Please enable JavaScript.

Coggle requires JavaScript to display documents.

THE EVERYTHING STORE Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon (Fever Dreams (eBay…

- - - - e.g. when the stock price in Europe was fractionally higher than the one in USA computers would quickly execute trades
      - Operating far below the radar and keeping his proprietary trading algorithms out of competitors' hands
      - He recruited scientists and mathematicians, not financiers
    - - 1 day of interviews with cases (e.g. How many fax machines are in USA?"
      - Interviewers expressed one of four opinions: strong no hire; inclined not to hire; inclined to hire; or strong hire
  - - - Matrix News: a monthly newsletter discussing commercial possibilities of the Internet
      - Web activity overall had gone up 230,000% that year
      - A true everything store would be impractical and among a list of 20 possible product categories he chose books
        
        pure commodities
        buyers would know what they were getting
        
        unlimited selection
        3 millions in print worldwide: far more than a brick-and-mortar retailer could ever stock
        
        test purchase to investigating the earliest online bookstore
        
        2 weeks later it arrived badly tattered
        
        No one had yet figured out how to sell books over the Internet
  - - - "No things are changing fast and I need to move quickly"
  - - - He managed to intrigue a startup veteran named Shel Kaphan
    - - Bezos typing revenue projections into an Excel spreadsheet
      - Stopped at the Grand Canyon to watch the sunrise
      - He was 30, she was 24
- - - - University of Washington: computer science graduates
    - - Collect state sales tax from only a minor % of customers
    - - Desks out of sixty-dollar blond-wood doors from Home Depot
  - - - When someone made a purchase, Amazon would then order the book from one of the 2 major book distributors paying the standard 50% wholesale rate
    - - 1 week delivery time
      - $3.95 shipping fee for single-book orders
    - - 10% discount minimum
      - Up to 40% discount on bestsellers and books included in Spotlight, which highlighted new titles each day
  - - - Competition was looming - that month they launched their website
      - The Riggios wanted to collaborate with Amazon (e.g. joint website)
    - - 3 days before IPO B&N filed a lawsuit against Amazon as the Earth's Largest Bookstore -> giving more attention
    - - What it costed Amazon to attract a new customer
      - How much loyal customers typically spent on the site
    - - Never overcelebrating the event, but keeping being worried only about customers
      - A weekend at the Palmilla Resort (Los Cabos) courtesy of Deutsche Banl
- - - - (p.84) Athletes who could move fast and get big things done
  - - - Acquisitions
        
        Movie database IMDB.com
        
        British Web bookstore BookPages
        
        German Web bookstore Telebuch
        
        Online marketplace Exchange.com
        
        Social-networking service PlanetAll
        
        Data-collection company Alexa Internet
        
        First comparison-shopping site on the Web Junglee
        
        For $170M a few months after IPO to steal it from Yahoo
        
        Urban delivery service Kozmo.com
        
        Pets.com Gear.com Wineshopper.com
        Greenlight.com Homegrocer.com
      - Distribution Centers
    - - Long-term prospects of boosting free cash flow and growing market share
      - "We will make bold rather than timid investment decisions where we see a sufficient probability of gaining market leadership advantages"
    - - Market Leadership
        
        Higher profitability
        
        Greater capital velocity
        
        Stronger returns on invested capital
        
        Higher revenues
      - Leverage on Customer Base, Brand, and Infrastructure
  - - - e.g. AOL.com when customers rsearched "ski vacations" they would see a link to books about skiing on Amazon
  - - - Offer the opportunity to execute a purchase with a single click
    - - Bezos didn't altogether disagree
    - - Amazon sued Barnes & Noble and forced it to add an extra step to its checkout process
      - Amazon licensed the patent to Apple in 2000 for an undisclosed sum
  - - - $5.7M in 1997
      - +732% $47.4M in 1998
      - +374% $224.7M in 1998
    - - One of the venture capitalist backing eBay worked for Bezos
      - Bezos initiated a secret auctions project to replicate eBay in 3 months
    - - $175M to acquire 6-month-old payment firm Accept.com
      - Charge lower listing fee to sellers and offer free fraud insurance
      - Amazon Auction launched in March 1999
      - Deal with acution house Sotheby's to focus on high-end products
      - The effort went nowhere #
        
        Custoemrs could reach it only by clicking on a separated tab on Amazon home page
        
        It looked like a dingy leftovers bin
        
        People where accustomed to using Amazon to shop in the traditional way
        
        Bezos didn't take the defeat personally
    - - Products and services become increasingly valuable as more people use them
      - The Web's small sellers where wedded to eBay
  - - - e.g. Toys $50M at the end of holiday
    - - Need to go for intermediary distributors
  - - - (p.105) Abstract concept of starting with the customer and working backward
  - - - Cleaning out the inventory of Pokémon on the brand-new ToysRUs.com
    - - Sold but lost products
    - - A consultant from EY quit after 1 week
- - - - To frame an initiative in a way customers might hear about it in the first time
      - To foster critical thinking
- - - - $672M in convertible bonds in Europe
    - - Target on expenses for everyon
    - - Discipline
      - Efficiency #
      - Eliminating Waste
    - - p. 120 stock reprice
        they could take 3 shares at old price for 1 share at new price
    - - June 2000 "Amazon will run out of cash within 4 quarters"
      - No real danger besides a self-fulfilling prophecy
  - - - ToysRUs inventory kept in Amazon's DCs
      - Ended dueling lawsuits in federal court
  - - - DCs
      - Product Catalog
    - - When Amazon would hit $200B it would be 50-50 products-commissions #
    - - By relying on Amazon, other companies delayed a necessary education on e-commerce and ceded the loyalty of their customers to Amazon
      - By paying Amazon 6-15% commission (no shipping cost) and helping Amazon source hot products to sell
  - - - Amazon lost a few dollars on each 255,000 orders
    - - Customers could get it on Saturday, July 8, the same day of release
    - - "The either-or mentality, that if you are doing something good for customers it must be bad for shareholders, is very amateurish" #
      - p 125 "There are 2 kinds of retailers: those folks who work to figure how to charge more, and there companies that work to figure how to charge less, and we are going to be the second, full-stop"
  - - - A defect in the system
      - Customers should be able to solve any problems with the aid of self-help tools
    - - Average talk time
      - Contacts per order
  - - - Buy from Amazon itself = Products
      - Buy from third-party sellers = Commissions
  - - - Customer Loyalty
        
        Value Trums Everything
      - Limited selection but dirty cheap
      - No advertising at all
      - Across-the-board 14 percent mark up
      - Annual membership fee
      - Lower price -> Higher volume ->
        Higher bargaining power ->
        Lower purchasing unit cost
        
        "Eventually suppliers who initially don't like us end up doing business with us"
  - - - Lower prices ->
      - More Customer Visits ->
      - Higher Sales Volume ->
      - Attracting More commission-paying
        third-party sellers ->
      - Higher Efficiency for Fixed Costs (e.g. DCs and website) ->
  - - - Finance VP, Greg Greeley
        Do like airlines and Segment Customers into 2 groups
        
        business people = time-sensitive customers
        
        recreational travelers = non time-sensitive customers
      - Only to those customers who where willing to wait a few extra days for their order
      - Free Super Saver Shipping
        
        For orders above $99, then $49, and then $25
        
        Customers started to place bigger orders and shop in new categories
  - - - PEOPLE FORGET THAT JOHN HENRY DIED IN THE END
      - Most editors and writers were reassigned or laid off
    - - Automatically generated recommendations in a standardized layout
      - Tests demonstrated it could sell as many products as the human editors
  - - - Meaningful
      - Innovation
      - Leads,
      - Launches,
      - Inspires
      - Relentless
      - Amazon
      - Visotor
      - Improvements
- - - - His parental grandfather was an immigrant from Denmark
      - Perpetually broke and habit of drinking too much
    - - Got pregnant at 16
      - Bookkeeper at the Bank of New Mexico #
    - - Paid his son-in-law's tuition at the University of New Mexico - he dropped
      - Tried to get him a job at the New Mexico State Police - he didn't follow through
      - After the second marriage, he elicited from Theodore to stay away
    - - Due to the Cuban Revolution in 1959 he moved to Miami in 1962 at 16
      - Cada de Sales with Father James Byrnes
        where he learned English, studied, and 50 cents to attend Saturday-night dance
      - Deaf-mute joke to new arrived
        
        "Man, that's a good-looking woman!"
        "It's a miracle!"
      - Full scholarship for Cuban refugees at University of Albuquerque
      - Clerk overnight shift at the Bank of New Mexico
      - Petroleum engineer at Exxon
  - - - Tireless work ethic
      - Frequent expression of love for opportunities and freedoms in America
    - - Spent every summer 4-16 at the ranch doing the gritty work
      - Values
        
        Self-reliance
        
        Resourcefulness
        
        Visceral distate for inefficiency
      - Checkers
        
        "He'll beat me when he's ready"
      - How to be tactful
        
        At 10 he calculated that his grandmother's smoking habit would take 9 years - she burst into tears
        
        Pop Gise pulled over, got out and waited for him to follow.
        He gently and calmly said: "One day you'll understand that it's harder to be kind than clever"
    - - Tough, sweet, and loyal
      - Available to follow through Bezos's passion
      - Bezos got a ticket, she made all Bezos's friends personally apologize
  - - - Teachers at the Montessori preschool
        The boy became so ENGROSSED in whatever he was doing that they had to pick his chair up, with him still in it, and move it to the next activity
      - Fierce work ethic and discipline
    - - His parents enrolled him in baseball and football
    - - When his football team lost the league championship he broke down in tears
      - Valedictorian and Silver Knight at Miami Palmeto
    - - Star Trek
      - Space exploration
      - Apollo 11
    - - Local Cotulla Library
        
        Science-fiction books
        (wanted to become an astronaut) #
        
        Methodically processing each detail (p. 231)
      - Questioning how everything is done #
        
        Willingness to be misunderstood
      - Annual think week to read
    - - An elaborate scavenger hunt
    - - 10-day summer school for 10yo
      - His parents always encouraged him and nurtured his creativity
    - - Personal goal to become wealthy
      - I am very motivated by people counting on me.
        I like to be counted on.
      - Jeff is not deterred by short-term setbacks
    - - No tollerance for (accidental) stupidity
      - Coldly allocate capital
      - Both hyperbole and cruelty #
        
        If that's our plan, I don't like our plan
        
        I'm sorry, did I take my stupid pill today?
        
        Do I need to get down and get the certificate that says I'm the CEO of the company to get you stop challenging me on this?
        
        Are you lazy or just incompetent?
        
        Are you trying to get credit for something you had nothing to do with?
        
        If I hear that idea again, I'm gonna have to kill myself
        
        I guess supply chain isn't doing anything interesting next year
        
        Comfortably saying "I don't know; I'll get back to you in a couple of hours" and then doing it
    - - Stubborn financial fedender of his financial interest, even when the stakes were a relatively inconsequential fraction of his net worth
      - Farsighted chess player #
  - - - He absolutely thinks he's goint to space
        It's why he started working out every morning
        He's been ridicolously disciplined about it
    - - Slow steady progress can erode any challenge over time - win the day
      - "Step by step, ferociously"
- - - - Volcanic temper
        
        What is in your yard?
        Shipped, Not Shipped, Backlog and Why
      - Leadership by example
        
        Augmented by a healthy dose of impatience
      - Summa cum laude from Princeton in 1989
        MBA, MS, and BSE in Chemical Engineering
        MIT's Leaders For Manufacturing program
      - Primal screams - therapeutic release
    - - Match demand to the correct FC, levelling out backlog and obvigating the need for morning phone calls
    - - Process-driven
      - Carefully devising and tracking metrics
      - He didn't find time clocks at first
    - - Bringing them often to Seattle
      - Highlighting their technical issues
      - Wearing a flannel shirt as a gesture of solidarity with them during holiday season
  - - - Teams should communicate less with each other
      - It means people aren't working together in a close, organic way
    - - If they can't, then they aren't the good people
    - - Time and Money spent in communication increases in proportion to the number of people on a project
  - - - Autonomous groups of fewere than 10 people
      - When working late they could be fed with two pizza pies
      - Be independently set loose on Amazon's biggest problems
      - They would compete with one another for resources (Darwin)
      - Bezos hoped these loosely coupled teams could move faster and gest features to customers quicker
      - fitness function
        
        Each group was required to propose a linear equation to meausre its own impact without ambiguity
        
        Bezos wanted to approve each equation and track the results
        
        No reason for finance and legal in this way
        
        Human nature
  - - - To maximize the efficiency of their biggest bottlenecks
    - - Stephen Graves, professor of Management Science at MIT
      - St. Patrick's Day
      - The equipment and software from 3PLs weren't designed for the task at hand
      - Amazon had to engineer its own solutions
        
        Improve accuracy and reliability
        
        Russell Allgor
        
        Find the quickest and cheapest delivery
        
        "The consolidation of products within FC pays for the inventory and for pieces of the overhead"
  - - - Metal mounts hanging in the conference rooms for years
      - Door-Desk Award (lower prices)
    - - They tend to be filled with trival updates and politics or sports,
        rather than problem solvnig and brainstorming
    - - Write presentation in 6 pages of prose (15') + footnotes
    - - Mock press release
      - Work backward
      - Knowing precisely how it would be communiated to the world
  - - - Small products, high prices, relatively cheap delivery
      - Watch and Learn - Amazon's Marketplace
        
        2004, 2/3 Marketplace + 1/3 Amazon
      - Ignore pricing conventions in the business
        
        "I hired you because you are retailers, but I want you to understand that from this day forward you are not bond by the old rules"
      - "The box was everything to him - to be as iconic as Tiffany's"
      - Dimanod Search and ring-designing tool (later disappeared)
      - Amazon's communications in the jewelry category timed with the quarterly reports of rival Blue, the leader in online jewelry sales
  - - - Both the fastest way to ship
        
        Offer precise delivery time
      - And the least expensive way to ship
        
        Ship products efficiently
      - Crucial shipping cost reduction
        
        Cut-off time for next-day delivery to 45'
        
        Combining multiple items from a customer's order into a single box
    - - extra fee for overnight, two-day, or three-day shipping
    - - monthly charge for speedy shipping club for time-sensitive and non price-conscious customers
      - just like free standard delivery for price-conscious and non time-sensitive customers...
    - - Bing Gordon claims he came up with it
      - It came from fast-track pallets in "prime" positions at FCs
    - - Bezos decided on $79
      - It needed to be large enough to matter to consumers but small enough that they would be willing to try it out
    - - Little concrete idea
      - No clear way to break even
      - Piacentini "We made this decision even though every single financial analysis said we were completely crazy to give two-day shipping for free"
      - Bezos was going on gut and experience
    - - It turned customers into Amazon addicts
    - - "We had built such a good service that people were willing to pay us to use ti"
      - Other merchants products stored at FCs and shipped in 2 days fof Prime members
      - Operating leverage
        
        Getting more out of its assets
        
        Its microscopic profit margins started to expand
  - - - key element of distribution
      - metal detectors and security cameras to prevent theft
      - point system - 6 points was let go
      - high turnover - difficult workers organization
    - - $52m to install air-conditioning
      - private ambulance outside FCs
    - - low number of incidents
        (safer than department stores)
- - - - "I had already decided to leave Amazon, so it was between moving to the top of my field or starting from scratch in a new field"
  - - - Manber had a dozen of enginners, while Google had several hundred
  - - - Amarank
        
        A tool that visited Amazon every few hours to scrap rankings of his books and the ones of his competitors
      - APIs
        
        Amazon should develop Application Programming Interfaces to allow third parties to easily harvest data about their prices, products, and sales rankings
        
        Amazon should allow others to buind on top of them
      - "Companies need to think not just what they can get for themselves from new technologies but how they can enable others"
    - - "This has to scale to infinity with no planned downtime. Infinity!"
      - AWS's mission: "to enable developers and companies to use Web services to build sophitated and scalable applications"
    - - Let developers plug into Amazon website through APIs and "let them surprise us"
      - How to stimulate developers creativity?
        
        No guesses about what services they might want, which would be based on patterns of the past
        
        Create primitive and then getting out of the way
      - Break Amazon infrastructure down into the smallest, simplest atomic components and allow developers to freely access them with as much flexibility as possible
    - - Create intelligent life
      - Design simple computational building blocks, called primitives, and then sit back and watch surprising behaviors emerge
    - - In 2004, Crhis Pinkham, head of IT, wanted to return to South Africa
      - Brainstorm: allow a developer to run application on Amazon's servers, regardless of its type
      - The solitude was beneficial - comfortable distance from Bezos
    - - Difficulty on grasping just how big Bezos was thinking
      - "Why are you waisting my life?"
        
        Alan Atlas once suggested they could figure out how to keep up with unexpected growth after the service launched
      - Superman's costume with S3 - he paid for the shirts himself
    - - Andy Jassy
        
        What success would be like?
        
        To get to know each other and build trust
        
        A quasi chief of staff
      - Formally known as technical adviser
      - Assistant on hand to discuss important matter and ensure people follow up on certain tasks
      - Enabling Bezos to extend his reach
    - - "Because we need it as well" - Amazon's demand for such a service reflected the broader market
      - pay-per-use business model
        
        A great playing-field leveler for startups and smaller business to have the same cost structure as big companies
    - - Price of 50cents per hour to break even
      - Bezos said 10 cents per hour
      - No mistakes like Steve Jobs pricing the iPhone
        
        It was so fantastically profitable that the smartphone market became a magnet for competition
      - Distinctive business philosophy
        
        High margines justify rivals' investments in R&D
        
        Low margins attract customers and are more defensible
    - - Fresh appeal to legions of engineers looking to solve the world's most interesting problems
  - - - Low wages have the greatest appeal in less developed countires, yet most impoverished workers do not own Internet-connected PCs
  - - - Online service to coordinate low-wage workers around the world and sell access to this workforce to financial firms and others
      - 2001 patent "Hybrid machine/human computing arrangement" #
- - - - plug the e-reader into PC to download books
      - wirless was expensive ($400)
      - demanded exclusivity + veto power over future investors
    - - economies of scale
        
        drive down price
      - technology improvements
        
        screen quality
        
        battery life
    - - exploiting patent portfolio through litigation
  - - - "I absolutely know it's very hard. We'll learn how to do it"
      - Outside Amazon's core competency
    - - How to solve the dilemma?
        
        Steve Kessel,
        Book Category Manager
        
        "If you are running both physical and digital-media businesses at the same time you will never go after the digital opportunity with tenacity"
        
        "Your job is to kill your own business - to put everyone selling physical books out of a job"
        
        Set up autonomous organizations charged with building new and independent business around the disruptive technology
      - Great companies fail not because they want to avoid disruptive change but because they are reluctant to embrace promising new markets that might undermine their traditional businesses and that do not appear to satisfy their short-term growth requirements
  - - - "You are basically already late"
      - No office to report to
      - Easy to use - even for grandmothers
      - No WiFi or PC connection -> cellular access
        
        Give customers instant gratification through immediate download
      - 100,000 e-books
    - - "I'll decide what I can do. I'll figure this out and it is not going to be a business model you understand. You are the designers, I want you to design this and I'll think about the business model"
  - - - Bezos didn't permit his emissaries to acknowledge the existence of the Kindle
        
        He then reluctantly allowed them to show publishers a prototype
      - Dan Rise and Jeff Steele
        
        Fulfilling Bezos's vision +
        beat Apple & Google in next digital media
      - Publishers were reluctant to act
        
        Having encoded many standards yet small business
        
        They saw mostly what wasn't there (color, video, backlight)
        
        Those that didn't digitize enough or fast were threatened to lose recommendations to customers
      - Bezos demanded biweekly report
      - Topaz
        
        Repurpose scanned digital files from Search Inside the Book in a format suitable for the Kindle
        
        Would decrease the costs of digitizing catalogs for publishers
        
        Although the digital file would remain exclusive to the Kindle
    - - Loosing money
        
        Typically $15 wholesale price,
        a book would retail at $30
      - Bezos believed publishers would be forced to lower their wholesale prices on e-books
        
        "It is not written anywhere that books shall forever be printed on dead trees"
      - Publishers didn't know and hated it
        
        "If I could rewrite history I would have said, 'Thanks so much, I love the idea of the Kindle, but let's have an agreement that says you will not sell below the cost'"
    - - Price: $399
      - Bold design statement and easy text entry
        
        Disappear in the reader's hands, wedge-shaped body with angular buttons
      - 25,000 units sold out in hours
    - - Bezos appeared on Oprah Winfrey's talk show
      - Promoting it on Amazon home page
      - Educating customers and building the brand
    - - Manifestation of Bezos's own competitive personality and boundless intellect
  - - - Relationship with publishers, herself a veteran
      - Sensitive to book publishers' needs
      - "I like to do business where both parties feel like they are going to get something valuable out of it"
      - Left in 2005 -> Randy Miller (Pay to Play)
    - - Discounts on bulk purchases
      - Long payment periods
      - Shipping as per best Amazon's rates
      - Threat: out of automated personalization and recommendation systems #
        
        which meant -40% in sales
    - - Categorizing publishers based on their dependency on Amazon
      - Negotiate with the most vulnerable publishers
      - Demanding benefits to be passed on to Amazon's customers
      - Exploiting authors anxieties to track sales
- - - - 32-percent growth rate
        
        Stealing customers from others
      - 240-percent jump in stock
    - - The appeal of online auctions had faded
      - Its customers wanted a more Amazon-like fixed-price alternative
      - Amazon's valuation surpassed Ebay's
    - - Working out regularly and strict lean-protein diet
      - Hired a leadership coach
      - Taking feedback
  - - - Doug Herrington,
        failed grocery-delivery business
      - Project in Seattle
    - - Steven Goldsmith
      - Shopbop acquisition
  - - - 1-year development in 2006
      - Free overnight shipping and free returns (no traffic)
    - - 2008 crisis
      - Slow hiring
      - Poor engineering department
      - Inferior software
    - - "When given the choice of obsessing over competitors or obsessing over customers, we always obsess over customers - we pay attention to what our competitors do but it's not where we put our energy"
  - - - Circuit City, Borders, Target
    - - It came 10 years too late to do Amazon any harm
  - - - Publishers would become retailers at $13-15
      - Apple would act as a broker with 30% commission
      - Why would customers buy e-books from Apple when Amazon's prices are lower?
        
        Steve Jobs: "The prices will be the same - publishers are withholding from Amazon because they are not happy"
    - - Making Amazon more profitable
    - - The latter settled without admiting liability
      - The former was found liable
- - - - Missionaries have righteous goals and work to make the world a better place
      - Mercenaries are out for money and power and will run anyone who gets in the way
    - - Amazon had skirted the definition of physical presence by classifying FCs as wholly owned subsidiaries that earned no revenues
      - An enormous strategic advantage
        
        Robert Comfort
      - Careful negotiation with states when opening its facilities
        
        Securing hand-offs treatment
        
        Generating new jobs and economic activity
      - Essential to grant big benefits for customers as well
      - Affiliate websites taking a commission for passing customers on to an online retailer was an agent of that retailer, and thus the retailer had a presence in that affiliate's state
      - e.g. Texas
        
        A bill to force online retailers with DCs to collect sales tax
        
        Amazon threatened to close its FCs outside Dallas
        
        Governor Rick Perry promptly vetoed the bill
      - Losing one advantage to get one even greater
        
        Amazon "surrendered" to lose a sizeable advantage
        
        Accomodations to stay tax-free for a few more years
        
        Obligation to put new FCs close to large cities
        
        Next-day or same-day delivery
        
        Amazon Fresh
        
        Amazon Lockers
      - Amazon had to fight its offline rivals on a level playing field
  - - - During the meeting Amazon introduced Amazon Mom
    - - Amazon was losing $100 per quarter
    - - If rejected, then competition would heighten
      - Preliminary term: Quidsi had to turn over info about any subsequent offers (e.g. from Walmart)
  - - - Manufacturers cannot enforce retail prices, but can decide which retailers to sell to
    - - "Lost sales in the short term, but our brand is stronger than the brand of our distributors"
    - - Amazon showed ads for its rivals
      - Third party sellers still sell Wusthof knives
      - Amazon itself sell them at Warehouse Deals
  - - - Google: $200m - IPO - none of the above: Amazon wanted it all
      - Amazon could invest millions to acquire content
      - Amazon could save Lovefilm time and money (conservative European public markets)
      - Amazon found a technical way to prevent IPO
        
        Lovefilm had to amend its own bylaws
        
        Amazon was its largest shareholder
    - - Negotiation for 7 months
      - January 2011,
        Acquisition for about $200m
      - Free video-streaming for Amazon Prime members
  - - - How could Amazon be loved and not feared?
    - - Hypotheses
        
        Close-following is not cool
        
        Rudeness is not cool
        
        Young is cool
        
        Risk taking is cool
        
        Winning is cool
        
        Polite is cool
        
        Defeating bigger, unsympathetic guys is cool
        
        Inventing is cool
        
        Explorers are cool
        
        Conquerors are not cool
        
        Obsessing over competitors is not cool
        
        Empowering others is cool
        
        Capturing all the value only for the company is not cool
        
        Leadership is cool
        
        Conviction is cool
        
        Straightforwardness is cool
        
        Pandering to the crowd is not cool
        
        Hypocrisy is not cool
        
        Authenticity is cool
        
        Thinking big is cool
        
        The unexpected is cool
        
        Missionaries are cool
        
        Mercenaries are not cool
        
        Defeating tiny guys is not cool
      - Bezos listed 17 attributes and ranked 12 companies on each
      - Being PERCEIVED as inventive, as an explorer rather than a conqueror, is critically important
      - S team offsite
        
        Assign a more thorough analysis to a thoughtful VP
        
        Find actionable tasks to increase Amazon's odds of being a stand out in the first group of companies
- - - - 5 months to reply
      - Consumed with pressing forward than looking back
      - He asked him to cast aside any lingering regret and whished the very best