1/ An ode to @JeffBezos

Jeff is stepping down from CEO and moving on to Executive Chairman

He's one of the greatest owner/operators of all time

$10,000 invested in $AMZN at IPO is currently worth

$17.3 million!

Here's a list of my favorite Bezos facts and quotes 👇

2/ "We don’t celebrate a 10% increase in the stock price like

we celebrate excellent customer experience.

We aren’t 10% smarter when that happens

and conversely

aren’t 10% dumber when the stock goes the other way."
3/ Bezos invested $250,000 in Google in 1998

That's worth several BILLION dollars today
4/ "Your margin is my opportunity"
5/ "There are two kinds of companies,

those that work to try to charge more

and those that work to try to charge less.

We will be the second."
6/ Amazon is the world’s largest corporate purchaser of renewable energy

It will be 100% run on renewable energy by 2025

five years ahead of its initial 2030 target.
7/ "Stress comes from ignoring the things

that you shouldn't be ignoring."
8/ "The common question that gets asked in business is

'why'

That's a good question, but an equally valid question is

'why not'?
9/ "Percent margins don't matter.

What matters always is dollar margins; the actual dollar number.

Companies are not valued on their percent margins,

but on how many dollars they actually make."
10/ "You have to be willing to be misunderstood if you're going to innovate."
11/ "What's dangerous is not to evolve."
12/ Amazon originated The Climate Pledge with Global
Optimism to achieve net-zero carbon by 2040

It has convinced 21 companies to sign up so far, including Coca-Cola European Partners, JetBlue, Microsoft, Uber, and Unilever
13/ "We've had three big ideas at Amazon that we've stuck with for 18 years.

Put the customer first

Invent

Be patient."
14/ "The only way to get out of a tight box is to invent your way out."
15/ As of 2013, Bezos was still driving a Honda Accord
16/ "If you can't tolerate critics,

don't do anything new or interesting."
17/ "It's not an experiment if you know it's going to work."
18/ “I’m in the process of converting my Amazon lottery
winnings into a much lower price of admission so we can go explore the solar system.”

Bezos named his rocket company “Blue Origin”
19/ "If you're competitor-focused, you have to wait until there is a competitor doing something.

Being customer-focused allows you to be more pioneering."
20/ This great slide from @socialcapital shows that Amazon
gradually turned all of its biggest costs into new lines of business
21/ Bezos is building the "Clock of the Long Now"

which will tell time for the next 10,000 years
22/ "Anybody who doesn’t change their mind a lot

is dramatically underestimating the complexity of the world that we live in."
23/ “I very frequently get the question: 'What's going to change in the next 10 years?'...

I almost never get the question: 'What's not going to change in the next 10 years?'

And I submit to you that that second question is actually the more important of the two."
24/ "In the long-term, there's never any misalignment

between customer interest and shareholder interest."
25/

In 2020, $AMZN revenue grew 38% to $386.1 billion

Stunning!

$AMZN revenue growth since "day one"

More from Brian Feroldi

1/ My Mission: To Spread Financial Wellness (thread)

Here’s what "financial wellness" means to me

⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️

2/ Mindset

Humans are programmed to think short-term

Evolutionary, thinking short-term makes sense. It helps with survival.

Financial wellness is all about training yourself to develop a long-term mindset

Not easy -- it takes practice


3/ Mindset

If you join the right tribes, you can’t help but improve

My favs:
@AffordAnything
@ChooseFiFI
FinTwit
@MicroCapClub
@themotleyfoolFool
@visualizevalue

Twitter / Podcasts / Blogs / YouTube -- when used correctly -- are amazing


4/ Mindset

Educate yourself - constantly!

Especially about:

1⃣Money
2⃣Relationships
3⃣Health

These 3 categories have an outsized influence on all areas of your life

Books


5/ Career

In the beginning, focus on growing your income

Do more than what is expected

Become a lynchpin

Find a career that you ENJOY (<- important!) that also has high-income potential

Start a side hustle (<- important!)

Build your talent

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So the cryptocurrency industry has basically two products, one which is relatively benign and doesn't have product market fit, and one which is malignant and does. The industry has a weird superposition of understanding this fact and (strategically?) not understanding it.


The benign product is sovereign programmable money, which is historically a niche interest of folks with a relatively clustered set of beliefs about the state, the literary merit of Snow Crash, and the utility of gold to the modern economy.

This product has narrow appeal and, accordingly, is worth about as much as everything else on a 486 sitting in someone's basement is worth.

The other product is investment scams, which have approximately the best product market fit of anything produced by humans. In no age, in no country, in no city, at no level of sophistication do people consistently say "Actually I would prefer not to get money for nothing."

This product needs the exchanges like they need oxygen, because the value of it is directly tied to having payment rails to move real currency into the ecosystem and some jurisdictional and regulatory legerdemain to stay one step ahead of the banhammer.