(On deciding whether to allow negative reviews on Amazon in early days, when book publishers were trying to force them not to.)
I'm deep down the Bezos rabbit-hole. I'll thread some of the lesser-known highlights I find here:
Start with his traditional toast: "To adventure and fellowship"
(On deciding whether to allow negative reviews on Amazon in early days, when book publishers were trying to force them not to.)
It’ll go down 30%, and it doesn’t make you 30% dumber either"
(On the stock price during the dotcom crash, when Amazon was ~$3 or something absurd. Every internal metric and initiative was still progressing well.)
“Whatever the crisis is… whatever the threat, the right answer is almost always to double down on making customers delighted."
Look in a mirror, ask: “Are they right?”
Then ask “Are they self-interested?”
"If you want to be innovative, you have to be willing to be misunderstood, and criticized."
“You can explain things to people. But you can’t understand things to people."
(About the scale of Blue Origin, and some of his ambitious non-profit work.)
“I remember driving the packages to the post office myself, dreaming of the day we’d be able to afford a forklift."
"Stress comes from unaddressed problems-- ignoring something that you should be working on. Stress doesn't come from the work itself."
More from All
You May Also Like
1/“What would need to be true for you to….X”
Why is this the most powerful question you can ask when attempting to reach an agreement with another human being or organization?
A thread, co-written by @deanmbrody:
2/ First, “X” could be lots of things. Examples: What would need to be true for you to
- “Feel it's in our best interest for me to be CMO"
- “Feel that we’re in a good place as a company”
- “Feel that we’re on the same page”
- “Feel that we both got what we wanted from this deal
3/ Normally, we aren’t that direct. Example from startup/VC land:
Founders leave VC meetings thinking that every VC will invest, but they rarely do.
Worse over, the founders don’t know what they need to do in order to be fundable.
4/ So why should you ask the magic Q?
To get clarity.
You want to know where you stand, and what it takes to get what you want in a way that also gets them what they want.
It also holds them (mentally) accountable once the thing they need becomes true.
5/ Staying in the context of soliciting investors, the question is “what would need to be true for you to want to invest (or partner with us on this journey, etc)?”
Multiple responses to this question are likely to deliver a positive result.
Why is this the most powerful question you can ask when attempting to reach an agreement with another human being or organization?
A thread, co-written by @deanmbrody:
Next level tactic when closing a sale, candidate, or investment:
— Erik Torenberg (@eriktorenberg) February 27, 2018
Ask: \u201cWhat needs to be true for you to be all in?\u201d
You'll usually get an explicit answer that you might not get otherwise. It also holds them accountable once the thing they need becomes true.
2/ First, “X” could be lots of things. Examples: What would need to be true for you to
- “Feel it's in our best interest for me to be CMO"
- “Feel that we’re in a good place as a company”
- “Feel that we’re on the same page”
- “Feel that we both got what we wanted from this deal
3/ Normally, we aren’t that direct. Example from startup/VC land:
Founders leave VC meetings thinking that every VC will invest, but they rarely do.
Worse over, the founders don’t know what they need to do in order to be fundable.
4/ So why should you ask the magic Q?
To get clarity.
You want to know where you stand, and what it takes to get what you want in a way that also gets them what they want.
It also holds them (mentally) accountable once the thing they need becomes true.
5/ Staying in the context of soliciting investors, the question is “what would need to be true for you to want to invest (or partner with us on this journey, etc)?”
Multiple responses to this question are likely to deliver a positive result.
