discussion about Jeff Bezos and Amazon.

Okay. So I think it's fair to say that Amazon has a bit of a mixed report card on culture, depending on who you talk to. They've definitely had some criticism. They do some interesting. Really interesting things as well. Um, and this next clip is, is Jeff talking too well about culture and more, more so getting into what drives us every day to turn up and, and to, you know, be at our best when we're at work, very proud of the culture that we have at Amazon.

And, you know, it's a. Uh, it's, uh, I think of it as a gold standard culture for innovation and pioneering work and the, you know, and the people I work with, this people who they're missionaries for what they do, they are, you know, if you're giving great customer experience, um, there's the only way to do that is with happy people.

You can't do it. With a set of miserable people, um, you know, watching the clock all day. And I think for most people it's about meaning. People want to know that they're doing something interesting and useful. And for us, you know, because of the challenges that we have chosen for ourselves, uh, we get to work in the future and it's super fun to work in the future for the right kind of person.

Hmm. I like how he slept in that little caveat in it. Uh it's it's, it's amazing. The future's great. Oh, but just for the right person. And I think that, I think that he was going for that, that appetite for risk and constant change. Don't you think? Yeah. And just in my research on the company and Jeff, he really talks about recruiting explorers and he uses the word pioneers and missionaries.

And Amazon is looking for a very specific kind of person to work there. Yeah. And, and the, the one thing I, I relate related to, I thought it was, which was very, uh, important for all of us to remember is like, you are not going to create. An amazing product. If the work culture is not one where people thrive and are happy and, you know, happy people give great customer support, great customer service, that's as simple as he gets it down to.

And it's so true. You know, culture is so abstract, so hard to ma to manage, but it's  because it doesn't matter how much tech you have. We saw it with, with Uber didn't we great, great tech, great business model, but. Found lacking on culture. I mean, that was so evident from the last show, wasn't it? Yeah. And the Amazon culture has stood the test of time.

Right? I mean, they've been around for over 20 years now. Um, with many employees and executives having been there from the very first days. Yeah. And when you, when you, when you sit back and appreciate the scale and the spectrum of what they're doing, I mean, did you think they own 40 jumbo jets to improve last mile delivery?

They're the biggest hosting company on the planet. They're the biggest online retailer in the planet. He's, he's going on to send people into space and to create the infrastructure space. He's an investor in some of the best startups, or they're not even really startups anymore, but it's phenomenal. Yeah.

I, I really think, um, that we should continue to look at Amazon and, and learn. You know some more about that. I do think that there are some internal issues at Amazon that should be more fully explored because if they don't, then they could run the risk of, of, of turning into, you know, these kinds of scandals that, that Uber and other companies have been having to deal with.

So am I'm very curious, um, If something, you know, doesn't come back up, um, around that and around the culture. Yeah. Especially with, with when you've got such a high number of factory, um, workers and people, uh, you know, a large workforce to people that are close or, or, or on minimum wage, uh, there's a huge responsibility that goes with that.

And we we've really seen. Uber trip up on relationships with drivers and, and, you know, the perception they're extracting way too much and, and punishing the drivers with very low fees. So it's a very big watch out there. Um, but you know, He was, he was just Jeff. When you, when you see, when you listen to his ability to speak to such a broad range of subjects, I think one of the big learnings that I had was that it really is important to be more than just a product guy and Silicon Valley.

You know, a lot of people praise the product guy. Uh, you know, I think, uh, if you look at Snapchat, um, The CEO of Snapchat, I'm going to go for, you're going to have to help me on the CEO of Snapchat while you look it up. Let me, let me just give you this thought. He's really praised as a, as a great product guy and, and, and people, you know, love, love what the product looks like.

Particularly in, in Silicon Valley. But there's massive business questions around Snapchat. Does this have any viable business model? Um, and to me, it goes back to what we talked about in the last show. Those three PS, you know, I think innovation as a business really looks like people, product and profit, and you can't cut corners on any of those.

I think you need the. The full, the full set, if you will. Um, when, when you think about, uh, Jeff and what he shared with us, what are the big takeaways for you? Chan? My biggest learning from, from Jeff and his amazing leadership at Amazon is the value of him choosing to be so customer centric. And how he's let that guide him in absolutely everything that he does, not only in the growth of Amazon's core business as you know, the everything store, um, but in also spinning up every single other venture that he's done, um, you know, over the last 22 years.

And what I'm taking away is I need to, I need to figure out what that one thing is. What that singular focus of mine is going to be, and then just be completely invested in it. Um, because I think that that's well, um, over time, time, you know, pay the benefits. I might not have some short term gains, but, um, I think I'm beginning to see, especially as we followed three very interesting and different, uh, innovators, um, you know, that that's something that I'm going to have to, to.

To choose, you know, kind of what is my North star. Yeah. And I think when you, when you see somebody who has their North star, what instantly comes up, uh, with that is their own relentless.com. Doesn't it? They are relentless in seeing that come to life that the journey dream becomes reality. And that's the other thing about him, you know, Not only the breadth of his capacity to understand different parts of his entire business.

Not only his single-minded obsession with customer service, but it's his relentless drive. It's his capacity to. To see different models. And when you, that clip you had on, on space and how he's applying, he's going to build the infrastructure of the space economy. I mean this, I mean, how, I mean, this makes Amazon look like just a warmup act.

Uh, so it's, it's so exciting to see his thinking, just coming out like that. And somebody, I think that we can, um, Can learn so much from, so I want to remind our listeners to go back to, uh, the everything store. Um, you know, the book by Brad stone. How does that compare to other entrepreneurial books? You've read?

How would you put Brad's writing? Uh, it's been my favorite so far. I read, um, I read the Elon Musk book by Ashley Vance. I also read the wild ride book about Uber, um, by Adam  and then the everything store. And I think that both the writing style and the structure of the book, um, Worked best for me. I think a lot of that too is just because Brad, Stone's a known quantity in the industry and was trusted by Jeff and Amazon to write the book.

It, it still remains independent. Um, and he, he does a very nice job of, of getting into, uh, into the mind of Jeff and, and talking to all of the employees and, you know, it's not just a puff piece. Mm yes. And the other thing I want to remind. Um, listeners is the go to the interview. It will be in the show notes.

It's on YouTube, Jeff Bezos with Walt Mossberg at the Rico conference, uh, May 31st, 2016. Uh, it's well worth a full list and it's fantastic full of goodies as, as, as Chadwick rightly pointed out. There were 11 other clips that I selected that didn't make the cut. Um, but it's, it's full of full of insight and lots to learn there.

And most importantly, actually, um, we want your feedback. We want to know, uh, what you've enjoyed in the show. We want to know who you want us to profile in, in future shows. And I think we've, we've gotten some interesting feedback so far from listeners, right? Mike? Yeah. So, uh, we got a feedback from two very different parts of the globe, uh, from London, JP, uh, was really, uh, into learning about this, uh, 10 X, but he had a really good point, so, okay.

So that's all well and good for the Elan's and the Jeff basis as well, but how do we, how do we use the 10 X, uh, when you're, uh, maybe starting out just by yourself or with a few co-founders. And I would always encourage folks to go to the basic formula of creating something 10 X, which is to tackle a huge problem with a radical approach and to use and to seek the role of emerging technologies, to play an unfair advantage in solving that problem and just Google 10 X and look up a lot of work there.

But. You can use that. And I think starting what we learned from Jeff was standing with big problems, the customer obsession and Matt, uh, from, from the other side of the globe down here and down. And, uh, he said he really loved, uh, the, the piece around, uh, Travis in the last episode, not having his, uh, Sheryl Sandberg.

And as we found out later that day, it cost him a big price. And, um, it's great to see that folks, some of the innovation frameworks, like 10 X, but also some of the people and culture stuff that we're discovering from some of these, some of these founders. So what's next, uh, chat. We've got to think about who who's going to be in the next show who we're going to cover.

We are going to take a look at Fred Smith, the very long time CEO, uh, and founder of federal express, otherwise known as, as FedEx. So we're going to be branching outside of, you know, these Titans of technology, um, and taking a look at, you know, some, maybe more traditional businesses, but have had, you know, just as much or even a larger.

Impact on our everyday lives. Yeah, that, that sounds really cool. I really know very little about Jeff. And so I'm dying to get into FedEx and to find that story. Uh, I know it's P it's, it's been around for 30, 40 years. I remember using it. When I, when I first started my career, I mean, it was FedExing things to New York.

It was, was, was like magic. So really came to, to see, uh, the story of FedEx and how that happened. Uh, we should talk about shownotes and all the goodies, where will everyone find our fabulous shownotes Chan? And we can find them on moonshots.io. We can also. Uh, you can also find previous episodes, um, and, uh, and a feedback form, you know, we would love to have your feedback on any part of the show and, um, especially, you know, who you'd like us to research and profile here on the podcast going forward.

And I just want to say a quick, thank you to all of you listeners from the first and second episodes. We hope to have you along for this ride for many more episodes to come. Absolutely. I'm going to call that a wrap. It's, uh, it's pot. Well, past midnight here in Sydney and it's probably almost lunchtime they're in New York.

So Chad, great talking again and can't wait to till the next episode. Cheers, Mike. Okay. See you later.