Corporate cultures endure, for better or worse
“A word about corporate cultures: for better or for worse, they are enduring, stable, hard to change. They can be a source of advantage or disadvantage.”
Investing
Jeff Bezos's 2015 letter to Amazon shareholders, one of the letters in Day 1: The Amazon Shareholder Letters, 1997–2020.
Writing down a culture discovers it
“You can write down your corporate culture, but when you do so, you’re discovering it, uncovering it – not creating it.”
Cultures stay stable because people self-select
“The reason cultures are so stable in time is because people self-select. Someone energized by competitive zeal may select and be happy in one culture, while someone who loves to pioneer and invent may choose another.”
Known outcomes are not experiments
“To invent you have to experiment, and if you know in advance that it’s going to work, it’s not an experiment.”
Large organizations shun invention's failed experiments
“Most large organizations embrace the idea of invention, but are not willing to suffer the string of failed experiments necessary to get there.”
Outsized returns often defy conventional wisdom
“Outsized returns often come from betting against conventional wisdom, and conventional wisdom is usually right.”
A good bet still mostly loses
“Given a ten percent chance of a 100 times payoff, you should take that bet every time. But you’re still going to be wrong nine times out of ten.”
Long-tailed returns reward boldness
“In business, every once in a while, when you step up to the plate, you can score 1,000 runs. This long-tailed distribution of returns is why it’s important to be bold. Big winners pay for so many experiments.”
Scale enables service but risks slowness
“Used well, our scale enables us to build services for customers that we could otherwise never even contemplate. But also, if we’re not vigilant and thoughtful, size could slow us down and diminish our inventiveness.”
Single-threaded owners enable rapid innovation
“As with our retail business, AWS is made up of many small teams with single-threaded owners, enabling rapid innovation.”
Most tech companies follow competitors
“Many companies describe themselves as customer-focused, but few walk the walk. Most big technology companies are competitor focused. They see what others are doing, and then work to fast follow.”
One-size-fits-all decisions slow large organizations
“One common pitfall for large organizations – one that hurts speed and inventiveness – is ‘one-size-fits-all’ decision making.”
Irreversible decisions deserve slow deliberation
“Some decisions are consequential and irreversible or nearly irreversible – one-way doors – and these decisions must be made methodically, carefully, slowly, with great deliberation and consultation.”
Reversible decisions can be made quickly
“Type 2 decisions can and should be made quickly by high judgment individuals or small groups.”