Jeff Bezos rarely does interviews. But he personally impacts so much of our future (space, the environment, AI) so I pay close attention when he does.
Here’s his chat with Andrew Ross Sorkin (co-creator of “Billions”, NYT and CNBC).
Thanks to Dave Bear and David Senra for moving this up in my queue.
Watch the NYT Bezos Interview
You can watch the Bezos interview by clicking on the YouTube embed above.
Ratings:
- My Rating: 91/100
- IMDB Rating: na
- Rotten Tomatoes Ratings: na
Release Date: December 4, 2024
Highlights of the Interview (including Bezos quotes)
Background on the interviewer:
Andrew Ross Sorkin is a journalist and author. He writes for The New York Times as a financial columnist. He co-anchors CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”
In 2001, he founded DealBook, a financial news service.
He authored “Too Big to Fail,” detailing the 2008 financial crisis. Sorkin co-created Showtime’s series “Billions.”
Here are highlights from my notes after I watched it:
1. Washington Post’s Decision to End Presidential Endorsements
- “We just decided that the pluses of doing this were very small, and it added to the perception of bias.” (5:01)
- “If newspapers and media are going to try and be objective and independent, they have to pass the same requirement that a voting machine does: they have to count the votes accurately, and people have to believe that they count the votes accurately.” (5:23)
- “I’m proud of the decision we made, and it was far from cowardly, because we knew there would be blowback, and we did the right thing anyway.” (6:30)
2. Optimism About President-elect Donald Trump’s Second Term
- “I’m actually very optimistic this time around.” (9:46)
- “He seems to have a lot of energy around reducing regulation. If I can help him do that, I’m going to help him.” (10:00)
- “This country is so set up right to grow … we need a growth orientation in this country, a growth mindset.” (10:47)
- “He appears calmer this time and more settled.” (13:52)
3. Jeff Bezos’s Role as Washington Post Owner
- “When they need financial resources, I’m available. I’m like the doting parent in that regard.” (8:37)
- “There’s always going to be appearances of conflict. A pure newspaper owner who only owned a newspaper and did nothing else would probably be, from that point of view, a much better owner.” (8:25)
- “We saved the Washington Post once. This will be the second time.” (16:41)
4. Perspectives on Elon Musk’s Role in Government
- “I take at face value what has been said, that he is not going to use his political power to advantage his own companies or to disadvantage his competitors.” (15:00)
- “I’ve had a lot of success in life not being cynical, and I’ve very rarely been taken advantage of as a result.” (15:30)
5. The Beauty of Earth and Saving It
- The Overview Effect: Bezos described how going to space transforms perspectives:
- “The overview effect … it truly is a lifechanging, transformative thing. Every astronaut, everybody who’s ever been to space has felt this.” (19:04)
- He recounted Apollo 13 astronaut Jim Lovell’s words: “I realized you don’t go to heaven when you die; you go to heaven when you’re born.” (19:36)
- William Shatner described the Earth as “a little pool of life in this entire solar system.” (19:50)
- The Need to Move Polluting Industry Off Earth:
- “We need to lower the cost of access to space low enough so the next generation or the one after that will be able to move polluting industry off Earth.” (23:19)
- “This planet should be maintained as it should be—zoned residential and light industry.” (24:02)
- “Space has infinite energy, infinite raw materials. Earth is the good planet, and we must save it.” (25:44)
- Humans Value Beauty and Art:
- “Humans value beauty and art. Even in Hard Scrabble times, ancient people took the time to paint their pottery. That’s why we won’t destroy this planet.” (27:02)
6. Confidence & Optimism
- Thinking Big:
- “Thinking small is a self-fulfilling prophecy.” (32:55)
- “I think it’s generally human nature to overestimate risk and underestimate opportunity. Entrepreneurs should bias against that.” (32:06)
- Golden Ages:
- “We’re living in multiple Golden Ages at once. There’s never been a more extraordinary moment to be alive.” (35:00)
- Conviction About Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA):
- “I can’t tell you how many people tried to talk me out of Fulfillment by Amazon. I just knew we had to do it. You’d never have talked me out of it.” (43:00)
- Optimism and Energy:
- “You need optimism and energy to lead. I don’t know how a glum, Eeyore-type founder could ever lead a company to success.” (45:34)
- Early Amazon Risk:
- “To raise the first million dollars of seed capital for Amazon, I had to take 60 meetings. Forty of them said no.” (34:06)
- “I told investors there was a 70% chance they would lose their investment. And in retrospect, I think that was probably optimistic.” (35:01)
7. Amazon’s AI Initiatives
- Bezos’s Current Focus on AI:
- “I’m working 95% on AI.” (51:39)
- “We are literally working on a thousand applications internally.” (51:44)
- AI as a Transformative Force:
- “Modern AI is most like electricity. It can be used to improve everything. It will be in everything.” (51:50)
- He compared AI to early electricity, describing it as a foundational layer like AWS was for cloud computing. (52:19)
- Amazon’s Nova Foundational Model:
- “The Nova foundational models are truly incredible … world-class Frontier models.” (54:14)
- Nova scales from “giant Frontier models” to smaller, cost-efficient models for specific applications: “The smaller models distilled from Nova provide different levels of intelligence and lower latency.” (55:05)
- AI Applications Across Amazon:
- “There isn’t a single application you can think of that isn’t going to be made better by AI.” (55:03)
- Examples include optimizing inventory, robotics, and customer service.
- AI’s Broader Implications:
- “If meaning comes only from being the best at something, very few of us would have meaning in our lives. Meaning comes from relationships and uplifting others.” (57:16)
8. The Future of Blue Origin
- “I think it’s going to be the best business I’ve ever been involved in.” (30:07)
- When asked if it could be bigger than Amazon: “Yeah.” (30:13)
9. Salary & Wealth
- Salary:
- “Throughout my career at Amazon, I paid myself about $80,000 a year in cash compensation and never took additional equity.” (36:40)
- Creating Wealth for Others:
- “I wish there were a list that ranked people by how much wealth they’ve created for others. Amazon’s market cap is $2.3 trillion, and subtracting the piece I kept for myself, I’ve created something like $2.1 trillion of wealth for others.” (38:50)
10. How Bezos Does Meetings
- Messy Meetings:
- “The memo should be like an angel—clear and beautiful—but the meeting can be messy.” (40:47)
- “Messy meetings help uncover the truth. You don’t want something rehearsed. I could tell my team had rehearsed a meeting once, and I said, ‘Don’t do that again.’” (41:36)
- Seeking Truth:
- “We’re not pitching; we’re seeking truth. Show me the sausage-making.” (42:10)
- Talking Last:
- “I go last in meetings. It helps with groupthink because the most junior person goes first, and the most senior person goes last.” (42:52)
11. What Big Leaders Have to Do
- “Big leaders only have to do a few things: identify the big ideas, enforce tough execution against those ideas, and grow the next generation of leaders.” (50:29)
12. How Bezos Uses Social Media & Compartmentalization/Focus
- On Social Media:
- “I’m on social media sometimes, but I’m not addicted to it. I mine it for ideas, but it’s a lot of work to find the nuggets.” (58:21)
- “I try to stay focused, but the algorithm can capture attention and take me down a different path.” (58:48)
- Compartmentalization and Focus:
- “I’m a good focuser. If I’m at dinner with friends, I’m at dinner. I don’t pick up my phone, and it’s not hard for me to do that.” (58:54)
13. Bezos’s Typical Day
- Daily Routine:
- “I work from 9 to 7 in meetings. It’s meetings all day, and then I read documents outside that.” (59:57)
- “I get energy from this. Not all the work is fun—that’s why they call it work—but if half your job is fun, you’re crushing it.” (1:00:09)
- Why He Rarely Does Interviews:
- “Every minute I spend doing something like this is a minute I’m not doing something else. I value my time.” (1:05:40)
Thanks for reading!
Rob Kelly, Chief Maniac, Daily Doc