Amazon

Jeff Bezos

Less interesting for the scale than for how clearly he wrote about deciding.

The shareholder letters and the six-page memo are a genuine education in thinking on purpose.

1. Sort decisions into one-way and two-way doors.

   Most choices are reversible, so make them quickly. The few that are not deserve every hour. Most people invert this.

2. Minimise regret, not risk.

   Leaving a secure job to sell books online was justified by projecting forward to eighty and asking what he would regret. It strips out short-term noise.

3. Write the memo, ban the deck.

   Six-page narratives instead of slides, read in silence at the start of a meeting. Prose exposes weak reasoning that bullet points hide.

4. Work backwards from the customer.

   Start with the press release and the FAQ, then decide whether to build it. It forces clarity before commitment.

5. Pick the things that will not change.

   He bet on people always wanting lower prices, more selection and faster delivery. Strategy built on constants outlasts strategy built on trends.

6. Disagree and commit.

   Argue hard, then back the decision fully once it is made. It prevents the slow death of half-supported plans.

7. High standards are contagious and teachable.

   He treats standards as a skill a team learns, not a trait people have. That makes them a management problem, which is solvable.

8. Be willing to be misunderstood for a long time.

   Amazon's margins invited a decade of criticism. Tolerating being wrong in public is a requirement for long horizons.

9. Experiment where failure is survivable.

   Many bets, most small, a few enormous. The portfolio shape matters more than the accuracy of any single call.

10. Read the letters, not the profile.

    The annual shareholder letters are primary sources in his own words. They are more useful than anything written about him.