Bezos delved into his personal philosophy in his discussion with Sorkin, including how he approaches entrepreneurship and leadership. — AFP
Jeff Bezos, the billionaire founder of Amazon and the owner of The Washington Post, defended his decision to end presidential endorsements at the Post and expressed optimism about a second Trump administration at the DealBook Summit on Dec 4.
But he also delved into his personal philosophy in his discussion with New York Times financial columnist Andrew Ross Sorkin, including how he approaches entrepreneurship and leadership.
Why to run a ‘messy’ meeting
In a discussion about how Bezos views his influence, Bezos said he considers himself a wanderer. He added that he applies this mindset to meetings, and that he is on time only to his first meeting of the day because “I won’t finish a meeting until it’s really finished.” Of this approach, he said:
I try to teach, like, really wander in the meetings. There are certain kinds of meetings that are like a weekly business review or something where it’s a set pattern and you’re going through it – that can have an agenda and it can be very crisp. That’s a different kind of meeting. But for most of the meetings that are useful, we do these six-page memos, we do a half-hour study hall, we read them. And then we have a messy discussion. So I like the memos to be like angels singing from on high, so clear and beautiful. And then the meeting can be messy.
About the value of running meetings this way, he said:
You don’t want the whole thing to be figured out and then presented to you. You want to be part of the sausage-making. Like, show me the ugly bits. And I always ask: Are there any dissenting opinions on the team? You know what? I want to try and get to the controversy.
Taking leap of faith as entrepreneur
Ross Sorkin asked Bezos where he gets the confidence to create a business that requires as much scale as Amazon or Blue Origin, where at the beginning it can be difficult to see how the full vision could materialise. Bezos said:
I think it’s generally human nature to overestimate risk and underestimate opportunity. And so I think entrepreneurs in general, you know, would be well advised to try and bias against that piece of human nature: The risks are probably not as big as you perceive, and the opportunities may be bigger than you perceive.
And so you say it’s confidence, but maybe it’s just trying to compensate for that – accepting that that’s a human bias, and trying to compensate against it. The second thing I would point out is that thinking small is a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Value of showing emotion at work
Ross Sorkin asked Bezos whether he feels that he always has to project confidence. Bezos said that he had a supportive family, but that anger was the only negative emotion allowed. He said that’s probably a helpful way to think when you’re founding a company, because “there’s going to be a lot of bad days – you’ve got to lift people up.” But he has recently begun to see the value in showing feelings such as sadness, fear and anxiety:
Especially with my own family and my close relationships, my children and my brother and sister and parents and so on, I realise, like, I’m not really being intimate with them if I’m not sharing when I’m sad, or sharing when I’m scared, or these kinds of things. And so I started working on that with them and found it very meaningful. I could deepen those relationships very significantly. And then I realised those were valid emotions at work, too.
All of your emotions are sort of an early-warning system. You know, if you’re stressed, for me, that’s a kind of an early radar that is detecting that there’s something I’m not taking action on. It’s an important indicator. And it turns out if you’re channeling all of your negative emotions into frustration or anger or something like that, you’re not being very precise. It’s much better now. Like, I’ll have a meeting and listen for a while, and when it’s my turn to talk, I’ll say I’m scared. And that’s more effective.
Leaving Amazon
Ross Sorkin asked Bezos what it was like to step down as CEO of Amazon in 2021. Bezos compared it to being a parent with a child who has grown up:
You’re hoping that you’ve created this independent child, now young adult, who can go off in the world. You don’t want them to be dependent on you. If they are, you’ve failed. And I’ve also always preached inside the company and to myself that no one is indispensable. I think it’s most important for CEOs look to the mirror every day and see: I’m not indispensable. So I want Amazon to go off without me. And I’m still at Amazon, by the way. I haven’t left fully. And I am a parent. I’m a 60-year-old man, and my mom and dad still worry about me. So you never stop being a parent. – ©2024 The New York Times Company
