Valuetainment - How Jeff Bezos Built His Trillion Dollar Empire

00:00:00.000 There's just so much to learn from Amazon and this little company in Seattle had become a trillion dollar empire and Bezos, the wealthiest person in the world.

00:00:08.180 Would you say Bezos is number one nemesis right now is Elon Musk?

00:00:12.980 Elon came in with SpaceX and kind of just went much faster and got the government to pay for a lot of his projects.

00:00:18.300 And so Jeff has been uniquely in space kind of struggling to catch up.

00:00:22.440 He's not used to being the second at anything.

00:00:24.880 Why does Bezos like to be more private rather than public?

00:00:28.420 Maybe the sit down is dangerous.

00:00:31.120 Look, it's personality.

00:00:32.160 He's not like a Steve Jobs or an Elon Musk where he can whip up his followers into a frenzy of fandom.

00:00:38.200 On style wise, what would that be with Bezos?

00:00:41.600 Maybe a lack of empathy, longer term well-being of employees.

00:00:45.520 And that sounds brutal.

00:00:46.660 And it is, you know, and I think we've seen some of the impact of that from the fulfillment centers, how tough that environment is and how Amazon tends to churn through employees.

00:00:55.760 And Bezos is the architect of that system.

00:00:57.820 You know, it almost seems like he's OK with a lot of things, but he is not OK with the unionization of Amazon.

00:01:04.080 Why is that?

00:01:05.000 Let me put it this way.

00:01:06.060 The Amazon website is 24-7.

00:01:08.460 So they're hiring and they're firing and they're working around the clock.

00:01:11.640 There's a backlog.

00:01:12.580 They're shifting employees to different jobs.

00:01:14.520 And all of those things, Patrick, that I just described are things that, you know, a union is going to collectively bargain against.

00:01:20.560 You know, we've seen again and again around the world, Amazon walking away from facilities when the discussion turns to unions. 0.64

00:01:27.120 So if you want to find out about the $180 billion man today, maybe $200 by the time you watch it, but the $180 billion man, Jeff Bezos, learn more about him.

00:01:39.960 There is no one that's written and researched him more than my guest today, Brad Stone, who is a senior executive editor for global technology at Bloomberg News.

00:01:49.940 And he oversees a team of 65 reporters and editors that cover high tech companies, startups, cybersecurity and Internet trends around the world.

00:01:57.780 He wrote a book in 2013 called The Everything Store about Amazon, which became the Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award.

00:02:05.940 That's a pretty big deal to get.

00:02:07.380 Didn't please McKenzie Scott at the time, McKenzie Bezos at the time when the book came out.

00:02:13.200 But raving reviews.

00:02:14.760 We read it ourselves, translated in 35 different languages.

00:02:17.380 And after writing a book about Bezos, eight years later, he writes another book called Amazon Unbound, Jeff Bezos and the Invention of a Global Empire, which just came out last week.

00:02:29.840 With that being said, Brad, thank you so much for being a guest on Valuetainment.

00:02:34.020 Hi, Patrick.

00:02:34.980 Thanks for having me.

00:02:35.760 Yeah.

00:02:36.020 So is this true that you are a twin and you're a father of twins?

00:02:39.640 Is that true?

00:02:40.720 That is true.

00:02:41.780 I like to say that we are reproducing at an exponential rate.

00:02:44.960 That's impressive, man.

00:02:46.080 I got to tell you, they say it skips a generation, but apparently it didn't skip yours.

00:02:50.740 My family is littered with them.

00:02:53.320 Oh, so your family is littered with them.

00:02:55.400 Yeah.

00:02:55.760 Cousins and extended family.

00:02:57.760 Yeah.

00:02:57.860 It's crazy.

00:02:58.660 Maybe there is a secret sauce in your family we don't know about.

00:03:01.420 Maybe your next book needs to be how to produce twins.

00:03:03.860 We don't know.

00:03:04.280 Maybe there's an audience for that.

00:03:05.880 Anyways, let's get right into it.

00:03:06.980 So, Brad, out of everybody you can study, out of everybody you can go out there and research and do what you do about, why did you pick Jeff Bezos?

00:03:16.080 Boy, I mean, early on, it was almost circumstance, Patrick.

00:03:19.040 I was writing about Silicon Valley for the New York Times and then Bloomberg.

00:03:24.060 And, you know, there were books about Google and Apple and Facebook.

00:03:27.380 And, you know, Amazon seemed a little bit of the cipher in the tech community.

00:03:32.580 Up there in Seattle, private, fiercely secretive.

00:03:35.780 And so the Everything Store was born out of, you know, opportunism.

00:03:39.780 You know, I wanted to write a company about and a person who I thought was interesting.

00:03:44.160 And, of course, then Amazon became very interesting.

00:03:46.820 And the book kind of hit at a moment where the book industry in the larger world was grappling with Amazon's power.

00:03:53.400 And then, you know, five, six years passed and the story had changed.

00:03:58.460 And this little company in Seattle had become a trillion dollar empire and Bezos, the wealthiest person in the world.

00:04:04.700 And so I sort of realized my first effort needed a sequel, a second chapter.

00:04:09.560 And then in some ways, as I was working on the book, the story just kept getting more interesting.

00:04:13.920 So first time you interviewed, it's interesting when you're saying that, because at first you're like, why would he write a book about it?

00:04:18.820 And you and I were talking offline.

00:04:20.160 It's a complete different animal today.

00:04:22.500 It was a $120 billion company, I believe, in 2012 when you were writing the book.

00:04:26.840 It had 150,000 employees, give or take.

00:04:29.320 Today, they're a $1.625 trillion auto company, 1.2 million employees.

00:04:34.320 And he's all over the place.

00:04:35.880 He's bought a lot of different things, about to buy a lot of other companies.

00:04:38.420 Maybe we'll talk about the possibility of them buying MGM.

00:04:42.640 But, you know, the first book, I feel like in a part of the book, you write the fact that you had a chance to interview him for the first book.

00:04:51.820 Then when you came out, he wasn't too happy about it because of a part of the story.

00:04:56.520 Can you tell us what the evolution is from the first book to the second book?

00:05:00.080 Right.

00:05:00.880 Well, I mean, first of all, you know, the books are similar in one respect.

00:05:05.300 You know, there's just so much to learn from Amazon.

00:05:07.420 It is almost the, you know, the example of modern business and the opportunity of disruption.

00:05:15.200 And so, you know, both, I think both books are full of revelations and lessons for students of business.

00:05:20.540 So let's just posit that.

00:05:22.520 In terms of the company's cooperation, it was actually very similar, maybe even a little bit better this time in terms of, you know, the company emerging from its shell, allowing me to interview senior executives.

00:05:33.420 Bezos himself was very guarded on the first book.

00:05:37.820 He he he sort of like listened to my pitch and then he said he didn't want to cooperate.

00:05:42.060 As you mentioned, Patrick, the book came out.

00:05:45.160 He didn't like it for a number of reasons, including the depiction of its corporate culture is pretty tough.

00:05:50.900 And of course, I feel like that's sort of been proven out amply by time and various testimony from employees.

00:05:57.380 And then there was a personal aspect to it, which I think you're referring to, which is I ended up tracking down his biological father, long lost biological father in the first book.

00:06:07.120 And and that sort of hit a little bit too close to home.

00:06:10.400 You mentioned the negative review from his wife at the time, Mackenzie.

00:06:13.800 And then years passed. And, you know, when I came to him for this book, they they you know, he and emailed him directly.

00:06:20.980 You know, he decided they decided to cooperate.

00:06:23.280 He didn't give me an interview for this book.

00:06:25.500 But, you know, I would point to the fact that over the past few years, you know, Bezos has been a scarce entity on the on the public stage, at least.

00:06:32.400 I mean, he's obviously been out there.

00:06:33.600 But in terms of interviews and reflections and grappling with the tough questions around Amazon, he he just doesn't tend to do that a lot.

00:06:40.620 So that that prompts two questions right there that that I'll go to one of them, then the other one.

00:06:46.140 The first one is the father that, you know, chasing him down and then, you know, wanting to speak with the biological father.

00:06:53.600 What was that experience like for you when you spoke?

00:06:55.920 Did you see a resemblance? Was he shocked?

00:06:58.760 I can't believe my son is doing this.

00:07:00.400 What did you notice when he spoke to his father?

00:07:03.420 Yeah, well, I mean, I'll I'll just say, you know, back then I was sort of curious.

00:07:08.220 Well, what makes what are the ingredients, you know, that go into such a unique and driven entrepreneur, entrepreneur and business figure?

00:07:18.300 And, you know, and that is everything from his mentors to his early jobs and, of course, to his upbringing.

00:07:24.240 And, you know, Patrick, he he went to his high school years and largely grew up there in South Florida and, you know, talk to friends and and family members.

00:07:33.680 He allowed me to talk to his parents, his mother and his father, who's actually really a stepfather.

00:07:39.060 And one of the questions that I was considering as I pursued it is, you know, well, OK, so where was the biological father?

00:07:45.800 And had that created any kind of an absence in his life that contributed to his remarkable drive?

00:07:50.600 So, you know, track down the father who was running a bike shop in Arizona.

00:07:55.160 And it turned out that the guy hadn't known that his son had become Jeff Bezos.

00:07:59.500 And that ended up just being a sort of remarkable story and a little bit of a wistful story and tied back into the Amazon story,

00:08:06.020 because Bezos had always run the company with this principle of never having any regrets.

00:08:10.480 And here I had tracked down the father figure who had been important in his very early life,

00:08:16.280 then had left the family and had a lot of regrets.

00:08:18.880 So in that way, it tied a bow around one aspect of that story.

00:08:22.560 Yeah, he talks about regret minimization.

00:08:24.560 I think that's the word he uses.

00:08:25.720 I think it's what you use in a book, the first one.

00:08:27.540 But going back with his father, are you saying like his father didn't know that Jeff was his son?

00:08:34.940 Like you had to find out also you so you had to find out through his mom, who is his biological father and walk you through that part.

00:08:44.040 Yeah.

00:08:44.540 Yeah. No, let me clarify.

00:08:45.480 No, he knew he had a son in high school.

00:08:47.580 Okay.

00:08:48.080 The couple was in high school.

00:08:50.120 He knew what his son, they were married.

00:08:51.840 He was in their lives for for two or three years after that.

00:08:55.360 And then they they got divorced and he left and he had lost track of the family

00:09:01.400 and didn't know what had happened to the son that he had had as a kid and didn't know if he was alive or not.

00:09:07.640 And then ultimately, when I knocked on his door in 2013, didn't know that this wealthy, public facing, famous businessman was that kid, that baby.

00:09:18.460 He literally had no idea.

00:09:21.020 No idea.

00:09:22.560 No.

00:09:24.300 After the meeting with you and him, did he reach out to Jeff at all?

00:09:27.080 Did they have any kind of interactions or conference meetings?

00:09:29.660 Yeah, he tried to reach out and Bezos wrote him a note.

00:09:33.980 And then he and then he passed away about a year later, I think.

00:09:37.660 So they never met.

00:09:38.440 They never met up.

00:09:39.480 As far as I know.

00:09:40.660 Okay.

00:09:41.020 As far as I know.

00:09:41.460 You know, you know, it's interesting.

00:09:42.440 And I'm curious to know what you're saying.

00:09:43.700 Maybe you don't have an opinion on this.

00:09:45.040 Maybe you do.

00:09:46.060 Do you notice a correlation between individuals who, you know, there are people that become millionaires.

00:09:53.260 There are people that become billionaires.

00:09:54.860 I mean, you know, you can come up with a good idea and become a billionaire.

00:09:57.060 But there are a few people that, for whatever flipping reason, they cannot stop.

00:10:03.800 They can't even help themselves.

00:10:05.800 It's this energy like, when is it going to be enough for you?

00:10:08.980 When, like, and then you go back and you study Elon Musk with the relationship with his father.

00:10:13.080 You'll know, you know, all this stuff.

00:10:14.580 And then, you know, Steve Jobs' mom.

00:10:16.340 You know, hey, how do you give me up?

00:10:17.500 And, you know, Bezos' father.

00:10:19.580 Do you think there is a correlation with one of the parents almost not seeing like they're going to amount to anything?

00:10:27.240 How dare you leave me that I'm going to prove a point the rest of my life for you to say you weren't there?

00:10:31.560 Do you kind of see something like that?

00:10:33.900 That's what I was curious about that.

00:10:35.440 But let's put it this way.

00:10:36.440 Let's not advise that an ingredient to good parenting or raising a motivated child is to depart their life.

00:10:44.520 That's probably.

00:10:45.120 But and yet, you know, yeah, I think so in some way.

00:10:50.920 You know, and obviously every kid abandoned by a parent is, you know, not going to be a high achiever.

00:10:57.260 In fact, probably the opposite is true.

00:10:59.040 And yet in some of those cases and, you know, we can look to Bill Clinton or Barack Obama, you know, when the parental figure was missing, it seemed to have been at least one ingredient in a remarkable ambition and level of achievement.

00:11:12.480 And, yeah, that's what I was.

00:11:14.040 You know, I'm not a psychologist or, you know, so I don't I don't really know.

00:11:17.680 But certainly that's why I went down that path.

00:11:20.720 And, you know, and it's an open question, you know, whether that was sort of fair game.

00:11:25.720 Right.

00:11:26.000 And I don't you know, and even after all these years, I mean, I'll defend it.

00:11:29.740 But I think it's you know, it's a good question, you know, like probing into the private life and the early life of a business figure.

00:11:36.440 I mean, I would say that Bezos is now had has made an impact on this on this world to such an extent that, you know, understanding from whence he came and that elixir, you know, that fueled him is is is is interesting.

00:11:49.780 I think that's an understatement when you think about, you know, the impact he's made in the world.

00:11:54.220 And I don't think he's stopping anytime soon, even though he gave it up to Andy Jazzy from AWS, which, by the way, in an interview with Google seven years ago, when they asked you, who do you think would replace him?

00:12:03.060 You actually brought up Andy's name that could potentially one day because the guys at the top are loyal to him.

00:12:08.520 Yes, they may have a high turnover ratio and middle management, but the guys at the top enjoy working with them based on the culture that they have there.

00:12:14.660 Tyler Perry.

00:12:15.320 I don't know if you know who Tyler Perry is.

00:12:16.720 You may know Tyler.

00:12:17.340 Of course, he's a very big name.

00:12:19.660 He said one time that he had a following out with his dad, I believe.

00:12:23.140 And he told his dad, how much do I have to spend for you to never call me ever again?

00:12:28.300 If I buy you a house, if I buy you a car, if I spend money because he wanted to say you were not there during the years.

00:12:34.560 I'm going to I'm going to let you know right now you want money.

00:12:37.300 I'll get this.

00:12:37.840 I'll get this.

00:12:38.280 I'll get that because I want to go out there.

00:12:39.440 But there almost seems like there's a driver that I thought maybe a little bit more to go into.

00:12:43.940 It'd be very interesting if a psychologist or a psychiatrist and you actually worked on a project together to see how much deeper that can get.

00:12:50.660 The other part you said is the fact that when you wanted to go interview him, he kind of like, no, I'll let my executives talk to you, but not myself.

00:12:59.480 And you said he's more on the private side.

00:13:01.420 He doesn't like to, you know, go and, you know, talk about those tough conversations.

00:13:05.460 You know, Elon Musk on the opposite end, he's like total opposite.

00:13:10.480 He'll tweet, you know, he'll go smoke weed with Joe.

00:13:14.140 He'll go, you know, hey, $69,000 for the Tesla, $420 a share.

00:13:20.440 We're going to go buy it back. 0.56

00:13:21.940 He's a troll master, chess master, game, all this stuff that he does.

00:13:28.280 Why does Bezos like to be more private rather than public?

00:13:32.040 Is it a personality thing or is it just kind of a, you know, he sees way too much risk in being in a public eye?

00:13:38.220 Yeah, it's a great question.

00:13:39.600 I mean, Elon, I mean, their styles are so different.

00:13:42.340 Elon has, you know, everything that you described, but also he's, you know, we can admit maybe that he's undisciplined.

00:13:49.860 The tweets are, you know, as likely to get him into trouble, either regulatory or legal, as whip his fans into a frenzy.

00:13:57.860 Um, it's his, it's his style.

00:14:01.020 It's been unmistakably effective.

00:14:02.900 He can do it in part because his ventures are really inspirational.

00:14:06.880 Tesla and, um, and SpaceX, you know, Bezos, maybe, you know, yes, there's a personal personality difference.

00:14:13.680 He's so disciplined and careful.

00:14:15.980 The stories that he tells in interviews are like polished little stones that he's used and deployed over the years.

00:14:22.080 I've heard them all.

00:14:22.840 I could probably give the speech myself, you know, at the same time, he is, uh, the CEO, the founder of a company that evokes much more complicated feelings in people, you know, uh, um, uh, and that's, you know, that's, um, rightly or, or not.

00:14:38.940 Um, but it's a retailer.

00:14:40.760 It's, it's competition is sympathetic, small and pop mom and pop businesses.

00:14:46.020 Um, it's sort of like, in some respects, Walmart, you know, a juggernaut from afar that reaches into communities.

00:14:52.320 Um, it employees of tons of people in everyone's local community.

00:14:55.780 It's got complicated kind of tax relief schemes and it's a lightning rod.

00:15:00.740 It is, it is, it's occupied that place in the public imagination right now where people both depend on it.

00:15:07.780 And in the same breath, after they're clicking the buy now button, they're criticizing it.

00:15:11.880 Right.

00:15:12.260 I mean, and so maybe he has to be more careful, maybe to sit down and make himself available like Elon does is in some respects dangerous because he's going to be asked about taxes and relationship with the workers and competition.

00:15:27.140 So I don't, I don't know, but he is just more disciplined and careful and he, look, it's personality.

00:15:32.160 He can't, he, he, he, he can't, he's not like a Steve jobs or an Elon Musk where he can whip up his followers into, you know, a frenzy of fandom.

00:15:40.960 It's just, he's a, he's kind of still a geek Patrick when it gets down to it, a nerd.

00:15:46.220 So, so would you categorize?

00:15:48.800 I mean, that's a good way of putting it.

00:15:49.820 Would you say Musk, Jobs, Gates, Zuck, you know, uh, uh, uh, Bezos, would you kind of say the personalities where Gates is a little bit more, but he's been in a public eye more lately, you know, vaccine, all this other stuff.

00:16:03.940 Here's what we need to do.

00:16:05.360 Challenges we're facing, but would you kind of put it more on the Gates and Zuck side than the Elon and Jobs side?

00:16:11.520 Maybe that's true.

00:16:12.640 I mean, in some ways, I think he tries to be up here hovering above it.

00:16:17.160 You know, he's so strategic in, in what he says and how he talks and where he does it.

00:16:23.060 In some ways it's when he talks, when he writes a letter to shareholders, when he gives an interview with a fellow billionaire on a stage somewhere, um, or when he talks about Blue Origin, a space company, it's tactical.

00:16:35.620 He's trying to deliver a message.

00:16:37.340 You know, he's, he's, you know, one of the things is he's just incredibly strategic with his time.

00:16:42.160 And so partly it might be that, but when he does talk, there's always a goal and a, and a, you know, and an end game.

00:16:48.440 So I don't know that he's really even that consumed with his public image.

00:16:52.060 Um, I mean, I, he certainly does care about it because you see him responding to criticism in his writing and, and his, and the speeches he does give.

00:16:59.580 But, um, I think he just tries to sort of hover above it and no longer really cares perhaps.

00:17:04.780 And with $180 billion fortune, maybe he doesn't have to, uh, you know, cares that much about getting people to really understand them.

00:17:12.780 I think he cares though.

00:17:14.220 I think he cares because, yeah, because, you know, he responded to Trump and his guy told him not to do it.

00:17:19.280 And you were kind of talking about it yourself.

00:17:20.640 Hey, just let it go.

00:17:22.280 Jay call, you know, all that stuff that was going on, let it go.

00:17:24.500 No, he responds.

00:17:25.440 And they had this little battle going on back and forth.

00:17:28.100 I asked because, you know, uh, it's an old school style.

00:17:32.780 He has this whole thing about being in the public eye.

00:17:35.940 It's more new school.

00:17:36.760 It's not old school.

00:17:37.580 Social media has almost forced a lot of CEOs to be in a public eye.

00:17:41.380 Generally, you know, powerful business people were like, listen, just, you know,

00:17:46.100 I don't want to do a lot of interviews.

00:17:47.720 You know, your publicist would say, don't talk to anybody.

00:17:50.220 What if you say the wrong thing where today it's more like, let me go handle.

00:17:54.000 Let me respond back on Twitter.

00:17:55.320 Let me go do this.

00:17:56.120 We have more access.

00:17:56.920 So it does show a lot of discipline to him internally.

00:17:59.680 You know, as you did the interview from the first book to the second one,

00:18:03.340 obviously on the second one, you're saying you didn't meet with him,

00:18:05.200 but he did allow you to go on and interview a lot of his executive, which is great.

00:18:09.360 Did you ever read the book accidental millionaire that was written in the eighties?

00:18:12.820 I want to say, uh, uh, it was a book written in the eighties.

00:18:16.000 About jobs.

00:18:17.180 And these were former employees that left, you know, the book accidental billionaire about

00:18:20.860 Zuck prior to accidental billionaire.

00:18:22.840 There was a book called accidental millionaire.

00:18:25.080 And it was written when you read the book, you could tell it was written by former employee

00:18:30.680 who hated jobs.

00:18:33.040 I mean, couldn't stand jobs.

00:18:34.780 And in many documentaries, when they interview people that worked with jobs at his peak,

00:18:40.440 you know, you talk about bully, which we'll get to chapter three here in a minute,

00:18:43.040 but they say, you know, uh, uh, how he was and how he would, you know, flip out and this

00:18:48.640 and that when you were doing interviews from people recently, not, not 2013, I'm talking

00:18:55.400 about recently and interviewing former people as well as exact existing people.

00:19:00.480 What things have you seen evolve in the last eight years from 2012 to 2020, 2021?

00:19:06.620 In terms of the corporate culture or the, in terms of like, let's just say 2003, when

00:19:11.540 you were talking to disgruntled employees who left, they would say, Oh, he's still this

00:19:14.640 maybe disgruntled employees that now left are saying something different.

00:19:18.160 And the people that are there who are happy are saying something different.

00:19:21.280 Like Bezos has changed because of that, that, that.

00:19:23.580 Well, first of all, you know, yes, there are disgruntled employees, but you know, it's the

00:19:29.940 preponderance of, of the, of the workers that I've interviewed over the years, you know,

00:19:34.400 have been, I think pretty sort of a clear eyed, um, you know, and, and Frank about their

00:19:42.100 contributions, the, the, the pride they took at the work, but also, but also the, some

00:19:47.100 of the disadvantages or the, you know, the leadership style that ultimately burned them

00:19:51.160 out.

00:19:51.600 So it wasn't, it's not quite disgruntled.

00:19:53.740 It's sometimes exhausted or, you know, post-traumatic stress disorder from being lashed to a rocket

00:19:59.540 ship, you know, captain by a CEO who just never stopped.

00:20:04.440 And in the early years, they described this leadership style that was brusque and demanding

00:20:09.740 and sometimes demeaning and intimidating.

00:20:12.180 And in the first book, the everything store, I tell all sorts of stories of Bezos saying remarkable

00:20:16.900 things, you know, like, why are you wasting my life?

00:20:20.580 And then, and Amazon Unbound, that leadership style has matured somewhat.

00:20:25.400 Um, you know, he, he, he, he doesn't, you know, he bottles that up, uh, and, and, you

00:20:30.620 know, but he still has incredibly high standards and he'll walk out of a room if he feels like

00:20:36.060 employees haven't solved the problem or aren't betting big enough or thinking big enough or

00:20:40.860 don't have an ingenious solution to something.

00:20:42.780 I tell the story in Amazon Unbound of Alexa and the creation of Alexa, which she sponsored

00:20:48.440 and got into the details of it.

00:20:49.840 And it's really, you know, this lesson for, I think anybody in business of, you know, how

00:20:54.080 just having the idea isn't enough, but you have to, as a CEO sort of use your leadership

00:21:00.140 magic to sponsor it, to get into the details, to understand the technical specifications, and

00:21:06.120 then to allow your employees as one says, I quote her in the book is to be unbound, you

00:21:11.980 know, to not limit themselves in terms of how they're thinking or investing.

00:21:17.020 The, the big question with Alexa was how, how they're, they were going to test it.

00:21:20.720 And ultimately before launch, ultimately they bring it out into the world, uh, in disguise

00:21:26.360 and they rent apartments and houses and shroud the thing with the acoustic fabric and get

00:21:31.760 contractors to go through reciting scripts.

00:21:34.220 And that's the only reason why I got smart enough to launch.

00:21:37.260 And that was Bezos basically pushing his people.

00:21:39.460 So yeah, I think the quality, the, the tenor of the testimony about the culture has changed,

00:21:44.360 but in some ways it's just as difficult.

00:21:46.200 It's just his leadership style softened a little bit.

00:21:48.400 So, okay, his leadership style softened a little bit, but it's still, so, so do you

00:21:53.040 notice, what do you notice with the guys that can stay with them long-term?

00:21:56.740 Because when you're working with a hard charging guy, listen, it's gotta be very annoying.

00:22:00.860 It's not gotta be something you look for. 0.72

00:22:02.340 You either like it and you're almost just as screwed up as the other person is that you're

00:22:06.540 driven by it, or you're just like, I can tolerate this for five years. 0.66

00:22:10.300 I don't know if I can do this 10 years or 20 years.

00:22:12.960 I'm going to use this as a resume.

00:22:13.960 Then I'm going to go work at Netflix.

00:22:15.700 I'm going to go work at whatever.

00:22:16.900 Right.

00:22:17.060 But those you notice that can last with Bezos long-term, what do they have in common?

00:22:24.280 They tend to think like him.

00:22:26.080 I think they buy into the leadership style and the culture.

00:22:31.700 They are, you know, they're, they're independent thinkers.

00:22:36.060 They're, they're creative.

00:22:38.040 You know, Bezos had, you know, Jeff Wilkie for a long time.

00:22:41.480 He, he retired last year.

00:22:42.880 He was the head of the consumer business.

00:22:44.180 And then Andy Jassy, who's taking over.

00:22:46.000 I mean, they both were really, you know, like protégés in a way and made big contributions

00:22:52.580 on both sides of the business.

00:22:54.640 But I think actually one factor, Patrick, is that Bezos just trusted them and then gave

00:22:59.460 them a lot of leeway and autonomy.

00:23:03.220 And, you know, Bezos focuses on the new things.

00:23:05.960 And Wilkie ran the retail business and Jassy ran the cloud business.

00:23:10.420 And then Bezos would sort of show up every so often to, you know, to push them and sometimes

00:23:15.840 to undermine them or make them, you know, rethink elements of their business.

00:23:19.520 And so, you know, I think, I think the tolerance for that style was, was sort of key because

00:23:24.960 obviously, you know, if you, if you're, if you've created a, you know, multi-billion dollar

00:23:28.700 business and then the boss is showing up, I think to blow, blow you up every once in a

00:23:32.580 while, that takes a little bit of patience and self-awareness and you have to have a lot

00:23:36.480 of respect for the boss as well.

00:23:37.920 So I think that's, that's, that's another key element.

00:23:40.840 They, they, they all had, they all seem to, you know, be members of the Bezos admiration

00:23:44.940 club.

00:23:45.680 And of course you have to be, if you're going to be in there for the long haul and put up

00:23:48.820 with the challenges of, of that culture, you know, it's because you're buying in not just

00:23:53.320 to the style, but to the guy and the belief that, you know, he's a visionary and he's right

00:23:57.700 about a lot of things.

00:23:59.200 He's the prophet.

00:24:00.160 I mean, he's, he's a true prophet visionary, you know, it's, and what makes him, you know,

00:24:04.080 I guess I'll ask this question before we go to the next topic is on.

00:24:07.920 On style wise, you know, there are leaders who are very good with messaging.

00:24:12.580 They have a vision.

00:24:13.460 They want to go out there and do this.

00:24:14.400 There are those who are maybe not very good at expressing their message to you, but they're

00:24:17.980 very disciplined.

00:24:18.620 So they come in, Hey, where's this?

00:24:19.920 It's time.

00:24:20.340 Hey, 30 minutes.

00:24:20.960 It's 30 minutes.

00:24:21.540 I didn't say 31 minutes.

00:24:22.860 So they're very much respecting their time.

00:24:25.220 There are those who are great salespeople.

00:24:27.780 There are those who are great developers of product.

00:24:29.660 They're innovative.

00:24:30.240 They're creative like a jobs, right?

00:24:32.000 There are those that are actually very good with numbers.

00:24:33.900 Like they know how to go raise the money and Hey, we'll go get this.

00:24:36.400 And they'll speak the balance sheet language better than others, almost like a CFO, but

00:24:40.060 they're not.

00:24:40.840 And then there are some that just sheer drive competition.

00:24:45.980 Which one would you say base?

00:24:47.520 If you were to say his number one, not Pat, he's all of that.

00:24:51.780 I get that, but I want to know, like, I know, but you know, like I'm talking about the one

00:24:56.800 thing above it all.

00:24:58.560 So what would that be with Bezos?

00:25:02.940 Okay.

00:25:04.200 So we're going to posit that most of the boxes are checked.

00:25:07.900 Sure.

00:25:08.480 Yeah, I get that.

00:25:09.040 And of course, you know, he's, but I, you know, I'm going to say actually that there's

00:25:12.860 a little bit just to round it out a little bit of a, what I would call maybe a lack of

00:25:18.180 empathy or, you know, an, a willingness to disregard, uh, feelings, um, the need to drive

00:25:25.960 to consensus, um, you know, the low longer term wellbeing of employees.

00:25:31.120 And that's, you know, it sounds brutal and it, and it is, you know, and I think we've

00:25:35.720 seen some of the impact of that from the fulfillment centers, how tough that environment

00:25:39.320 is and how Amazon tends to churn through employees and Bezos is the architect of that system and

00:25:45.540 he doesn't care.

00:25:47.080 And maybe that is the, you know, the, the ingredient, uh, part, part of it, of his success.

00:25:53.220 And the thing that also is not to be emulated or, you know, in most environments, we would

00:25:57.660 want to think carefully about emulating it.

00:26:00.020 Um, you know, this is, this is part of the reason why it's a, it's a difficult culture and

00:26:05.040 why the rate of turnover is high and why he doesn't seem to care.

00:26:08.600 He sits atop of this massive expanding empire because in some ways, you know, that he's

00:26:13.560 focused on the construction of a business that serves customers and the feelings of

00:26:18.200 everyone who is in the middle, making that machinery work doesn't really matter.

00:26:22.800 And, and, and I don't know, maybe that's it because there are plenty of inventors and

00:26:26.560 innovators and there's, there are plenty of, uh, business architects and yet he has

00:26:30.500 constructed a business on a scale that's been almost unknown to man.

00:26:34.240 And it's because he never stops and doesn't slow down.

00:26:36.760 It doesn't seem to concern himself with the things that might, you know, give you or I

00:26:41.120 a little pause.

00:26:41.840 Yeah, that, that, that, that's what I figured.

00:26:45.380 And it's leading me to the next subject here.

00:26:47.940 Uh, let me write my next question here.

00:26:49.920 Uh, so, so, you know, lack of empathy.

00:26:53.640 Okay.

00:26:54.780 Um, it's almost like not feeling guilty for what others have to do to get the work.

00:27:00.080 You do it, you do it.

00:27:00.840 You don't, I don't care.

00:27:01.600 It's your fault.

00:27:02.180 It's not my fault.

00:27:02.800 Like you have to do the work.

00:27:03.760 I don't feel guilty for your lack of effort or lack of desire to want to learn and improve.

00:27:07.560 I get that.

00:27:08.040 That's you.

00:27:08.500 You got to own that.

00:27:09.180 I don't own that.

00:27:09.740 Okay.

00:27:11.080 Elon Musk is on SNL.

00:27:12.600 Okay.

00:27:12.900 And I'm sure you saw when he was on SNL, right.

00:27:14.820 And he got up and, you know, maybe something, you know, Bezos would never do, but Elon gets

00:27:19.440 up there and he's on SNL.

00:27:20.420 And he says, I'm actually making history tonight as a first person with Asperger's to

00:27:24.860 host SNL, or at least the first to admit to it.

00:27:27.920 So I won't make a lot of eye contact with the cast in that, but, um, uh, but already I'm

00:27:31.760 pretty good at running human in emulation mode, right?

00:27:34.400 He touches on this Asperger's things and back in the days that would write about Gates with

00:27:39.900 this, you know, Hey, he has that.

00:27:41.400 And it was a rumor underlined that people would talk about that, you know, he would lash out

00:27:46.460 and walk at it.

00:27:47.240 Where's he?

00:27:47.560 You don't feel bad for anybody.

00:27:48.700 Just hurt this guy's feelings.

00:27:50.280 You know, do you, do you, and I know you don't talk about this.

00:27:53.980 You've not talked about in the first book, nor the second book.

00:27:56.000 Is there, is there an element of that where it gives you the advantage because rejection,

00:28:02.400 you're like, you don't even know what rejection feels like because you don't have emotions

00:28:05.900 for it.

00:28:06.280 Do you kind of see a strength and a correlation with that and succeeding at this level?

00:28:11.960 You know, that's interesting.

00:28:13.060 And, and, uh, um, it's a really good question.

00:28:16.020 And yes, it's definitely one that I've thought about and of course resisted making any medical

00:28:20.580 diagnosis because I don't know, um, uh, but, you know, to look at it sort of, you know,

00:28:27.700 take, take a step back.

00:28:29.040 There is a remarkable ability that Bezos has to fail, uh, in public.

00:28:35.360 You know, the, the fire phone is a great example.

00:28:37.800 That smartphone that bombed.

00:28:39.060 I tell that story and, and, and, yeah, very good story.

00:28:42.160 Yeah.

00:28:42.620 Um, you know, other efforts, um, when, when he battled with the national inquirer over his

00:28:48.000 personal relationship, you know, and, and posted that, that article on medium, um, you

00:28:53.600 know, that basically risked embarrassment and, you know, did something that probably most

00:28:57.580 of us, you know, wouldn't, wouldn't consider doing and, and, you know, moved on and, and

00:29:02.000 actually it was quite effective.

00:29:03.460 The risking of embarrassment is another aspect of this, you know, of this ability to not,

00:29:09.200 you know, not seem seemingly to care that much about public embarrassment that, yeah,

00:29:14.640 there's, there's a little bit of a shield, you know, to some of the negative, uh, effects

00:29:20.160 of growth and fame and that he has, and it's been remarkable armor, I think for him.

00:29:25.860 So, yes, I think it's definitely, if, if, you know, if he is like Elon somewhere there

00:29:30.720 on the spectrum and we, you know, we don't know.

00:29:32.480 And by the way, I've met Elon and, um, I never thought that that was true.

00:29:37.020 So I thought that was surprising that he would say that about himself.

00:29:39.900 Uh, but in any event, yeah, I mean, it's, it's clearly can be effective in, in some

00:29:46.620 aspects of business building.

00:29:48.040 Are you saying you met Elon because Elon actually has a personality and he's loose and, you

00:29:52.180 know, is that why you're saying why you never thought he would have that?

00:29:54.520 Absolutely, yeah.

00:29:55.140 Yes, yeah.

00:29:56.120 Yeah.

00:29:56.320 Because even when you see that, you're like, even on SNL, he looked like he was having a,

00:29:59.480 he was like a little kid in a candy store.

00:30:01.620 You know, I think the biggest thing was, did you watch Tiger Woods' documentary that came

00:30:05.840 out?

00:30:06.200 I don't know if you, uh.

00:30:07.140 I haven't yet.

00:30:07.920 I'm looking forward to it.

00:30:08.680 I highly recommend, I just watch it a few weeks.

00:30:10.780 So it's not like I watch it when it first came out.

00:30:12.500 People kept telling me, you got to watch it.

00:30:13.960 I'm like, I'll watch it.

00:30:14.880 It's because, you know, last dance was so great.

00:30:17.320 What the hell is going to reach last dance, right?

00:30:19.660 But when you watch it, there is a scene that, you know, there's a lot of scenes that stuck

00:30:26.000 out to me, but there was one scene where his girlfriend from high school, they had 0.99

00:30:29.880 videos of Tiger at her house.

00:30:32.800 And at this time, Tiger's a phenom.

00:30:34.380 The world already knows who he is.

00:30:35.760 They already know he's going to be a star.

00:30:36.960 So it's not like he's not known, but there's this part about Tiger just being childlike

00:30:42.220 and he was just letting loose.

00:30:44.620 And then when his dad was around, yes, I plan on winning 19.

00:30:48.240 I feel like we'll be the greatest.

00:30:49.940 So it was like a robotic, but behind closed doors, it was this like loose thing.

00:30:53.960 I think what we're starting to see with Elon is Elon's just finally accepted the fact that

00:30:58.560 he's this, you know, big kid stuck in a brilliant genius guy's body and he's okay being himself.

00:31:03.680 I think Elon's probably reached a level of comfort in himself more than some of these

00:31:09.520 other guys have.

00:31:10.280 And I think the world's enjoying his brilliance.

00:31:13.000 Yeah.

00:31:13.100 I may be wrong, who knows, but that's what I noticed with them.

00:31:16.080 If you don't mind sharing that story with the phone, because that's a great management

00:31:21.560 tip to give to other leaders on how to deal with some of their folks who go through massive

00:31:27.700 failures.

00:31:28.300 I think it's a great story if you don't mind sharing that with the audience.

00:31:31.200 Sure.

00:31:31.600 And let's recognize that Amazon is in a unique position to fail, right?

00:31:37.180 It, you know, has this engine of cash growth in the retail business and the cloud business.

00:31:42.940 So Bezos believes he can try a lot of different things.

00:31:45.380 And at the time that he's gestating Alexa, he, you know, has this idea for a phone.

00:31:50.320 He wants to enter, you know, this category of device that's growing so quickly with the

00:31:55.960 iPhone and Samsung devices back in 2010.

00:31:58.880 And, you know, he, he has a notion for a phone with a three-dimensional screen that'll give

00:32:04.980 you a kind of a 3D image with all these front facing cameras, and you can use the phone to

00:32:09.400 scan any product and I'll give you a price and show you how to build it.

00:32:12.600 And he, he whips up the project inside the company.

00:32:15.660 Like Alexa, he kind of manages it closely.

00:32:18.100 The employees on it really don't get the vision.

00:32:20.940 They think that Amazon should be offering a low price consistent with its image.

00:32:25.560 But he wants something very distinctive.

00:32:27.480 And they even buy dog, the employees buy dog tags that say disagree and commit, which

00:32:33.180 is a leadership principle inside Amazon, but a kind of sly way of saying that they didn't

00:32:38.020 really buy into it.

00:32:39.320 And, you know, the thing takes forever.

00:32:41.720 Suddenly the parts are outdated.

00:32:43.600 They have to restart the project inside the company.

00:32:46.300 Launches in 2014.

00:32:48.600 It bombs.

00:32:50.200 Reviews are terrible.

00:32:51.280 Customers don't buy it.

00:32:52.660 And Bezos says, okay, fine.

00:32:55.200 Doesn't punish his executives.

00:32:56.420 Doesn't necessarily embrace the blame publicly because it was his idea, but he moves on quickly.

00:33:02.520 And three months later, they, they announce Alexa.

00:33:04.800 So in some ways, the, I think the lesson is, uh, trying a lot of different things, embracing

00:33:09.540 failure, not, uh, you know, not punishing the organization or your employees when you, when,

00:33:14.700 when you fail, not losing a lot of time to go recognize the failure, take the write-off,

00:33:20.300 get past it.

00:33:21.580 Um, you know, and, and then the fact that, you know, if, even if you fail, as long as

00:33:25.500 you're trying, you know, five other things and one of them hits, you're going to come

00:33:29.240 out ahead, which is what happened with Amazon and Alexa.

00:33:31.520 That's a, that's a good story for him.

00:33:33.860 You know, obviously it's his idea that failed, but a guy, the VP that had the project, at

00:33:38.440 least he told him, I don't want you to, what, what was the line?

00:33:40.340 I don't want you to think about it for a minute.

00:33:42.080 Promise me you won't think about it for a minute and you'll move on.

00:33:44.760 So it shows a different side of his, but you know, there's a story about you chasing

00:33:49.060 down the voice actress of Alexa in Boulder, Colorado.

00:33:52.660 And she told you that she cannot interview with you.

00:33:56.860 What was the reason?

00:33:57.980 Is that an NDA she has that she can't talk to?

00:34:00.460 What was it?

00:34:01.020 Can you tell us about that?

00:34:02.460 Sure.

00:34:02.680 Well, let me set the stage really quickly.

00:34:04.480 Uh, when I'm coming into this book, Amazon Unbound, I'm thinking, well, what, what, what

00:34:08.740 are the, what are the secrets to unlock here?

00:34:10.940 And there were a number of them.

00:34:12.440 And, but one of them was whose voice was emanating from this device in my kitchen.

00:34:16.600 We had known that there was a voice actress behind Siri. 0.92

00:34:19.720 So I figured the same thing was true for Alexa.

00:34:22.040 Alexa and, you know, and I've got all sorts of bits about the creation of Alexa, the first

00:34:26.160 whiteboard drawing that Bezos drew on it in his conference room of the device in 2011.

00:34:32.340 But that voice was interesting.

00:34:34.000 And I thought, you know, can I find her identity?

00:34:36.600 You know, did some digging, some detective work and yeah, found a voice actress named Nina

00:34:41.000 Raleigh in Boulder, Colorado.

00:34:43.260 And right.

00:34:43.940 When I called her, she really said she couldn't talk, which I figured was the case.

00:34:48.600 You know, yes.

00:34:49.540 And NDA Amazon, I think probably prefers the people to think of the voice Alexa as a kind

00:34:55.740 of voice of God emanating, you know, from Amazon's own computer servers.

00:35:00.780 But in fact, there's a voice actress who's recording a lot, a lot of audio in her home

00:35:05.860 studio probably.

00:35:06.660 And those sentences and phrases and paragraphs she utters, those are the words and the phrases

00:35:12.780 are all split up, you know, fed into a voice recognition system and then, you know, put

00:35:19.440 back together in, you know, in coherent, sometimes coherent, let's say phrases to respond to user

00:35:25.260 queries.

00:35:26.040 So that was a fun little detail of the book.

00:35:28.660 Yeah, that's definitely interesting because I mean, she's more famous than she, nobody knows

00:35:33.220 what she looks like.

00:35:33.860 I guess if you Google, you know what she looks like, but to most people, she may be one of

00:35:37.840 the most famous people in the world, at least her voice.

00:35:39.940 Well, I would say maybe the most famous voice in history.

00:35:44.120 I would have to say.

00:35:45.320 Yeah.

00:35:45.640 What could compete with that?

00:35:46.860 But, you know, and she's been in the last four or five Super Bowls too, without, without

00:35:50.800 recognition.

00:35:51.920 It's crazy.

00:35:52.560 I mean, the only, the voice that I think is very, maybe it's a good voice, Morgan Freeman,

00:35:56.640 but as far as famous, it would probably have to be Hearst.

00:35:59.940 You know, when, when you think about Bezos, the guy's extremely strategic.

00:36:05.360 You talk about him being a, you know, master chess, you know, plays chess with the game.

00:36:10.540 I don't, is he even a chess player?

00:36:11.920 Does he play chess or that's not his game?

00:36:14.180 No, I believe he, I believe he does.

00:36:15.640 I recall him telling stories about playing chess with his grandfather growing up.

00:36:19.460 Okay.

00:36:19.760 Got it.

00:36:20.060 So that's part of it as well.

00:36:20.980 But in the world of business, the guy knows what moves to make.

00:36:24.960 It seems like he's 15 moves ahead.

00:36:26.560 He knows his next five moves all the time.

00:36:28.940 And when you look at the companies he buys, he bought Whole Foods.

00:36:31.540 You're like, what?

00:36:34.260 Whole Foods.

00:36:35.140 You know, you're like, okay.

00:36:36.420 Oh, I got, gee, great.

00:36:39.220 Brilliant.

00:36:39.920 He buys Twitch.

00:36:40.900 You know, he buys, you know, Washington Post.

00:36:43.020 Why would you buy Washington Post?

00:36:44.560 I got it.

00:36:45.140 To control the narrative, a little bit of media.

00:36:46.960 If they're going to come after you, you've got a big platform.

00:36:49.140 You've got a good place.

00:36:49.800 All this stuff you're looking at, what he buys.

00:36:52.080 Prime, all these things that he goes through that he built, you know, Zappos.

00:36:56.300 There's always a motive behind where he's going himself.

00:36:59.820 What's the motive behind his interest with MGM?

00:37:03.080 Obviously, we don't know if the deal is going to get done or not.

00:37:05.520 But what is his motive behind the, what do you think is the motive behind wanting to buy MGM?

00:37:10.460 Right.

00:37:10.820 Well, about a decade ago, let's start here.

00:37:15.740 Amazon is the everything store.

00:37:17.020 They want all their shelves full, infinite selection.

00:37:21.080 And early on, DVDs, home movies were one shelf of the everything store.

00:37:26.400 You know, and that business starts to decline.

00:37:28.740 The sale of physical DVDs is going away.

00:37:31.140 So what does Amazon do?

00:37:32.440 It starts a video on demand store.

00:37:34.420 You can buy movies and stream and download them.

00:37:37.420 And then Netflix comes along with a subscription service.

00:37:40.520 You know, pay a certain amount per month and watch anything you want.

00:37:44.320 So Amazon copies that, Bezos integrates it into Prime.

00:37:47.800 It's free for Prime members.

00:37:49.620 Then Amazon and Netflix are dueling to license shows like Friends or Seinfeld.

00:37:54.740 It's very expensive.

00:37:55.960 It's, you know, HBO and Showtime in the 80s.

00:37:58.520 And what they realize is it's less expensive, more strategic to just make those shows and movies

00:38:03.220 themselves.

00:38:04.320 So Netflix and Amazon get into the production of original TV shows and movies.

00:38:09.340 That's the battle that we've seen now over many years.

00:38:12.600 And MGM is, you know, a huge catalog of the James Bond movies, the Survivor TV show, and

00:38:18.260 the Rocky movies, the Creed movies.

00:38:20.840 Amazon can plug into its vast catalog of Prime Video.

00:38:24.400 That's a subscription service.

00:38:25.780 They also have something called IMDb TV, which is a free streaming service supported by ads.

00:38:30.960 So in some ways, MGM is, you know, a shot of steroids into this catalog of content that

00:38:39.660 could tie people closer to the Prime service.

00:38:42.480 And when they're Prime members or they're using IMDb TV, you know, they're better Amazon

00:38:46.820 customers.

00:38:47.400 They're buying more.

00:38:48.480 They're buying Kindles and Alexas.

00:38:51.200 That's essentially it.

00:38:52.620 It's this foot race that Amazon has engaged in with all these other companies, Disney,

00:38:57.880 Apple, now HBO owned by Time Warner, being joined with Discovery and Netflix and on and

00:39:05.960 on to own entertainment in the 21st century.

00:39:09.180 Got it.

00:39:09.620 So almost like how Disney disconnected themselves from, you know, Netflix and they went and created

00:39:15.180 their own OTT and it blew up.

00:39:17.440 I think it's the fastest growing in the world out of all the OTTs.

00:39:20.260 So he's thinking about taking the MGM catalog and adding it to Amazon, you know, what is

00:39:25.740 it called?

00:39:26.220 Amazon, their own Hulu, their own OTT.

00:39:28.780 There's a name.

00:39:29.240 Yeah.

00:39:29.520 So Prime Video and then IMDb TV.

00:39:34.260 And then, you know, and then also the original, you know, MGM is a movie studio and it's got

00:39:40.040 some interesting stuff coming out.

00:39:42.420 It has the Creed franchise and Amazon is in business, you know, with Michael Jordan, the

00:39:48.100 actor.

00:39:48.520 And so there's lots of avenues there for Amazon to turbocharge its video offerings if

00:39:55.540 it buys a conventional studio.

00:39:56.940 Yeah.

00:39:57.080 It almost seems like he sits there and he says, oh, who can we go up against?

00:40:01.500 Let's go against Netflix.

00:40:02.440 Yeah, it's cool.

00:40:03.900 Let's go.

00:40:04.580 We already took out borders.

00:40:06.640 Let's do Barnett.

00:40:07.720 How about Walmart?

00:40:09.060 You know, how about...

00:40:10.860 Well, he just seeds no ground, right?

00:40:12.900 It's this belief that the company, that the, you know, that it needs, it should be everywhere

00:40:17.500 where the internet is offering opportunity.

00:40:19.920 So he failed on the phone side, which means let's go up against Apple and, you know, Android,

00:40:24.020 for instance.

00:40:24.620 Okay.

00:40:25.080 Samsung.

00:40:25.640 He failed there.

00:40:26.320 Fine.

00:40:27.300 Do you think he has anything said in the, that he may want to go up against the social

00:40:32.480 media world?

00:40:33.140 I'm talking Facebook, Twitter, any of those guys?

00:40:36.800 It's re that's really interesting, Patrick, because early on, I found out that at one

00:40:41.120 point he actually had some of the earliest social media patents and didn't do much with

00:40:46.700 them.

00:40:47.460 And, you know, I think that's one area of, you know, with which they, they haven't been

00:40:53.160 that aggressive.

00:40:54.500 Twitch is maybe the sort of explicit, you know, anomaly there, but, but that's a little

00:41:00.360 bit more of a YouTube competitor.

00:41:01.720 Yeah, it is.

00:41:02.140 And tied closely to video games.

00:41:04.920 They've, they have a social network for books called Goodreads, but they haven't done much

00:41:09.320 with it.

00:41:09.920 So, yeah, that's one area where maybe, maybe, you know, uniquely they haven't shown much

00:41:15.700 ambition.

00:41:16.700 Yeah.

00:41:16.980 I'd be curious to know, because, you know, long-term wise, that's the one area where you

00:41:23.120 almost need to have some control if you want to have a, so, but we saw Google try to do

00:41:27.680 Google plus and it didn't work out.

00:41:28.940 Maybe he saw that as a playbook of, well, it's not that easy to do.

00:41:31.600 Let's go different.

00:41:32.760 I don't know.

00:41:33.380 So, and by the way, I mean, maybe that's been smart.

00:41:35.740 I mean, they've grown an advertising business without those assets and the social networks

00:41:40.020 are in the middle of a political storm that seems unending now and around free speech and

00:41:44.620 political expression and Amazon, plenty of controversy and regulatory attention, but it's

00:41:49.720 managed to skate past that particular issue.

00:41:52.500 That's a, that's a very good point.

00:41:54.020 That's a very good point.

00:41:54.880 You always see Jack Dorsey, Zuck, all those guys, you know, always being grilled.

00:41:58.780 And I don't know if he likes being grilled.

00:42:00.780 So let's talk about him against AOC.

00:42:03.680 What happened when they were trying to go to New York and, hey, we're going to bring

00:42:07.280 a 125,000 jobs at an average of a 25,000 jobs at an average of $150,000 a year salary.

00:42:14.600 Cuomo wanted it, but the Blasio, AOC, they kind of pushed him out.

00:42:19.180 We don't want you to come here.

00:42:20.100 You're going to increase rank.

00:42:20.940 You're going to do that.

00:42:21.780 And he's kind of like, wait a minute, what are we talking about here?

00:42:23.740 I'm just bringing you good jobs.

00:42:25.640 How did he handle that?

00:42:27.140 And what caused him to finally say, screw it.

00:42:29.860 We're going to go a different direction.

00:42:31.680 They didn't handle it very well.

00:42:33.600 They were fleeing a political storm in Seattle where the Amazon had started to become blamed

00:42:39.220 for the problems of growth like gentrification and homelessness and rising home rates.

00:42:44.400 And that precipitated the HQ2 search.

00:42:46.920 That and the fact that they were kind of running out of space in Seattle.

00:42:49.900 And, you know, they whipped up the country in a frenzy of competition for HQ2.

00:42:54.820 Folks probably remember that.

00:42:56.740 238 cities applied.

00:42:58.040 You know, they were talking about things like the low cost of construction they were looking

00:43:02.560 for, affordable home prices, the size of tax incentives, good transportation networks.

00:43:08.800 And then they pick New York and Washington, D.C.

00:43:11.720 And so right off the bat, you know, the world's kind of shocked because that is not what they

00:43:15.520 set out to do.

00:43:16.360 And where they it's where they ended.

00:43:18.360 The most expensive construction.

00:43:21.300 And look, and I tell the story in the book.

00:43:23.820 I've got the internal memos.

00:43:25.300 The decision process was largely driven by the personal preferences of Bezos and the

00:43:30.380 leadership team.

00:43:31.400 So they go in there.

00:43:32.920 They get de Blasio and Cuomo to agree on the Amazon package in Long Island City.

00:43:38.920 But the city council isn't informed.

00:43:41.520 And the dynamics of, you know, political dynamics in New York are such that, you know, whatever

00:43:45.940 de Blasio wants, you know, the council is going to kind of reject.

00:43:49.200 AOC had just been elected.

00:43:51.620 And I think the surprise for Amazon was that the same political dynamics, you know, that

00:43:56.640 were hurting them in Seattle were there in New York.

00:43:59.640 You know, the big tech companies, the tech lash, the fear of gentrification, you know,

00:44:05.180 so the political backlash starts.

00:44:07.460 Bezos is into helicopters at the time.

00:44:09.400 So he asked for a helipad in the in the Queens headquarters.

00:44:12.580 And, you know, the New York Post puts it on the front page and they're off to the races.

00:44:17.100 And ultimately, you know, they were sort of unprepared for the backlash.

00:44:20.980 They didn't really get their message out.

00:44:22.760 And then the whole thing kind of crystallizes on the issue of unions and whether Amazon would

00:44:27.420 allow its workers to unionize.

00:44:29.500 And Bezos has always fought that from the very beginning.

00:44:31.920 He sees it as kryptonite for the company.

00:44:34.520 And so when you know what I concluded was that when talks went to unionization and they

00:44:39.140 saw the political landscape was the same as it was in Seattle, it just wasn't worth it

00:44:43.300 for them.

00:44:43.640 And they pulled out, they grew instead in Manhattan and then in Washington, D.C.

00:44:48.380 or in northern Virginia, Crystal City.

00:44:51.280 You know, it almost seems like he's OK with taxes increasing.

00:44:54.220 He's OK with raising minimum wage.

00:44:55.940 He's OK with a lot of things.

00:44:57.800 But he is not OK with the union unionization of Amazon.

00:45:02.100 Why is that?

00:45:04.220 Right.

00:45:04.700 Well, you know, what they'll say and then we'll get to the real reason is that they don't

00:45:10.020 want an intermediary between them and their employees.

00:45:12.960 But let me put it this way.

00:45:14.400 You know, the Amazon website is 24-7.

00:45:17.260 You can buy in the middle of the night.

00:45:18.760 Right.

00:45:18.980 You can buy on a holiday.

00:45:19.940 You can buy on a Sunday.

00:45:21.420 And what that means is that the company really has to get as close as possible to a 24-7

00:45:25.960 operating cycle and to go scale up during the holidays or when if a pandemic breaks out

00:45:33.020 and someone's suddenly buying or if there's a sudden surge in interest for a particular

00:45:37.460 piece of merchandise and then they scale down afterwards.

00:45:40.820 So they're hiring and they're firing and they're working around the clock.

00:45:44.180 And they're suddenly, you know, if there's a backlog, they're shifting employees to different

00:45:47.800 jobs.

00:45:48.360 Um, and all of those things, Patrick, that I just described are things that, you know,

00:45:52.760 a union that's going to, you know, very quite naturally want to instill some order on their

00:45:57.640 workers' lives and create some employment security, it's going to collectively bargain

00:46:02.280 against.

00:46:03.320 And so I think Amazon's viewed unions as a, as a impediment to their ability to push employees

00:46:09.860 to be flexible and to churn through workers in the fulfillment centers as the needs of the

00:46:14.380 company change.

00:46:15.300 That's probably the most charitable way to put it.

00:46:17.520 Um, you know, but, um, you know, we've seen again and again around the world, Amazon walking

00:46:23.980 away from, from facilities when the discussion turns to unions.

00:46:27.520 Yeah.

00:46:27.700 You see like, even what was going on with Georgia, he's like, right.

00:46:31.420 The day before they announced that, uh, uh, you know, they were about to announce that,

00:46:36.800 Hey, the voting, all that stuff that was going to take place the day before he goes up and

00:46:40.460 says, I think we should raise taxes.

00:46:41.920 And I think we should, you know, people, rich people should pay more taxes.

00:46:45.540 And then the next day, the union topic just kind of went away.

00:46:48.240 It almost seemed like behind closed doors, there was a negotiation saying, if you say

00:46:53.100 something about raising taxes, we'll make a Atlanta go away or Georgia go away. 0.99

00:46:57.220 And it kind of did, uh, with the union topic, but let's go to a different topic.

00:47:00.560 So everybody has a, a, an arch nemesis and some of them change.

00:47:05.680 Some of them change from your twenties to your thirties, to your forties.

00:47:09.680 And you, you kind of graduate from it, right?

00:47:11.400 Every time you're going to like, let's just say when Michael's coming up, maybe it was

00:47:14.880 magic.

00:47:15.360 Then it became, let's just say Isaiah, you know, then it became, you know, somebody

00:47:19.760 on Barkley, some of these guys that you go through, would you say, you know, Bezos is

00:47:24.860 number one nemesis right now is a guy named Elon Musk.

00:47:28.700 Well, um, yeah, I mean, it was Donald Trump, uh, for many years, uh, they, they famously

00:47:36.640 went at it and, you know, I tell some of that story in the book, uh, right now, I think maybe

00:47:41.860 that's right.

00:47:42.400 Patrick, um, Bezos has this company blue origin is this space company.

00:47:46.420 It's older than SpaceX, but he made some choices early on to, to constrain his investment,

00:47:51.260 to go slow, keep the headcount small and to move a step-by-step suborbital space, then

00:47:57.620 orbital, then the moon and Elon came in with SpaceX and kind of, you know, just went much

00:48:03.820 faster and got the government to pay for a lot of his projects.

00:48:06.300 And so Jeff has been, you know, uniquely in space, kind of struggling to catch up.

00:48:11.200 He's not used to being the second at anything, uh, you know, and, and now he is.

00:48:15.820 And then we see Amazon trying to launch a satellite network to compete with Starlink, which is

00:48:20.260 a SpaceX effort.

00:48:21.500 So I do think there's a spirited rivalry there.

00:48:24.160 Yeah, for sure.

00:48:24.840 And I don't, you know, I don't know that Bezos, look, he is the richest guy in the world

00:48:29.000 and the creation of Amazon probably dwarfs, you know, the creation of other companies

00:48:33.600 at this point in terms of just the impact and the overall market cap.

00:48:37.020 So I don't know how really rivalrous he feels, but certainly in this respect and the, and,

00:48:42.440 and where we started the conversation, Elon's ability to whip, uh, his followers into fans

00:48:47.860 while Bezos kind of suffers the slings and arrows of criticism for Amazon's impact on the

00:48:53.200 economy.

00:48:55.280 Yeah.

00:48:55.880 I'm sure he looks at Elon and sort of feels that there are elements there that, uh, you

00:48:58.280 know, he, he needs to work harder to, to capture himself.

00:49:00.920 Does Bezos kind of see him?

00:49:02.660 I know you said it earlier, where I said, you know, it's more like jobs, Musk, you know,

00:49:06.740 uh, Zach Gates, Bezos.

00:49:08.220 And he said, no, he kind of sees himself here.

00:49:10.320 Is he, is, does he think he's Michael Jordan?

00:49:13.100 Does he think he's like Brady?

00:49:14.640 Does he think he's, he's it?

00:49:17.080 Does he walk in thinking, well, all these guys are trying to catch up to me?

00:49:20.420 Or does he see himself as the underdog, man?

00:49:22.980 I got to go be better than what Walmart built, what this guy did, what Rockefeller did, what

00:49:27.760 is he like, is there somebody he's chasing?

00:49:30.920 Does he have a ghost he's chasing?

00:49:34.160 Like LeBron's chasing the ghost.

00:49:36.200 Yeah.

00:49:36.220 Like, like, like that, you know, does he have Vanderbilt Rockefeller?

00:49:39.320 Is he going after somebody like that?

00:49:41.780 Yeah.

00:49:42.060 I don't know.

00:49:42.560 I mean, I can't speak for him.

00:49:43.760 I don't, I don't know.

00:49:44.940 Um, he is a student to history, right?

00:49:47.040 He, he, he's a voracious reader.

00:49:48.820 There are elements of, of the Sam Walton philosophy and autobiography that he's woven into Amazon.

00:49:54.900 Um, look, I mean, I, I, I'm going to guess that I, I don't think so.

00:50:00.260 Um, but that he, he understands that part of the, uh, legacy of some of the business figures,

00:50:06.940 the historical business figures you mentioned was their philanthropic contributions and that

00:50:11.860 he's got a lot of work to do.

00:50:13.100 He's got a fortune that's about $200 billion that'll probably grow faster than he can give

00:50:17.440 it away.

00:50:17.960 And he's going to be measured based on how productive and effective he is doing that.

00:50:22.940 And we've seen, um, you know, Bill Gates and, and others make major contributions, but also

00:50:27.960 sort of stumble the, the work of giving the money away can be as difficult as the work of

00:50:32.620 accumulating the wealth.

00:50:33.840 So, and so, yeah, he's got a lot of, he's got a lot of work to do before, you know, he's

00:50:38.840 viewed as a, you know, billionaire philanthropist who made a positive contribution.

00:50:43.020 And not just, you know, this operator who, who managed to accumulate all this power and,

00:50:48.000 you know, the world feels very complicated about Bezos and Amazon right now.

00:50:51.760 So, you know, I don't know that there's a person he's chasing, but there might be an

00:50:55.060 ideal, um, you know, that he still has to get to before he really retires.

00:50:59.360 Last question before we wrap up.

00:51:00.620 So competition, you know, uh, they say 70% of fortune 500 companies from 1960 are no longer

00:51:07.940 around.

00:51:08.340 You know, it's like, these companies are no longer on.

00:51:09.940 They were at the top.

00:51:10.920 Everybody was like, oh my gosh.

00:51:12.140 And they're no longer around.

00:51:13.160 Kmart was God, you know, at one point in Walmart was trying to catch up after the 1960, two and

00:51:19.240 a half, the super saving center year where Walmart, Kmart, Target all came out five years

00:51:24.680 later, you know, Walmart has 250, uh, Kmart has 250 stores.

00:51:29.620 Walmart has eight stores.

00:51:31.280 Kmart goes out of business.

00:51:32.540 Walmart is dominating today.

00:51:33.900 Is Amazon something that you see yourself being around five years from now, uh, 50 years

00:51:40.420 from now where this is going to be so hard to beat these guys, or if there was a way

00:51:45.000 where competition could take these guys out, do you have any insight on how that would be?

00:51:51.080 Right.

00:51:51.460 Well, five years from now is easy.

00:51:53.200 50 years is harder.

00:51:54.980 Um, right now, Amazon is, I like to say a boulder rolling downhill, gathering speed.

00:51:59.940 The, the fulfillment centers are getting closer to major cities.

00:52:03.540 The, the delivery is getting faster.

00:52:06.060 Um, the selections getting larger as they open up the marketplace to sellers around the

00:52:10.760 world.

00:52:11.220 And they've got, you know, so many resources, not just the profit of the company, but the,

00:52:16.940 the capital they're willing, they're able to raise, you know, cheap prices from wall street.

00:52:21.300 The future of Amazon is, is more Amazon entering into more countries and more products and becoming

00:52:26.940 an entertainment giant in 50 years.

00:52:29.600 I mean, one weakness of the company is that there's so much surface area that there are

00:52:35.040 these pockets of opportunity for newcomers.

00:52:37.740 Shopify, the Canadian company is a good example of going right to brands who are hesitant of

00:52:42.700 kind of the chaos of Amazon to sell directly to customers.

00:52:46.800 So, I mean, I think, yeah, I think Amazon's around in a couple of decades when Bezos sort

00:52:51.240 of predicts that, you know, the, the future could be cloudy.

00:52:54.240 He's trying to motivate his employees, but this is a historic company.

00:52:58.240 I think it's, it's the company that's going to define the current century in good ways

00:53:02.300 and bad.

00:53:02.980 And I think, you know, if regulators and lawmakers want to catch up to it, you know, they need

00:53:07.580 to understand it, which is one of the reasons I wrote the book and get into the mechanics

00:53:11.920 and, and really look for, you know, the true anti-competitive behavior or behavior that needs

00:53:16.600 to be regulated.

00:53:17.260 And it's not easy because this, in some ways, it's not a monopoly.

00:53:21.020 It's in the biggest markets of the world, retail and enterprise software, and doesn't really

00:53:25.600 command even a majority of the, of the market activity.

00:53:30.000 So, yeah, I think, you know, Amazon will be around and if it does get split up, they'll

00:53:35.400 just be a little, a lot of little baby Bezos is running around it gobbling up the marketplace. 1.00

00:53:40.160 So that's not, you know, that, that's probably not going to give competitors any comfort either.

00:53:45.240 Which means, meaning they could go other places and start other companies, or you're saying

00:53:49.320 within Amazon, equal, equal.

00:53:51.580 Well, I was just saying, if, if, if, if the government was going to break up Amazon or Amazon

00:53:56.580 was going to break itself up.

00:53:58.180 Yeah.

00:53:58.960 It might not slow it down.

00:54:00.900 It just might mean, you know, some very highly valued independent pieces that have the Amazon

00:54:05.880 culture and the Bezos operating style and, you know, and are just as aggressive and

00:54:10.100 competitive, but multiple entities instead of just one.

00:54:13.000 Yeah.

00:54:13.100 I mean, you kind of saw that happen with Watsons and IBM, where they try to break them apart

00:54:16.440 because they're only, I think their only enemy right now is going to be the government.

00:54:19.480 We're saying, Hey, you're kind of becoming a monopoly and them getting in their way.

00:54:24.060 And some of the guys may leave, like, you know how back in the days, if you worked under

00:54:27.380 Jack Welch, you put that onto your resume.

00:54:29.260 You're like, I worked under Jack Welch for five years.

00:54:31.280 Really?

00:54:31.640 Yeah.

00:54:32.220 Let's hire this guy as an executive and bring them on board.

00:54:34.200 So some people may use it as a way to help them out with the rest of their career.

00:54:38.880 Brad, it's been a pleasure having you on, man.

00:54:40.640 I really enjoyed talking to you folks.

00:54:42.100 If you're watching this, we're going to put the link to his book, Amazon Unbound below.

00:54:46.820 Make sure you order it.

00:54:48.080 Once again, Brad, thanks for being on Valuetainment.

00:54:50.520 Thanks, Patrick.

00:54:51.440 So I'm curious what you took away from this interview here about Bezos, Amazon culture,

00:54:55.000 how we work, his personality, his DNA, the father story.

00:54:58.900 Fascinating stuff with Brad Stone.

00:55:01.540 Comment below.

00:55:02.140 I want to hear from you also, if you enjoyed this interview.

00:55:03.660 I've got two other ones I want you to watch.

00:55:04.920 One of them is with a deep dive that Tom Ellsworth did on AWS case study.

00:55:10.860 If you want to know more about why AWS is crushing it and why Andy Jazzy became the CEO of Amazon,

00:55:17.560 click over to watch it.

00:55:18.880 And if you want to find out about storytelling and marketing,

00:55:21.940 why companies like Amazon end up becoming who they are,

00:55:24.480 watch my interview with Don Miller on how he breaks down the art of storytelling and marketing.

00:55:29.420 Take care, everybody.

00:55:30.100 Bye-bye.

00:55:30.320 Bye-bye.

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00:55:31.960 Bye-bye.

00:55:34.860 Bye-bye.

00:55:35.760 May-bye.

00:55:37.520 Bye-bye.

00:55:37.720 Bye-bye.

00:55:38.160 Bye-bye.

00:55:38.440 Bye-bye.

00:55:39.420 Bye-bye.

00:55:40.420 Bye-bye.

00:55:40.760 Bye-bye.

00:55:41.460 Bye-bye.

00:55:42.240 Bye-bye.

00:55:42.680 Bye-bye.

00:55:42.940 Bye-bye.

00:55:44.660 Bye-bye.

00:55:46.120 Bye-bye.

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Valuetainment - June 04, 2021

How Jeff Bezos Built His Trillion Dollar Empire

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