This was the 5th book I read in 2021.
The inspiration for reading this book came from Morning Brew newsletter. I am a fan of Morning Brew newsletter. I usually don’t like to read long emails, but this newsletter has been an exception and I always look for something which would help me improve.
In one of the emails, they mentioned reading this book and being an ardent Jeff Bezos fan, I wanted to give it a shot and I must tell you that this book didn’t disappoint.
The important reason that I went for this book was that it depicted all the recent things about developments at Amazon. Even though I have been following the company for quite some time, I was more interested in knowing some of the behind-the-scene facts which common people are mostly unaware of.
The best thing about this book
Honestly, it is very hard to pick one best thing about this book. This book is filled with countless examples of exemplary leadership techniques that Jeff uses everyday at Amazon. I am having a hard time to mention one thing that I thought was simply outstanding, but for the sake of it, I will mention his decision of *not* mentioning the revenue of Amazon Web Services (AWS) on their quarterly earnings report and simply mentioning it as “Other” with a record profit.
When I read about it for the first time, I really wanted to make sure that I was reading it correctly, because I had never heard anyone doing it like that before this. I think it was a really smart move to not show how profitable and lucrative cloud business can be to Amazon’s competitors, namely Google and Apple. By not mentioning AWS revenue by its name on the quarterly report, Jeff made sure nobody knows about AWS and its revenue, which only goes on proving that you just don’t have to be smart, but act too. Amazon had to finally show the “Other” revenue as AWS profit when it eclipsed more than 50% of the total profit made by Amazon. It was just a little too late for Amazon’s competitors.
Why you should read this book
It is not only about the business lessons that you get from this book, but a lot of life decisions too. For me, the business lessons have had more impact than the life lessons from this book.
I was fascinated by the countless instances that the author has mentioned in the room about the various board meetings and how Jeff and his S (senior management) team came up with products. The biggest product that they came up with was Amazon Echo and devices. The author showed the picture of the whiteboard Jeff drew to showcase what he envisioned an Echo device to be. It didn’t only show how creative Jeff can be and how easy he makes his team to understand his vision without any beaurocracy.
Apart from discussing the initial vision, the book also tells us how easily he delegates to his team and how much trust he puts in them. There are very few cases where Jeff micromanages about something.
It is always Day 1
This is the biggest learning I experienced during the entire book.
Almost on every page of the book, the author mentioned various stories which related to Jeff’s Day 1 philosophy. The example of the world’s first Amazon Go store, Amazon’s expansion in the Movie business with Amazon Studios and Amazon video, Amazon’s expansion in the international markets such as China, India, and South America. The zeal with which Jeff carried out each individual project and tied them back to AWS and basic Amazon principles is simply amazing and makes you understand how he really thinks and why he deserves the title of “World’s richest person”.
Before closing, I would say that if you tiny bit interested in knowing how Jeff works and thinks, you must give this book a chance and read a few pages, because once you start, you get hooked to it.
See you at the next book review!
stochasticity 
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