I've read all of Jeff Bezos's 23 years of Amazon shareholder letters twice now.
It's an MBA of its own.
Here's what I learned about startups, entrepreneurship, investing and more:
We set ourselves the incredibly audacious goal of improving upon the physical book.
So don't be afraid to set big goals.
And remember that if you don't execute well, it will be done by someone else.
So then, when you fix it, you’re not just fixing it for one customer. You’re fixing it for every customer.
Success often comes through iteration: invent, launch, reinvent, relaunch, start over, rinse, repeat, again and again.
Remember that failure is part invention.
So better to fail early and iterate until you get it right.
Outsized returns come from betting against conventional wisdom.
Given a ten percent chance of a one hundred times payoff, you should take that bet every time.
But you're still going to be wrong nine times out of ten.
1/2
Let's talk about baseball.
If you swing for the fences, you're going to strike out a lot, but you're also going to hit some home runs. It's as true for business as it is for baseball.
However, there's just one difference.
Baseball has a truncated outcome
distribution: No matter how well you connect, the most you can get is 4.
In business, every once in a while, when you step up to the plate, you can score one thousand runs.
This long-tailed distribution of returns is why you should be bold.
1/2
If you had asked a customer "Would you like a black, always-on cylinder in your kitchen about the size of a Pringles-can that you can talk to and ask questions, that also turns on your lights and plays music?"
They would've said no.
No customer was asking for Echo. This was definitely Amazon wandering.
Wandering is an essential counterbalance to efficiency.
You need to employ both.
The outsized discoveries require wandering.
Many investors are short-term tenants, they turn their portfolios so quickly that they are really just renting the stocks they temporarily "own."
Owners aren't so short-sighted.
Long-term thinking is both a requirement and an outcome of true ownership.
— Benjamin Graham
You aren't 10% smarter with a 10% increase in stock price and conversely aren't 10% dumber when it goes down.
Always want to be weighed.
3 questions to consider before hiring:
1. Will you admire this person?
2. Will they raise the average level of effectiveness of the group?
3. Along what dimension might this person be a superstar?
Once a year, Amazon offers to pay its employees to quit.
While the headline says "Please Don't Take This Offer." The goal is to make them rethink their priorities.
An employee staying somewhere they don't want to be isn't healthy for the employee or the company.
(Amazon leadership principles)
1/2
First, you have to be able to recognize what good looks like in that domain.
Second, you must have realistic expectations for how hard it should be to achieve that result — the scope.
Just one example / perfect headstands
Most people think that if they work hard, they can master a handstand in about two weeks.
In reality, it takes about six months of daily practice.
If you think you can do it in two weeks, you're just going to end up quitting.
Wait for 90, and you're being slow.
Plus, if you're good at course correcting, which you should be, then being wrong will be less costly than being slow.
If you have conviction without consensus, it's helpful to say,
"Look, I know we disagree on this, but will you gamble with me on it?"
No one can know the answer for sure, and you'll probably get a quick yes.
Day 2 is stasis. Followed by irrelevance. Followed by excruciating, painful decline. Followed by death.
And that is why it is always Day 1.
At 15 mins, it's slightly bigger — enough to share the ideas more freely. It's $9, so, maybe, show your support!
Regardless, retweet, and follow me @sumitgrrg for more of these.
Thanks!
https://t.co/pa3MwgLWCj
More from Sumit Grrg
Five billionaires share their top lessons on startups, life and entrepreneurship (1/10)
I interviewed 5 billionaires this week
— GREG ISENBERG (@gregisenberg) January 23, 2021
I asked them to share their lessons learned on startups, life and entrepreneurship:
Here's what they told me:
10 competitive advantages that will trump talent (2/10)
To outperform, you need serious competitive advantages.
— Sahil Bloom (@SahilBloom) March 20, 2021
But contrary to what you have been told, most of them don't require talent.
10 competitive advantages that you can start developing today:
Some harsh truths you probably don’t want to hear (3/10)
I\u2019ve gotten a lot of bad advice in my career and I see even more of it here on Twitter.
— Nick Huber (@sweatystartup) January 3, 2021
Time for a stiff drink and some truth you probably dont want to hear.
\U0001f447\U0001f447
10 significant lies you’re told about the world (4/10)
THREAD: 10 significant lies you're told about the world.
— Julian Shapiro (@Julian) January 9, 2021
On startups, writing, and your career:
More from Startup
14 tools I use to steal from competitors, and build million-dollar businesses.
Housekeeping note:
Don't do anything that destroys your reputation. Copying what works is a simple & practical strategy, but don't cross any boundaries.
In this thread, I'll show you how to steal your competitors' traffic, product ideas, and customers in a 100% fair way.
1. Steal their social media traffic
Drop your competitors' url in https://t.co/n4squ8fjHh
It will tell you what % of their web traffic comes from which social media platform
Looks like this

Generally, this traffic will be from ads and not content. To steal their social traffic, you'll need to steal their ad strategy.
If they're getting their traffic from Facebook...
2. Steal their Facebook ads
Go to Facebook Ad Library and find ads that your competitor has been running for 6+ months.
All of these ads are likely profitable https://t.co/bgqtSOvAe2

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There is co-ordination across the far right in Ireland now to stir both left and right in the hopes of creating a race war. Think critically! Fascists see the tragic killing of #georgenkencho, the grief of his community and pending investigation as a flashpoint for action.

Across Telegram, Twitter and Facebook disinformation is being peddled on the back of these tragic events. From false photographs to the tactics ofwhite supremacy, the far right is clumsily trying to drive hate against minority groups and figureheads.
Be aware, the images the #farright are sharing in the hopes of starting a race war, are not of the SPAR employee that was punched. They\u2019re older photos of a Everton fan. Be aware of the information you\u2019re sharing and that it may be false. Always #factcheck #GeorgeNkencho pic.twitter.com/4c9w4CMk5h
— antifa.drone (@antifa_drone) December 31, 2020
Declan Ganley’s Burkean group and the incel wing of National Party (Gearóid Murphy, Mick O’Keeffe & Co.) as well as all the usuals are concerted in their efforts to demonstrate their white supremacist cred. The quiet parts are today being said out loud.
There is a concerted effort in far-right Telegram groups to try and incite violence on street by targetting people for racist online abuse following the killing of George Nkencho
— Mark Malone (@soundmigration) January 1, 2021
This follows on and is part of a misinformation campaign to polarise communities at this time.
The best thing you can do is challenge disinformation and report posts where engagement isn’t appropriate. Many of these are blatantly racist posts designed to drive recruitment to NP and other Nationalist groups. By all means protest but stay safe.
