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Speaker 1: In a young engineer named Jeff Bezos have the idea

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Speaker 1: to sell books online. He called his new company Amazon

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Speaker 1: and warned many of his early investors, which included his parents,

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Speaker 1: that there was a seventy percent chance the venture would

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Speaker 1: either fail or go bankrupt. Twenty five years later, it's

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Speaker 1: very clear that Bezos' idea did not fail. Amazon not

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Speaker 1: only survived, it thrived, whethering the dot com bubble and

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Speaker 1: eventually expanding to become the world's largest online sales company

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Speaker 1: and the world's largest provider of cloud infrastructure services. According

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Speaker 1: to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Amazon's success has made Bezos

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Speaker 1: the wealthiest person in the world, with a net worth

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Speaker 1: of nearly one hundred sixty billion dollars, which he's using

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Speaker 1: to fund his space company Blue Origin and contributing to charity,

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Speaker 1: including his recent pledge to spend two billion dollars to

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Speaker 1: help homeless families. Bezos recently sat down with Carlisle Group

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Speaker 1: co founder David Rubinstein. They spoke on David Rubenstein's Bloomberg

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Speaker 1: television program Peer to Peer Conversations. Your stock is actually

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Speaker 1: up seventy this year, Um, is there one thing that

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Speaker 1: you think is responsible for that is several things, because

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Speaker 1: is pretty good now, I am it's I have been lecturing.

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Speaker 1: We have all hands meetings at Amazon and for twenty years,

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Speaker 1: ever since we've been twenty one years now. Um, every

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Speaker 1: at almost every all hands meeting, I said, look, when

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Speaker 1: the stock is up in a month, don't feel thirty

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Speaker 1: percent smarter, because when the stock is down in a month,

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Speaker 1: it's not gonna feel so good to feel dumber. And

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Speaker 1: that's what happens. Never spend any time thinking about the

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Speaker 1: daily stock price. I don't. Okay, So, as a result

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Speaker 1: of going up seventy percent this year, you have become

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Speaker 1: the wealthiest man in the world. It is that a

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Speaker 1: title that you really wanted or not? I is it?

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Speaker 1: I can assure you I have never sought that title.

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Speaker 1: And um, it was fine being the second wealthiest person

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Speaker 1: in the world. That actually worked. Fine. Um, it's not.

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Speaker 1: It isn't a it. I would say people, it's something

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Speaker 1: people naturally are curious about, you know, it's a kind

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Speaker 1: of an interesting curiosity. But it's not the thing I

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Speaker 1: would much rather if they said, like, um, you know

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Speaker 1: inventor Jeff Bezos or entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, or you know,

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Speaker 1: father and Jeff Bezo. Those kinds of things are much

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Speaker 1: more meaningful to me. And the you know, the it's

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Speaker 1: an output measure that if you look at the financial

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Speaker 1: success of Amazon and the stock I own sixteen percent

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Speaker 1: of Amazon. Um, Amazon is worth roughly a trillion dollars.

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Speaker 1: That means that what we have built over twenty years,

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Speaker 1: we have built eight hundred and forty billion dollars of

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Speaker 1: wealth for other people. And that's great. That's how should be.

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Speaker 1: You know. There, I believe so powerfully in uh the

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Speaker 1: ability of entrepreneurial capitalism and free markets to solve so

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Speaker 1: many of the world's frothers. Not all of them, but

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Speaker 1: so many of them. So, Um, you live in Washington State,

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Speaker 1: near in Seattle. We're outside of Seattle. Now. The man

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Speaker 1: who was the richest man for about twenty years is

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Speaker 1: named Bill Gates, And um, what is the likelihood that

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Speaker 1: the two richest men in the world live not only

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Speaker 1: in the same country, not only the same state, not

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Speaker 1: only the same city, but in the same neighborhood. I mean,

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Speaker 1: is there something in that neighborhood that we should know about?

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Speaker 1: And are there any are there any more houses for sale?

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Speaker 1: There After I saw Bill uh not not too long ago. Um,

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Speaker 1: you know, we were joking about the World's Richest Man

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Speaker 1: thing and I basically said thank you know, I said

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Speaker 1: you're welcome, and he immediately turned to me and said

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Speaker 1: thank you. Um, but no me. Dina is a great

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Speaker 1: little uh it's a suburb of Seattle, and you know,

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Speaker 1: I'd don't think there's anything special in the water there.

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Speaker 1: And you know, I did locate Amazon in Seattle because

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Speaker 1: of Microsoft. I thought that that big pool of technical

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Speaker 1: talent would provide a good place to recruit talented people

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Speaker 1: from and that did turn out to be true. So

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Speaker 1: it's not a complete coincidence. There's some correlation there. Do

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Speaker 1: you go into a store when you want to buy something?

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Speaker 1: Do you have to put a credit card down you

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Speaker 1: to say I'm Jeff Bezos and they send you the stuff?

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Speaker 1: How do you do that? And you have to carry

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Speaker 1: you carry cash around or you carry yeah? I think

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Speaker 1: I do carry cash, and I have I have credit cards. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and if your credit have to show my driver's license

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Speaker 1: and you know, but have you ever had a credit

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Speaker 1: card denied? Never? Had I have? I've had my credit

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Speaker 1: card denied. So what do you say when then you

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Speaker 1: say don't you know, I give him another credit card.

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Speaker 1: I stay here, try this one. O. Thank you. So, UM,

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Speaker 1: you made an announcement that is, uh, the most significant

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Speaker 1: philanthropic gift you've made in this type. UM. It was

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Speaker 1: a in about a about a year ago. You said

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Speaker 1: you wanted to look for some good philanthropic ideas and

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Speaker 1: you've got I think forty seven thousand of them and

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Speaker 1: you yea reviewed them. And how did you decide where

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Speaker 1: to put this two billion dollars? And would you describe

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Speaker 1: exactly what you're gonna Well, that process was very helpful.

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Speaker 1: So I I solicited ideas, kind of crowdsourced, and I

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Speaker 1: got literally, as you said, something like forty seven thousand,

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Speaker 1: maybe even a little more. Some of them came to

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Speaker 1: my inbox, most of them came on social media, and

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Speaker 1: I read through thousands and thousands of them. My office

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Speaker 1: kind of correlated them all and put them into buckets,

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Speaker 1: and UM, there were some themes that emerged. But the

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Speaker 1: other thing that's fascinating about the kind of exercises you

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Speaker 1: see just how long tailed it is. People are interested

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Speaker 1: in trying to help the world in so many different ways.

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Speaker 1: A lot of people, UM, are very interested homelessness, including me.

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Speaker 1: A lot of people are very interested in education of

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Speaker 1: all kinds. I'm very interested an early education. And um,

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Speaker 1: I made that. You know, the apple doesn't fall far

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Speaker 1: from the tree. My mother has become in running the

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Speaker 1: Bezos family Foundation, she has become an expert in in

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Speaker 1: early education. I'm a student of Monastory schools. I started

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Speaker 1: at Monastory when I was two years old, and uh,

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Speaker 1: the teacher complained to my mother. The Monetary school teacher

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Speaker 1: complained to my mother the I was two task focused

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Speaker 1: and that she she couldn't get me to switch tasks,

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Speaker 1: so she would have to just pick up my chair

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Speaker 1: and move me. And by the way, I think that's

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Speaker 1: you asked the people who work with me. That's still

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Speaker 1: probably true. That teacher ever call you since, and she

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Speaker 1: was responsible for your succession. Now I'm in touch with

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Speaker 1: several of my UM high schooled elementary school teachers though,

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Speaker 1: but I don't know any of my Monastory school teachers.

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Speaker 1: So the gift that you're giving, essentially you're gonna have

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Speaker 1: some for preschool for children who need preschool. For each

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Speaker 1: treaty full tuition preschool Monastory inspired. Um, I'm very excited

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Speaker 1: about that because I'm going to operate that. That's going

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Speaker 1: to be an operating nonprofit, and we're gonna put them

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Speaker 1: in low income neighborhoods. We know for a fact that

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Speaker 1: if a kid falls behind UM, it's really really hard

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Speaker 1: to catch up. And if you can give somebody a

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Speaker 1: leg up when they're too three or four years old

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Speaker 1: by the time they get to kindergarten or first grade,

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Speaker 1: they're much less likely to fall behind. You can still happen,

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Speaker 1: but you've really improved their odds. The money spent there

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Speaker 1: is going to pay gigantic dividends for decades. And the

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Speaker 1: other part of your gift will be to give awards

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Speaker 1: out to yes and that's gonna be more traditional grant

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Speaker 1: making philanthropy. So there, I'm gonna identify, with the help

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Speaker 1: of a team, identify and fund VET and fund um

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Speaker 1: Family Homeless Shelters, and that will be You said you

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Speaker 1: would give an initial two billion dollars, expect to add

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Speaker 1: to that. Yeah, it's day one. Every thing I've ever

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Speaker 1: done has started small. Amazon started with a couple of people,

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Speaker 1: and UM Blue Origin started with five people, and the

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Speaker 1: budgeted Blue organ was very very small. Now the budget

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Speaker 1: of Blue Regions approaches a billion dollars a year. Next

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Speaker 1: year it will be more than a billion dollars. And

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Speaker 1: Amazon literally was teen people. Today it's half a million people.

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Speaker 1: But you it's hard to remember for you guys, But

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Speaker 1: for me, it's like yesterday I was driving the packages

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Speaker 1: to the post office myself and hoping one day we

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Speaker 1: could afford a forklift and so but so for me,

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Speaker 1: I've seen small things get big, and it's part of

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Speaker 1: this day one mentality. I like treating things as if

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Speaker 1: if they're small, you know, Amazon, even though it is

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Speaker 1: a large company, I wanted to have the heart and

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Speaker 1: spirit of a small one. And uh. Then so anyway

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Speaker 1: that the day one foundation is going to be like that,

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Speaker 1: will will will will wander a little bit too. So

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Speaker 1: I we have some very specific ideas of what we

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Speaker 1: want to do, but I believe in the power of wandering.

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Speaker 1: All of my best decisions in business and in life

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Speaker 1: have been made with heart, intuition, guts, uh you know,

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Speaker 1: not not uh analysis. When you can make a decision

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Speaker 1: with analysis, you should do so. But it turns out

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Speaker 1: in life that your most important decisions are always made

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Speaker 1: with instinct, intuition, taste, heart. Um, And that's what we'll

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Speaker 1: do with this Day one foundation too. It's and the

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Speaker 1: customer is going to be the child. This is this

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Speaker 1: is so important because the secret sauce of Amazon where

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Speaker 1: there are several principles of Amazon, but the number one

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Speaker 1: thing that has made us successful by far is obsessive,

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Speaker 1: compulsive focus on the customer as opposed to obsession over

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Speaker 1: the competitor. And I talked so often to others oh

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Speaker 1: and some other CEOs and also founders and entrepreneurs, and

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Speaker 1: I can tell that even though they're talking about customers,

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Speaker 1: they're really focusing on competitors. And it is a huge

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Speaker 1: advantage to any company if you can stay focused on

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Speaker 1: your customer instead of your competitors. So then you have

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Speaker 1: to identify who is your customer. Um. So at the

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Speaker 1: Washington Post, for example, is the customer the people who

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Speaker 1: buy advertisements from us? No, the customer is the reader.

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Speaker 1: And in the school, who are the customers? Is it

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Speaker 1: the parents? Is that the teachers? No, it is the child.

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Speaker 1: And that's what we're gonna do. We're gonna be obsessively

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Speaker 1: compulsively focused on the child. We're going to be scientific

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Speaker 1: when we can be and We're gonna use heart and

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Speaker 1: intuition when we when we when you use your intuition

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Speaker 1: and make decisions. Where is the intuition leading you now?

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Speaker 1: On your second headquarters? All right? Can can we just

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Speaker 1: take a moment to acknowledge that that may be the

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Speaker 1: best segue in the history of interviewing? Seriously, David? So

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Speaker 1: that is that? Is all right? That's amazing? Answer is uh?

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Speaker 1: The answer is very simple. We we will announce the

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Speaker 1: decision before the end of this year. So we've made

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Speaker 1: tremendous progress. The team is working their butts off on it,

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Speaker 1: and we will get there. No, no, hey be nice.

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Speaker 1: Come on, Why did you buy the Washington Post? You

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Speaker 1: had no background in that area. What convinced you to

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Speaker 1: do that? Okay? First of all, I was not looking

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Speaker 1: for a newspaper. I had no intention of buying newspaper.

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Speaker 1: I had never thought about the idea had never occurred

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Speaker 1: to me. It was never something. Wasn't like a childhood dream. Nothing.

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Speaker 1: And um, my friend Don Graham, who at that time

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Speaker 1: I had known fifteen years. I know him twenty years now.

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Speaker 1: He approached me through an intermediary and I wanted to

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Speaker 1: know if I would be interested in buying the Washington Post,

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Speaker 1: and I sent back word that I would not um

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Speaker 1: because I didn't really know anything about newspapers, and Don

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Speaker 1: over a series of conversations convinced me that, UM, that

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Speaker 1: was unimportant because we had inside the Washington Post, we

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Speaker 1: have so much talent that understands newspapers. That wasn't what

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Speaker 1: the problem was. But they needed was somebody who had

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Speaker 1: an understanding of the Internet. And so so that was

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Speaker 1: the first thing. That's kind of how it got started.

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Speaker 1: And then I so I did some soul searching and

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Speaker 1: again my decision making process something this would definitely be

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Speaker 1: intuition and on analysis the financial situation of the Washington

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Speaker 1: Post at that time, this was very upside down. The

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Speaker 1: problem was a secular one. The Internet was just eroding

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Speaker 1: all of the traditional advantages that local newspapers had, all

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Speaker 1: of them. And I said, UM, you know, is this

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Speaker 1: something I want to get involved in. If I'm gonna

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Speaker 1: do it, I'm gonna put some heart into it and

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Speaker 1: some work into it. And I decided I would only

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Speaker 1: do that if I really believed it was an important institution. UM.

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Speaker 1: And I said to myself, if this were a financially

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Speaker 1: upside down salty snack food company, the answer would be no.

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Speaker 1: As soon as I started thinking about that way, I

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Speaker 1: was like, this is an important institution. It is the

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Speaker 1: newspaper in the capital city of the most important country

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Speaker 1: in the world. The Washington Post has an incredibly important

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Speaker 1: role to play in this democracy. There's just no doubt

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Speaker 1: in my mind about that. So and and so, as

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Speaker 1: soon as I had passed through that gate, I only

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Speaker 1: had one more gate that I had to go through

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Speaker 1: before telling Don yes, and that was I wanted to

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Speaker 1: look myself, you know, be really open with myself and

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Speaker 1: look in a mirror and sort of think about the

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Speaker 1: company and be sure that I was optimistic that it

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Speaker 1: could work, because, um, you know, if it were hopeless,

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Speaker 1: that would also be not something I would get involved in.

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Speaker 1: And I looked at that and I was super optimistic. Um,

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Speaker 1: and it needed to be transitioned to a national and

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Speaker 1: global publication. There's one gift that the Internet brings newspapers,

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Speaker 1: and that is free global distribution. So we had to

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Speaker 1: take advantage of that gift. And that's the That was

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Speaker 1: the basic strategy. We had to switch from a business

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Speaker 1: model where we made a lot of money per reader

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Speaker 1: with a relatively small number of readers to a little bit,

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Speaker 1: tiny bit of money per reader on a very large

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Speaker 1: number of readers. And that's the transition that we did.

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Speaker 1: I'm pleased to report to you that the Post is

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Speaker 1: profitable today. Um. The newsroom is growing. It's been growing

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Speaker 1: every year since I've been there. It's working, and I'm

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Speaker 1: so proud of that team. And I know for a fact,

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Speaker 1: when I'm eight year let's say, I always project myself

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Speaker 1: forward to age eight, but as I get older, I

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Speaker 1: was starting to do ninety. So I know that when

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Speaker 1: I'm ninety it's gonna be. One of the things I'm

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Speaker 1: most proud of is that I took on the Washington

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Speaker 1: Post and helped them through a very rough transition. So, UM,

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Speaker 1: when you when you agree to buy it, um, I

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Speaker 1: think they asking price was two million dollars. You didn't negotiate,

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Speaker 1: you know, h done. I asked him how much he

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Speaker 1: wanted He said to fifty. I said, fine. I didn't

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Speaker 1: negotiate with him, and I did no due diligence, and um,

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Speaker 1: I wouldn't need to have done. He told, you have

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Speaker 1: something I'd like to sell now that you own the

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Speaker 1: Washington Post. Sometimes there are some people who criticize some

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Speaker 1: things that the Washington Post says. And you've been remarkably quiet.

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Speaker 1: I have no idea what you're talking about. Well, you've

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Speaker 1: been remarkably quiet and not defending yourself. Well, I do

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Speaker 1: defend the Post. It is a mistake for any elected official,

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Speaker 1: in my opinion. I don't think this is a very

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Speaker 1: out their opinion to attack media and journalists. Um. I

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Speaker 1: believe that it is an essential component of our democracy.

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Speaker 1: There has never been I was gonna say, never been

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Speaker 1: elected official who like their headlines. I think there's probably

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Speaker 1: a no, no public figure who has ever liked their headlines.

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Speaker 1: It's okay, it's part of the process, you know. It's

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Speaker 1: it's um. If you're the president of the United States

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Speaker 1: or a governor of a state or whatever, you don't

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Speaker 1: take that job thinking you're not going to get scrutinized.

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Speaker 1: You're gonna get scrutinized. And it's it's it's healthy and um,

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Speaker 1: somebody very you know what what what what the president

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Speaker 1: should say is this is right, this is good. I'm

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Speaker 1: glad I'm being scrutinized, and that would be so secure

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Speaker 1: and confident. But it's really dangerous to demonize the media.

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Speaker 1: It's dangerous to call the media low life. It's dangerous

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Speaker 1: to say that they're the enemy of the people. We

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Speaker 1: live in a society where it's not just the laws

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Speaker 1: of the land that protect us. We do have freedom

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Speaker 1: of press. It's in the constitution we but what what

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Speaker 1: we But it's also the social norms that protect us

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Speaker 1: those we we It works because we believe those words

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Speaker 1: on that piece of paper, and every time you attack that,

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Speaker 1: you're eroding it a little bit around the edges. Now, look,

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Speaker 1: I don't want to be dramatic here. We are so

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Speaker 1: robust in this country. The media is going to be fine.

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Speaker 1: Let's talk about how you came to the situation where

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Speaker 1: you are today. So you grew up in Texas initially, yes,

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Speaker 1: and from early age where you are pretty smart student

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Speaker 1: and your teachers tell you this. You know you were

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Speaker 1: good or I have always been academically smart and um

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Speaker 1: that you know. By the way the older I get,

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Speaker 1: I realized how many kinds of smart there are. There

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Speaker 1: are a lot of kinds of smart. There are a

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Speaker 1: lot of kinds of stupid too, um, but but there

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Speaker 1: are you know, I c p blaw all the time.

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Speaker 1: Who I know, they wouldn't have gotten a plus is

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Speaker 1: on you know, their calculus exams. But they're incredibly smart.

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Speaker 1: But yes, I was a very good student. So you

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Speaker 1: ultimately moved into high school in Miami and then you

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Speaker 1: were valuatorian ever your class. And then you gave a

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Speaker 1: speech as the valigatorian saying you thought we should colonize

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Speaker 1: space or something like that. I did it. It was

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Speaker 1: too I graduated from high school, big Publicist Miami palmetto

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Speaker 1: Senior High, Go Panthers. Uh and uh. There were seven

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Speaker 1: hundred and fifty kids in my graduating class. And um,

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Speaker 1: I loved high school. I had so much fun we

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Speaker 1: had I got I lost my library privileges because I

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Speaker 1: laughed too loudly in the library. And about that laugh,

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Speaker 1: where did you get that laugh from? You know, it

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Speaker 1: is distinctive. I've had that laugh all my life. There

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Speaker 1: was a short, not that short. There was a multi

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Speaker 1: year period where my brother and sister would not see

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Speaker 1: a movie with me because they thought it was too embarrassing. Um,

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Speaker 1: and my I don't know why I have this laugh.

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Speaker 1: It's just it's just and I laugh easily and often. Um,

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Speaker 1: the people who know me you know, you asked my

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Speaker 1: mom or anybody who knows me well, and they'll say,

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Speaker 1: if Jeff's unhappy, wait five minutes. You graduated as Valgatory

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Speaker 1: and you decided to go to Princeton. How come you

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Speaker 1: decided to go to Princeton because I wanted to be

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Speaker 1: a theoretical physicist. I changed my major very quickly to

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Speaker 1: electricaltioning your company. You graduated Summa comality. I graduated Summa Kappa.

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Speaker 1: And then you went into the highest calling of mankind finance. Yes,

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Speaker 1: I went. I went to New York City and I

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Speaker 1: ended up working at a quanty of hedge fund run

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Speaker 1: by a brilliant man named David Saw d Saw and Co.

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Speaker 1: I learned so much from him. I used a lot

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Speaker 1: of his ideas and principles on things like HR and

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Speaker 1: recruiting and what kind of people to hire. When I started,

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Speaker 1: very very good, well known hedge fund, and you were

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Speaker 1: a star there. As I understand what propelled you to say,

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Speaker 1: I'm quitting this. I'm going to start a company selling

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Speaker 1: books over the internet. I'm gonna do it from Seattle.

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Speaker 1: Where did the idea come from? I came across the

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Speaker 1: fact um. So this is nobody has heard of the Internet,

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Speaker 1: very very few people. And I came across the fact

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Speaker 1: that the web, worldwide Web was growing at something like

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Speaker 1: percent a year. This is anything growing that fast is

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Speaker 1: even if it's baseline usage today is tiny, it's growing

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Speaker 1: so fast it's gonna be big. And so I looked

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Speaker 1: at that and I was like, there's gotta be I

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Speaker 1: should come up with a business idea and that get

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Speaker 1: you know, on the internet, and then let the Internet

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Speaker 1: go around this and we can keep working on it.

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Speaker 1: And so I made a list of products that I

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Speaker 1: might saw online and I started force ranking them, and

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Speaker 1: I picked books because books is super unusual in one respect,

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Speaker 1: which is that they're more book items in the book

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Speaker 1: category than there are items in another category. There three

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Speaker 1: million different books active and in print around the world

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Speaker 1: and be given time. So my, my, the founding idea

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Speaker 1: of Amazon was to build universal selection of books. The

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Speaker 1: biggest bookstores only had a hundred and fifty thousand titles.

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Speaker 1: And so that's what I did, and I, you know,

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Speaker 1: I hired a small team, We built, we built software.

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Speaker 1: I moved to Seattle. I mean, you told your parents

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Speaker 1: you're gonna quit d Shaw where you're successful making presuming

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Speaker 1: a fair amount of money. And you told your wife Mackenzie,

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Speaker 1: that you're going to move across the country. What did

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Speaker 1: they all say? They were immediately and reflectively supportive. Right

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Speaker 1: after they asked the question, what's the internet? And UM,

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Speaker 1: so you know that, but this is right, you know, um,

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Speaker 1: you know you on with your loved ones. You you

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Speaker 1: you bet on them. You're not betting on the idea,

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Speaker 1: You're you're you are betting on the person. And that was, uh.

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Speaker 1: That And it's one of those decisions I made with

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Speaker 1: my heart and not my head. And I basically said,

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Speaker 1: I don't want to regret. I don't when I'm a

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Speaker 1: d now ninety I have. I want to have minimized

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Speaker 1: the number of regrets that I have in my life.

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Speaker 1: And most of our regrets our acts of omission. There

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Speaker 1: are things we didn't try. It's the path untraveled. Um,

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Speaker 1: those are the things that haunt. And you were telling

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Speaker 1: me that you had to go deliver the books, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: for the post office yourself. I still I don't still

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Speaker 1: deliver too. But I was doing that for years and

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Speaker 1: I was packing boxes on my hands and knees. In

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Speaker 1: the first month I was packing boxes on my hands

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Speaker 1: and knees on the hard cement floors, and um, with

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Speaker 1: somebody else sitting standing next to kneeling next to me,

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Speaker 1: we're packing and and I said, you know what, we

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Speaker 1: need knee pads. This is killing my knees. And this

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Speaker 1: guy packing alongside me said we need packing tables. And

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Speaker 1: I was like, that's the most brilliant idea I've ever heard.

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Speaker 1: And the next day I went and bought packing tables

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Speaker 1: and it like doubled our productivity. Think about it as

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Speaker 1: a senior executive, what do you really get um paid

400
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Speaker 1: to do you get paid to make a small number

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Speaker 1: of high quality decisions? What propelled you to sell things

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Speaker 1: more than books? After books, we started saying music, and

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Speaker 1: then we started selling videos. And then I got smart

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Speaker 1: and I emailed a thousand randomly selected customers and asked them,

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Speaker 1: besides the things we saw today, what would you like

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Speaker 1: to see us sell? And that answer came back incredibly

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Speaker 1: long tailed. The way they answered the question was with

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Speaker 1: whatever they were looking for at that moment. So like

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Speaker 1: I remember, one of the answers was I wish you

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Speaker 1: sold Winshield wiper blades because I really need Winshield wiper blades,

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Speaker 1: and I thought to myself, we can sell anything this

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Speaker 1: way and um, and then so then we launched electronics

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Speaker 1: and toys and many other categories over time, and the

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Speaker 1: vision became because you read the original business plan, it's

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Speaker 1: just books. Your stock at one point, I think went

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Speaker 1: to a hundred dollars, but then I went down to

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Speaker 1: six or something like that. At the peak of the

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Speaker 1: Internet bubble, our stock peaked somewhere around a hundred and

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Speaker 1: thirteen dollars. And then after the Internet bubble, uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: busted open, our stock went down to six. It went

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Speaker 1: from a hundred and thirteen to six in less than

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Speaker 1: a year. So my annual shareholder that year starts with

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Speaker 1: a one word sentence, and that one word sentences the

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Speaker 1: word ouch. So most of those internet companies of the

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Speaker 1: dot com era are out of business. Yeah, you survived,

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Speaker 1: what was that that made you to survive? And virtually

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Speaker 1: the rest of them are gone. Um, it's very That

428
00:24:21,400 --> 00:24:24,199
Speaker 1: whole period is very interesting because the stock is not

429
00:24:24,280 --> 00:24:26,439
Speaker 1: the company and the company is not the stock. And

430
00:24:26,480 --> 00:24:29,359
Speaker 1: so as I watched the stock fall from a hundred

431
00:24:29,359 --> 00:24:32,480
Speaker 1: and thirteen to six, I was also watching all of

432
00:24:32,520 --> 00:24:36,359
Speaker 1: our internal business metrics, number of customers, profit per unit,

433
00:24:36,840 --> 00:24:41,119
Speaker 1: um uh, you know, everything you can imagine, defects, et cetera.

434
00:24:41,520 --> 00:24:45,040
Speaker 1: Every single thing about the business was getting better and fast,

435
00:24:45,359 --> 00:24:48,000
Speaker 1: and so as the stock price was going the wrong way,

436
00:24:48,359 --> 00:24:51,600
Speaker 1: everything inside the company was going the right way. And

437
00:24:51,920 --> 00:24:55,680
Speaker 1: um uh, I you know, so I wasn't We didn't

438
00:24:55,680 --> 00:24:57,200
Speaker 1: need to go back to the capital markets. We didn't

439
00:24:57,240 --> 00:24:59,960
Speaker 1: need more money. The only reason, you know, a financial

440
00:25:00,440 --> 00:25:04,200
Speaker 1: uh bust like the Internet bubble bursting, is it makes

441
00:25:04,200 --> 00:25:06,600
Speaker 1: it really hard to raise money. But you know, we

442
00:25:06,640 --> 00:25:08,880
Speaker 1: already had the money we needed, so we just needed

443
00:25:08,920 --> 00:25:12,399
Speaker 1: to continue to progress. Wall Street kept saying, well, Amazon's

444
00:25:12,440 --> 00:25:15,199
Speaker 1: not making any money, They're just getting customers. Where are

445
00:25:15,240 --> 00:25:17,280
Speaker 1: the profits? Where the profits? And Wall Street kept beating

446
00:25:17,280 --> 00:25:19,280
Speaker 1: you up on that, and your response was, I don't

447
00:25:19,280 --> 00:25:23,159
Speaker 1: really care what you think Amazon was. Uh. You know,

448
00:25:23,800 --> 00:25:26,600
Speaker 1: people always accused us of selling dollar bills for ninety

449
00:25:26,680 --> 00:25:30,120
Speaker 1: cents and said, look, anybody can do that and grow revenues.

450
00:25:30,160 --> 00:25:33,280
Speaker 1: That's not what we're doing. We always had positive gross margins.

451
00:25:33,880 --> 00:25:36,640
Speaker 1: It's a fixed cost business. And so what I could

452
00:25:36,640 --> 00:25:39,399
Speaker 1: see is that from the internal metrics is that what

453
00:25:39,560 --> 00:25:42,760
Speaker 1: at a certain volume level um, we would cover our

454
00:25:42,800 --> 00:25:46,400
Speaker 1: fixed costs and the company would be profitable. So who

455
00:25:46,440 --> 00:25:48,320
Speaker 1: came up with the idea of prime Prime seems to

456
00:25:48,320 --> 00:25:50,560
Speaker 1: be a great way to get money in advance of

457
00:25:50,800 --> 00:25:55,160
Speaker 1: people actually getting the services. Who's actually it's very interesting. So,

458
00:25:55,359 --> 00:25:58,600
Speaker 1: like many inventions, inside of a team, and I love team.

459
00:25:58,680 --> 00:26:01,760
Speaker 1: Inventing is my favorite. So I tap dance into the office.

460
00:26:01,920 --> 00:26:04,159
Speaker 1: I love Amazon. I have so much fun there. I

461
00:26:04,160 --> 00:26:06,480
Speaker 1: love Blue Origin, I love the Washington Post. But Amazon

462
00:26:06,560 --> 00:26:09,600
Speaker 1: is my full time job and I get to invent.

463
00:26:09,720 --> 00:26:11,679
Speaker 1: I get to live two to three years in the future.

464
00:26:12,280 --> 00:26:15,199
Speaker 1: And um, most of the invention we do there is

465
00:26:15,480 --> 00:26:17,720
Speaker 1: you know, if somebody has an idea, and then other

466
00:26:17,720 --> 00:26:20,399
Speaker 1: people improve the idea, and other people come up with

467
00:26:20,440 --> 00:26:22,440
Speaker 1: objections why I can never work, and then we solve

468
00:26:22,480 --> 00:26:26,840
Speaker 1: those objections, and it's a very it's a very fun process.

469
00:26:26,960 --> 00:26:29,320
Speaker 1: We're always wondering what could a loyalty program be? And

470
00:26:29,359 --> 00:26:34,240
Speaker 1: then actually kind of a junior software engineer came up

471
00:26:34,320 --> 00:26:37,200
Speaker 1: with this idea, not as a loyalty program, but this

472
00:26:37,240 --> 00:26:42,680
Speaker 1: idea that we could um uh offer people, um kind

473
00:26:42,680 --> 00:26:46,320
Speaker 1: of an all you can eat buffet of fast free shipping.

474
00:26:46,920 --> 00:26:49,119
Speaker 1: And when we modeled that so then you know the

475
00:26:49,160 --> 00:26:52,199
Speaker 1: finance team went and modeled that idea and that the

476
00:26:52,240 --> 00:26:57,119
Speaker 1: results were horrifying, that we would offer unlimited shipping shipping

477
00:26:57,200 --> 00:27:01,640
Speaker 1: is expensive, um, and that we would customers love free shipping.

478
00:27:01,960 --> 00:27:05,440
Speaker 1: But we could see I mean again back to that,

479
00:27:06,240 --> 00:27:08,560
Speaker 1: you have to use heart and intuition. There has to

480
00:27:08,600 --> 00:27:11,520
Speaker 1: be risk taking. You have to have instinct all the

481
00:27:11,600 --> 00:27:13,560
Speaker 1: good decisions have you made. That way, you do it

482
00:27:13,600 --> 00:27:16,679
Speaker 1: with a group. You do it with great humility, because,

483
00:27:16,800 --> 00:27:19,120
Speaker 1: by the way, getting it wrong isn't that bad. That's

484
00:27:19,119 --> 00:27:22,080
Speaker 1: the other thing. When when when we make mistakes, and

485
00:27:22,119 --> 00:27:24,880
Speaker 1: we've made doozies like the fire phone and many other

486
00:27:24,920 --> 00:27:27,040
Speaker 1: things that just didn't work out, I could I could look,

487
00:27:27,080 --> 00:27:29,399
Speaker 1: we don't have enough time for me to list all

488
00:27:29,440 --> 00:27:33,119
Speaker 1: of our failed experiments. But the big winners pay for

489
00:27:33,200 --> 00:27:36,119
Speaker 1: thousands of field experiments. So you try something like prime

490
00:27:36,560 --> 00:27:39,240
Speaker 1: and it was very expensive at the beginning. It costs

491
00:27:39,280 --> 00:27:40,840
Speaker 1: us a lot of money. Because what happens when you

492
00:27:40,880 --> 00:27:43,720
Speaker 1: offer a free all you can eat buffet? Who shows

493
00:27:43,800 --> 00:27:48,960
Speaker 1: up to the buffet first? The heavy eaters. It's scary.

494
00:27:49,080 --> 00:27:50,720
Speaker 1: It's like, oh my god, did I really say as

495
00:27:50,760 --> 00:27:55,119
Speaker 1: many prawns as you can eat? And um, and so

496
00:27:55,680 --> 00:27:59,120
Speaker 1: that is what happened. But but surely we could see

497
00:27:59,119 --> 00:28:01,600
Speaker 1: the trend lines. We could you that you know, all

498
00:28:01,680 --> 00:28:04,320
Speaker 1: kinds of customers were coming and they appreciated that service.

499
00:28:04,520 --> 00:28:06,440
Speaker 1: You shit around with your team and so forth. But

500
00:28:06,480 --> 00:28:09,119
Speaker 1: you don't like meetings before ten am. No, you'd like

501
00:28:09,200 --> 00:28:11,920
Speaker 1: to get eight hours of sleep and don't like UM

502
00:28:11,920 --> 00:28:15,200
Speaker 1: power points, explain all that. Why is that? Okay? Many?

503
00:28:15,400 --> 00:28:17,639
Speaker 1: So I like to putter in the worry. I get

504
00:28:17,720 --> 00:28:19,679
Speaker 1: up early, I go to bed early, I get up early.

505
00:28:19,880 --> 00:28:21,359
Speaker 1: I like to putter in the morning. So I like

506
00:28:21,480 --> 00:28:23,439
Speaker 1: to read the newspaper. I like to have coffee. I

507
00:28:23,440 --> 00:28:26,080
Speaker 1: like to have breakfast with my kids before they go

508
00:28:26,080 --> 00:28:29,920
Speaker 1: to school. So I have my kind of puttering. Time

509
00:28:30,040 --> 00:28:32,479
Speaker 1: is very important to me. And so that's why I

510
00:28:32,600 --> 00:28:35,280
Speaker 1: set my first meeting for ten o'clock. I like to

511
00:28:35,280 --> 00:28:38,760
Speaker 1: do my high i Q meetings before lunch. Like anything

512
00:28:38,760 --> 00:28:42,320
Speaker 1: that's gonna be really mentally challenging, that's a ten o'clock meeting.

513
00:28:42,800 --> 00:28:46,560
Speaker 1: And because by five pm, like I can't think about

514
00:28:46,560 --> 00:28:49,720
Speaker 1: that today, Let's try this again tomorrow at ten am

515
00:28:49,760 --> 00:28:53,480
Speaker 1: and UM. And so then on sleep I get eight

516
00:28:53,480 --> 00:28:55,960
Speaker 1: hours of sleep. I prioritize it unless I'm traveling in

517
00:28:56,000 --> 00:28:59,560
Speaker 1: different time zones. Sometimes it's impossible. But I am very

518
00:29:00,240 --> 00:29:03,000
Speaker 1: focused on it. And and and for me, I needed

519
00:29:03,000 --> 00:29:06,080
Speaker 1: a dog to sleep. I think better, I have more energy,

520
00:29:06,440 --> 00:29:08,920
Speaker 1: my mood is better. All these things. And think about it.

521
00:29:08,960 --> 00:29:13,360
Speaker 1: As a senior executive, what do you really get UM

522
00:29:13,400 --> 00:29:17,080
Speaker 1: paid to do? As a senior executive, you get paid

523
00:29:17,120 --> 00:29:22,480
Speaker 1: to make a small number of high quality decisions. Your

524
00:29:22,600 --> 00:29:25,560
Speaker 1: your job is not to make thousands of decisions every day.

525
00:29:25,960 --> 00:29:28,400
Speaker 1: Is that really worth it if the quality of the

526
00:29:28,520 --> 00:29:31,920
Speaker 1: decisions might be lower because you're tired, or grouchy or

527
00:29:31,960 --> 00:29:34,760
Speaker 1: any number of things. Now, it's different if it's a

528
00:29:34,800 --> 00:29:37,320
Speaker 1: startup company. I mean, you know, you're really you know,

529
00:29:37,400 --> 00:29:40,160
Speaker 1: when Amazon was a hundred people, it's a different story.

530
00:29:40,200 --> 00:29:43,040
Speaker 1: But but Amazon is not a startup company. And all

531
00:29:43,080 --> 00:29:45,800
Speaker 1: of our senior executives operate the same way I do.

532
00:29:45,800 --> 00:29:47,840
Speaker 1: They work in the future, they live in the future.

533
00:29:48,280 --> 00:29:50,320
Speaker 1: None of the people who report to me should really

534
00:29:50,320 --> 00:29:53,120
Speaker 1: be focused on the current quarter. UM. I always tell

535
00:29:53,160 --> 00:29:55,520
Speaker 1: people sometimes they get, you know, we'll have a good

536
00:29:55,840 --> 00:29:59,400
Speaker 1: UM quarterly conference call or something, and and Wall Street

537
00:29:59,400 --> 00:30:02,800
Speaker 1: will like our early results. And I'll get people will

538
00:30:03,040 --> 00:30:05,240
Speaker 1: stop me and say congratulations on your quarter, and I

539
00:30:05,240 --> 00:30:07,920
Speaker 1: say thank you, But what I'm really thinking is that

540
00:30:08,000 --> 00:30:11,280
Speaker 1: quarter was baked three years ago. Right now, I'm working

541
00:30:11,520 --> 00:30:15,920
Speaker 1: on a quarter that's gonna reveal itself in one sometime.

542
00:30:16,560 --> 00:30:18,280
Speaker 1: And that's what you need to be doing. You need

543
00:30:18,320 --> 00:30:20,440
Speaker 1: to be out sort of you know, two or three

544
00:30:20,520 --> 00:30:24,120
Speaker 1: years in advance. And um, if you are, and then

545
00:30:24,360 --> 00:30:26,480
Speaker 1: why do I need to make a hundred decisions today?

546
00:30:26,520 --> 00:30:29,320
Speaker 1: If I make like three good decisions a day, that's

547
00:30:29,440 --> 00:30:32,400
Speaker 1: enough and they should just be as high quality as

548
00:30:32,440 --> 00:30:35,600
Speaker 1: I can make them. When you buy over the internet Amazon,

549
00:30:35,960 --> 00:30:38,240
Speaker 1: do you ever get the wrong order? Is anything ever wrong?

550
00:30:38,400 --> 00:30:40,280
Speaker 1: What do you do? Do you calm up and complain?

551
00:30:40,360 --> 00:30:43,120
Speaker 1: Or you don't have any problems? No? I I am.

552
00:30:43,160 --> 00:30:45,640
Speaker 1: I'm a customer of Amazon, hopefully like all of you

553
00:30:45,680 --> 00:30:48,760
Speaker 1: in this one person if there wasn't even the stream

554
00:30:48,760 --> 00:30:51,200
Speaker 1: who's not an Amazon customer, see me right afterwards and

555
00:30:51,240 --> 00:30:55,040
Speaker 1: I'll walk you through it. It's um, I yeah, I

556
00:30:55,040 --> 00:30:58,000
Speaker 1: get I have problems sometimes, um and I and I

557
00:30:58,080 --> 00:31:00,880
Speaker 1: treat them like the same way treat a problem that

558
00:31:00,920 --> 00:31:03,280
Speaker 1: I would get from customer. My email address is famous

559
00:31:03,680 --> 00:31:05,720
Speaker 1: and I keep it and I read it. It's Jeff

560
00:31:05,720 --> 00:31:07,720
Speaker 1: ad Amazon to calm. I don't see every email that

561
00:31:07,760 --> 00:31:09,800
Speaker 1: I get anymore because I get too many, but I

562
00:31:09,840 --> 00:31:13,320
Speaker 1: see a lot of them, and I use my curiosity

563
00:31:13,480 --> 00:31:15,840
Speaker 1: to pick out certain emails. I'll get one from a

564
00:31:15,880 --> 00:31:18,720
Speaker 1: customer and there's a defect. You know, we've done something wrong.

565
00:31:18,800 --> 00:31:21,600
Speaker 1: That's the usually people are writing us. Not always, but

566
00:31:21,640 --> 00:31:23,920
Speaker 1: usually the writing us because we've screwed up their order somehow.

567
00:31:24,560 --> 00:31:27,840
Speaker 1: And I am so I'm looking at this and for

568
00:31:27,880 --> 00:31:30,280
Speaker 1: some reason, it's something seems a little odd about that one,

569
00:31:30,520 --> 00:31:31,719
Speaker 1: and so I'll ask the to you to do a

570
00:31:31,720 --> 00:31:34,960
Speaker 1: case study and and find real root cause or causes.

571
00:31:35,000 --> 00:31:39,200
Speaker 1: It's usually causes, real root causes, and then real root fixes,

572
00:31:39,880 --> 00:31:41,560
Speaker 1: so that when you fix it, you're not fixing it

573
00:31:41,600 --> 00:31:44,240
Speaker 1: for that one customer. You're fixing it for every customer.

574
00:31:44,800 --> 00:31:49,200
Speaker 1: And that process is a gigantic part of what we do.

575
00:31:49,360 --> 00:31:51,200
Speaker 1: So I would treat my if I have a failed

576
00:31:51,320 --> 00:31:53,760
Speaker 1: order or some bad customer experience, I would treat it

577
00:31:53,840 --> 00:31:56,760
Speaker 1: just like that. So, um, you've revolutionized retail, as I say,

578
00:31:56,800 --> 00:31:58,640
Speaker 1: but now you are in the bricks and mortar business.

579
00:31:58,640 --> 00:32:01,400
Speaker 1: You bought whole food. That was the theory behind buying

580
00:32:01,440 --> 00:32:04,520
Speaker 1: something that doesn't sell things over the internet. We're very

581
00:32:04,560 --> 00:32:07,120
Speaker 1: interested in physical stores, and we haven't. I've been asked

582
00:32:07,160 --> 00:32:11,800
Speaker 1: for years, Um we have opened physical stories literally twenty years.

583
00:32:11,840 --> 00:32:14,000
Speaker 1: Have been asked the question, and I always say yes,

584
00:32:14,520 --> 00:32:19,960
Speaker 1: but only when we have a differentiated, differentiated offering, something

585
00:32:20,000 --> 00:32:23,760
Speaker 1: that's not me too, because that space physical stores is

586
00:32:23,800 --> 00:32:27,400
Speaker 1: so well served. If we offer a meat product offering,

587
00:32:27,600 --> 00:32:30,239
Speaker 1: it's not gonna work. We're and it's also just we're

588
00:32:30,280 --> 00:32:32,120
Speaker 1: not very good at that, most of them. Whenever we've

589
00:32:32,160 --> 00:32:35,920
Speaker 1: tried dabbling in something that's a me to service, we

590
00:32:36,000 --> 00:32:40,360
Speaker 1: tend to get beaten. It doesn't work. We're our culture

591
00:32:40,440 --> 00:32:43,160
Speaker 1: is much better at pioneering and inventing, and so we

592
00:32:43,240 --> 00:32:46,680
Speaker 1: have to have something that's different. And that's what Amazon

593
00:32:46,760 --> 00:32:50,760
Speaker 1: Go is. It's completely different, the Amazon Bookstore, completely different.

594
00:32:51,000 --> 00:32:54,640
Speaker 1: And we have ideas about how to merge Prime and

595
00:32:54,720 --> 00:32:57,600
Speaker 1: Whole Foods to make that those are still rolling out

596
00:32:57,600 --> 00:33:00,520
Speaker 1: you haven't seen them yet, but to make to use

597
00:33:00,600 --> 00:33:04,840
Speaker 1: Amazon Prime to make Whole Foods a very differentiated experience.

598
00:33:05,120 --> 00:33:06,680
Speaker 1: And so what we're gonna be able to do is

599
00:33:06,720 --> 00:33:09,920
Speaker 1: take some of our resources, some of our technical, technological

600
00:33:10,040 --> 00:33:14,640
Speaker 1: know how, and and expand the Whole Food's mission they

601
00:33:14,640 --> 00:33:17,040
Speaker 1: have a great mission, which is to bring nourishing food

602
00:33:17,080 --> 00:33:20,960
Speaker 1: to everybody, organic nourishing food to everybody. And um, but

603
00:33:21,080 --> 00:33:22,880
Speaker 1: you know, we have a lot to bring to that

604
00:33:22,960 --> 00:33:25,200
Speaker 1: table in terms of resources, but also in terms of

605
00:33:25,480 --> 00:33:28,800
Speaker 1: operational excellence and in terms of technology. Know how. One

606
00:33:28,840 --> 00:33:30,960
Speaker 1: of the other companies you started within your company, which

607
00:33:31,000 --> 00:33:34,880
Speaker 1: is technologically a superior company, is Amazon Web Services. Where

608
00:33:34,880 --> 00:33:37,760
Speaker 1: did the idea come from? AWS? We started it, I

609
00:33:37,800 --> 00:33:41,560
Speaker 1: don't know, a long time ago, now fifteen years ago. Um,

610
00:33:41,760 --> 00:33:44,160
Speaker 1: and worked on it behind the scenes for a long

611
00:33:44,200 --> 00:33:47,200
Speaker 1: time and then finally launched it. Um it has become

612
00:33:47,200 --> 00:33:52,560
Speaker 1: a very large company. Um uh. And at AWS, we

613
00:33:52,720 --> 00:33:58,560
Speaker 1: completely reinvented the way that companies by computation. Then a

614
00:33:58,600 --> 00:34:03,600
Speaker 1: business miracle happened. This never happens. This is like the

615
00:34:03,640 --> 00:34:06,320
Speaker 1: greatest piece of business luck in the history of business

616
00:34:06,360 --> 00:34:10,360
Speaker 1: so far as I know. We faced no like minded

617
00:34:10,400 --> 00:34:17,480
Speaker 1: competition for seven years. It's unbelievable. And uh we like.

618
00:34:17,560 --> 00:34:20,520
Speaker 1: I'll give you like when I launched Amazon dot com.

619
00:34:21,719 --> 00:34:25,759
Speaker 1: Barnes and Noble launched Barnes and Noble dot com two

620
00:34:25,840 --> 00:34:29,480
Speaker 1: years that's very class, that's very typical if you invince

621
00:34:29,520 --> 00:34:32,959
Speaker 1: something new. We launched Kendall, Barnes and Noble launched Nook.

622
00:34:33,160 --> 00:34:37,680
Speaker 1: Two years later, we launched Echo. Google launched Google Home

623
00:34:37,960 --> 00:34:42,200
Speaker 1: two years later. When you pioneer, if you're lucky, you

624
00:34:42,320 --> 00:34:44,560
Speaker 1: get a two year head start. Nobody gets a seven

625
00:34:44,640 --> 00:34:50,560
Speaker 1: year head start. And so that was incredible because, um,

626
00:34:50,600 --> 00:34:52,880
Speaker 1: and I think it was a whole confluence of things.

627
00:34:53,000 --> 00:34:57,680
Speaker 1: I think that the big established enterprise software companies did

628
00:34:57,719 --> 00:35:02,319
Speaker 1: not see Amazon as a credible enterprise software company, and

629
00:35:02,400 --> 00:35:05,760
Speaker 1: so we had this long runway to build this incredible

630
00:35:05,800 --> 00:35:08,799
Speaker 1: feature rich and it's just so far ahead of all

631
00:35:08,920 --> 00:35:11,440
Speaker 1: the other products and services available to do this work today.

632
00:35:11,600 --> 00:35:13,600
Speaker 1: But do you worry that the US government might come

633
00:35:13,640 --> 00:35:16,520
Speaker 1: along or or the European government some regulatory thing could

634
00:35:16,520 --> 00:35:19,480
Speaker 1: come and impair your business? Well not. Here's here's what

635
00:35:19,560 --> 00:35:20,880
Speaker 1: I think of it that I have. I have a

636
00:35:20,960 --> 00:35:23,120
Speaker 1: couple I could ask this question frequently, and I thought

637
00:35:23,160 --> 00:35:26,000
Speaker 1: it was an original question. Now, sorry, you do do

638
00:35:26,120 --> 00:35:30,640
Speaker 1: that sometimes, but that's not one of them. Um and uh,

639
00:35:31,719 --> 00:35:35,000
Speaker 1: my view on this is very simple. Um, all big

640
00:35:35,040 --> 00:35:39,320
Speaker 1: institutions of any kind are going to be and should

641
00:35:39,320 --> 00:35:45,880
Speaker 1: be examined, scrutinized, inspected. Governments should be inspected. Government institutions,

642
00:35:46,239 --> 00:35:53,120
Speaker 1: big educational institutions, big nonprofits, big companies, They're gonna get scrutiny.

643
00:35:53,239 --> 00:35:55,759
Speaker 1: It's not personal, it's kind of what we as a

644
00:35:55,800 --> 00:35:59,040
Speaker 1: society want to have happened. So that's that's one thing.

645
00:35:59,040 --> 00:36:02,080
Speaker 1: And I remind people internally when you know, they if

646
00:36:02,120 --> 00:36:04,840
Speaker 1: they don't take this personally, that will lead you in

647
00:36:05,120 --> 00:36:07,440
Speaker 1: a lot of wasted energy. This is just normal, it's

648
00:36:07,440 --> 00:36:11,640
Speaker 1: actually healthy, it's good. And then, UM, the second thing

649
00:36:11,680 --> 00:36:16,560
Speaker 1: I think is we are so inventive that whatever regulations

650
00:36:16,560 --> 00:36:20,320
Speaker 1: are promulgated or however it works, that will not stop

651
00:36:20,400 --> 00:36:23,799
Speaker 1: us from serving customers. So to to really you know,

652
00:36:24,160 --> 00:36:31,239
Speaker 1: I mean, under all uh kind of regulatory frameworks that

653
00:36:31,280 --> 00:36:35,600
Speaker 1: I can imagine, UM, customers are still gonna want low prices,

654
00:36:36,239 --> 00:36:39,440
Speaker 1: They're still gonna want fast delivery, They're still gonna want

655
00:36:39,480 --> 00:36:45,880
Speaker 1: big selection. It's really important that UM that UM politicians

656
00:36:45,920 --> 00:36:50,000
Speaker 1: and others not they need to understand the value that

657
00:36:50,080 --> 00:36:54,080
Speaker 1: bring big companies bringing and not demonize or vilify business

658
00:36:54,080 --> 00:36:57,680
Speaker 1: in general or especially not business. Well, they shouldn't vilify

659
00:36:57,760 --> 00:37:00,399
Speaker 1: big companies and they shouldn't vilify business in general for sure.

660
00:37:00,880 --> 00:37:04,640
Speaker 1: And the reason is simple, UM, there are certain things

661
00:37:04,719 --> 00:37:08,680
Speaker 1: only big companies can do. I love you know, garage entrepreneurs.

662
00:37:08,719 --> 00:37:10,600
Speaker 1: I invest in a lot of other companies. I know

663
00:37:10,640 --> 00:37:15,040
Speaker 1: many of them. Um, but nobody in their garage is

664
00:37:15,040 --> 00:37:20,520
Speaker 1: going to build and all carbon fiber, fuel efficient bowing.

665
00:37:22,640 --> 00:37:25,359
Speaker 1: It's not gonna happen. You need Bowing to do that.

666
00:37:25,719 --> 00:37:28,640
Speaker 1: This world would be really bad without Bowing, and without Apple,

667
00:37:28,680 --> 00:37:31,800
Speaker 1: and without Samsung and so on. One of your passions

668
00:37:31,880 --> 00:37:34,760
Speaker 1: is not just Amazon, but it's outer space and space

669
00:37:34,760 --> 00:37:37,560
Speaker 1: travel and Blue Origin. So you've started Blue Origin a

670
00:37:37,600 --> 00:37:40,239
Speaker 1: little bit in secret, then you've made it public. You're

671
00:37:40,280 --> 00:37:42,480
Speaker 1: putting a billion dollars or more of your own personal

672
00:37:42,480 --> 00:37:44,680
Speaker 1: capital into it every year. Next year it will be

673
00:37:44,680 --> 00:37:47,440
Speaker 1: more for the first time. All right, And um, what

674
00:37:47,520 --> 00:37:48,640
Speaker 1: you are you going to get out of it? Are

675
00:37:48,680 --> 00:37:50,680
Speaker 1: we going to have people going into space? What is

676
00:37:50,680 --> 00:37:55,000
Speaker 1: the use? This is? Um? This this is the most

677
00:37:55,040 --> 00:37:58,080
Speaker 1: important work I'm doing. And I have great conviction about that.

678
00:37:58,520 --> 00:38:02,520
Speaker 1: It is um, It's simple argument. Um, this is the

679
00:38:02,560 --> 00:38:06,240
Speaker 1: best planet. We have now sent robotic probes to every

680
00:38:06,239 --> 00:38:09,560
Speaker 1: planet in this Solar system. Believe me, this is the

681
00:38:09,600 --> 00:38:12,719
Speaker 1: good one. UM. My friends who say they want to

682
00:38:12,719 --> 00:38:15,440
Speaker 1: move to Mars, I say, look, do me a favorite

683
00:38:15,440 --> 00:38:18,040
Speaker 1: moved to the top of Mount Everest for a year first,

684
00:38:18,640 --> 00:38:22,520
Speaker 1: because that's a garden paradise compared to Mars. And so

685
00:38:23,120 --> 00:38:26,279
Speaker 1: this gem of a planet, Um, we're finally as a

686
00:38:26,320 --> 00:38:29,560
Speaker 1: species big enough to really impact it. And so you know,

687
00:38:29,680 --> 00:38:33,040
Speaker 1: for for thousands and thousands of years, Earth was really

688
00:38:33,080 --> 00:38:36,160
Speaker 1: big and humanity was really small. That's not true anymore.

689
00:38:36,800 --> 00:38:40,000
Speaker 1: And so we face a choice as we move forward.

690
00:38:40,920 --> 00:38:44,040
Speaker 1: We're going to have to decide whether we want a

691
00:38:44,120 --> 00:38:48,839
Speaker 1: civilization of stasis, which we could do. That's a real

692
00:38:49,200 --> 00:38:51,640
Speaker 1: that's a legitimate choice. What does it mean. It means

693
00:38:51,680 --> 00:38:54,400
Speaker 1: we will have to cap population. We will have to

694
00:38:54,480 --> 00:38:58,279
Speaker 1: cap energy usage per capita. So people don't think about

695
00:38:58,280 --> 00:39:01,799
Speaker 1: how much energy they use. It's it's um. It takes

696
00:39:01,800 --> 00:39:05,000
Speaker 1: a lot of energy. And uh so do you want

697
00:39:05,000 --> 00:39:08,719
Speaker 1: that to continue for your grandchildren and your grandchildren's grandchildren.

698
00:39:08,800 --> 00:39:12,400
Speaker 1: In other words, I want my grandchildren's grandchildren to be

699
00:39:12,480 --> 00:39:15,960
Speaker 1: using way more energy per capita than I am. And

700
00:39:16,000 --> 00:39:18,399
Speaker 1: I would like to see not have a population cap

701
00:39:18,480 --> 00:39:21,520
Speaker 1: I wish there were a trillion humans in the Solar System.

702
00:39:21,640 --> 00:39:23,640
Speaker 1: Then there would be a thousand nine Steins and a

703
00:39:23,719 --> 00:39:27,439
Speaker 1: thousand Mozarts. But we don't have that long. So there's

704
00:39:27,480 --> 00:39:30,440
Speaker 1: all sorts of problems, um, that we are about to

705
00:39:30,480 --> 00:39:34,200
Speaker 1: face because for the first time in our civilizational history,

706
00:39:34,280 --> 00:39:37,239
Speaker 1: going back thousands of years, we're now big compared to

707
00:39:37,280 --> 00:39:40,239
Speaker 1: the size of the planet. We can fix that problem,

708
00:39:40,280 --> 00:39:43,920
Speaker 1: but we can fix it in exactly one way by

709
00:39:44,120 --> 00:39:48,040
Speaker 1: having by moving out into the Solar system. And uh,

710
00:39:48,360 --> 00:39:51,359
Speaker 1: you know, and so my part, my role in that

711
00:39:51,440 --> 00:39:54,520
Speaker 1: is I want to build reusable space vehicles. That's the

712
00:39:54,560 --> 00:39:57,520
Speaker 1: heavy lifting. Amazon was able to get started with only

713
00:39:57,520 --> 00:40:03,400
Speaker 1: a million dollars in capital um and uh and and

714
00:40:03,719 --> 00:40:05,600
Speaker 1: because I got to write on the back of the

715
00:40:05,600 --> 00:40:07,719
Speaker 1: credit card system, I got to write on the back

716
00:40:07,760 --> 00:40:11,640
Speaker 1: of the pre existing transportation network that could deliver packages, um,

717
00:40:11,719 --> 00:40:14,680
Speaker 1: the pre existing telecommunications network that could allow people to

718
00:40:14,680 --> 00:40:17,040
Speaker 1: connect to our servers. All of that, all that would

719
00:40:17,040 --> 00:40:19,120
Speaker 1: have been hundreds of billions of dollars in CAPEX. But

720
00:40:19,160 --> 00:40:22,160
Speaker 1: the heavy lifting was already in place. And that's what

721
00:40:22,239 --> 00:40:25,759
Speaker 1: allowed Facebook. If you think about it, two kids in

722
00:40:25,760 --> 00:40:28,400
Speaker 1: a dorm room made this half trilli into our market

723
00:40:28,400 --> 00:40:31,000
Speaker 1: cap company. And you know, in an incredibly less than

724
00:40:31,040 --> 00:40:35,000
Speaker 1: two decades. That's unbelievable. And so, but that can't happen

725
00:40:35,040 --> 00:40:37,640
Speaker 1: in space. There's no way two kids in a dorm

726
00:40:37,719 --> 00:40:42,120
Speaker 1: room can start a space company of any significance because

727
00:40:42,160 --> 00:40:45,000
Speaker 1: the price of admission is so high. And so I

728
00:40:45,040 --> 00:40:51,400
Speaker 1: want to um build space infrastructure so that the next

729
00:40:51,400 --> 00:40:54,799
Speaker 1: generations of people can use that infrastructure the same way

730
00:40:54,840 --> 00:40:57,759
Speaker 1: I used UPS and fed X and so on to

731
00:40:57,840 --> 00:41:01,480
Speaker 1: build Amazon UM and that and and and so that's

732
00:41:01,520 --> 00:41:04,440
Speaker 1: what Blue Origin is all about. So do you ultimately

733
00:41:04,600 --> 00:41:07,080
Speaker 1: want that to be your legacy? Or Amazon? And what

734
00:41:07,120 --> 00:41:09,520
Speaker 1: would you like to be have as your legacy, world's

735
00:41:09,520 --> 00:41:13,640
Speaker 1: oldest man um. That's a that's a famous line I like.

736
00:41:13,800 --> 00:41:17,360
Speaker 1: But but the real thing is, you know, it'll be

737
00:41:17,400 --> 00:41:19,279
Speaker 1: whatever it's gonna be. I'm gonna be proud of the

738
00:41:19,360 --> 00:41:22,680
Speaker 1: things I want to I I live my life in

739
00:41:22,719 --> 00:41:25,600
Speaker 1: such a way that when I in a quiet moment

740
00:41:25,600 --> 00:41:27,640
Speaker 1: of reflection and I'm thinking back on my life, that

741
00:41:27,680 --> 00:41:30,080
Speaker 1: I have as few regrets as possible. And I don't

742
00:41:30,160 --> 00:41:32,239
Speaker 1: you know what would my legacy? But I have no idea,

743
00:41:32,239 --> 00:41:34,279
Speaker 1: And I don't even want to spend a lot of

744
00:41:34,360 --> 00:41:36,479
Speaker 1: time thinking. You you intend to give away the bulk

745
00:41:36,520 --> 00:41:38,279
Speaker 1: of your fortune at some point in your life. I

746
00:41:38,360 --> 00:41:41,640
Speaker 1: tend to give away I don't know how much of it.

747
00:41:41,680 --> 00:41:43,239
Speaker 1: I'm going to give away. I'm going to give away

748
00:41:43,280 --> 00:41:46,840
Speaker 1: a lot of money um in a nonprofit model, but

749
00:41:46,880 --> 00:41:50,920
Speaker 1: I'm also gonna invest a lot of money and something

750
00:41:50,960 --> 00:41:54,399
Speaker 1: that any rational investor would say is a really bad

751
00:41:54,440 --> 00:41:58,359
Speaker 1: investment um, which is Blue Origin. But I think it's

752
00:41:58,400 --> 00:42:01,680
Speaker 1: super important. And if I can't make Blue Origin a

753
00:42:01,719 --> 00:42:04,600
Speaker 1: for profit thing, maybe I'll convert it to nonprofits at

754
00:42:04,640 --> 00:42:06,719
Speaker 1: some distant point in the future. But that would be

755
00:42:07,640 --> 00:42:09,840
Speaker 1: I would be. I wouldn't want that. I want I

756
00:42:09,840 --> 00:42:12,200
Speaker 1: wanted to be a thriving eCos and more like ups

757
00:42:12,239 --> 00:42:15,000
Speaker 1: and FedEx. Now let's just close with your wife. We

758
00:42:15,000 --> 00:42:17,160
Speaker 1: haven't mentioned her yet. We met in New York City

759
00:42:17,200 --> 00:42:21,560
Speaker 1: at d Shanco where we worked. We got engaged at

760
00:42:21,640 --> 00:42:24,080
Speaker 1: we got we got we dated for three months, were

761
00:42:24,120 --> 00:42:26,120
Speaker 1: engaged for three months, and then got married. So we

762
00:42:26,239 --> 00:42:28,879
Speaker 1: our whole kind of dating engagement period was only six

763
00:42:28,880 --> 00:42:34,440
Speaker 1: months long. Um it's uh. I also, I would like

764
00:42:34,480 --> 00:42:36,239
Speaker 1: to take a moment to talk about my parents, if

765
00:42:36,239 --> 00:42:38,600
Speaker 1: that's okay. You didn't ask me, but I I would

766
00:42:38,680 --> 00:42:42,759
Speaker 1: like to. They're they're here in the audience, and UM,

767
00:42:42,800 --> 00:42:54,319
Speaker 1: my parents are I thank you guys? Um Uh, you

768
00:42:54,360 --> 00:42:57,520
Speaker 1: know you get different gifts in life, and one of

769
00:42:57,520 --> 00:43:00,600
Speaker 1: the great gifts I got as my mom and dad. UM,

770
00:43:00,920 --> 00:43:06,400
Speaker 1: and it's amazing. My highest admiration is withheld for those people.

771
00:43:06,440 --> 00:43:08,160
Speaker 1: And we all know some of them. I know several

772
00:43:08,160 --> 00:43:12,280
Speaker 1: of them who had terrible parents, maybe they were abusive, um,

773
00:43:12,400 --> 00:43:14,960
Speaker 1: whatever it is. And some of those people who who

774
00:43:15,160 --> 00:43:18,719
Speaker 1: so admirably break that cycle and pull out and and

775
00:43:18,719 --> 00:43:21,040
Speaker 1: and make that all work. I did not have that situation.

776
00:43:21,080 --> 00:43:25,000
Speaker 1: I was always loved. UM. My parents loved me unconditionally

777
00:43:25,520 --> 00:43:27,840
Speaker 1: and uh and and by the way, it was pretty

778
00:43:27,880 --> 00:43:30,080
Speaker 1: tough for them. You know, she doesn't talk about it

779
00:43:30,120 --> 00:43:32,120
Speaker 1: that much, but my mom had me when she was

780
00:43:32,200 --> 00:43:36,600
Speaker 1: seventeen years old. She was a high school student in Albuquerque,

781
00:43:36,600 --> 00:43:38,560
Speaker 1: New Mexico. You could ask her, but I'm pretty sure

782
00:43:38,600 --> 00:43:42,080
Speaker 1: that wasn't cool in nineteen sixty four to be a

783
00:43:42,120 --> 00:43:45,880
Speaker 1: pregnant mom in high school in Albuquerque, New Mexico. And

784
00:43:45,920 --> 00:43:50,120
Speaker 1: in fact, my grandfather, who is another incredibly important figure

785
00:43:50,120 --> 00:43:53,920
Speaker 1: in my in my life, UM, I went to bat

786
00:43:53,960 --> 00:43:56,440
Speaker 1: for her. And because the high school wanted to kick

787
00:43:56,440 --> 00:43:58,200
Speaker 1: her out. You weren't allowed to be pregnant in high

788
00:43:58,200 --> 00:44:01,759
Speaker 1: school there, and and my grandfather said, you can't kick

789
00:44:01,800 --> 00:44:03,640
Speaker 1: her out. It's a public school. She gets to go

790
00:44:03,680 --> 00:44:06,880
Speaker 1: to school. And they negotiated for a while, and the

791
00:44:06,920 --> 00:44:11,040
Speaker 1: principal finally said, okay, she can stay and finished high school,

792
00:44:11,080 --> 00:44:14,160
Speaker 1: but she can't do any extracurricular activities and she can't

793
00:44:14,160 --> 00:44:18,560
Speaker 1: have a locker, and um, I know. And then and

794
00:44:18,640 --> 00:44:21,560
Speaker 1: my grandfather, being a very wise man, he was like, done,

795
00:44:21,680 --> 00:44:24,520
Speaker 1: we'll take that deal. And so she finished high school,

796
00:44:24,600 --> 00:44:28,359
Speaker 1: she had me um, and then she married my my

797
00:44:28,440 --> 00:44:30,319
Speaker 1: dad and my dad is my real dad, not my

798
00:44:30,360 --> 00:44:33,880
Speaker 1: biological dad. His name is Mike. He's a Cuban immigrant,

799
00:44:34,080 --> 00:44:37,960
Speaker 1: got a scholarship to to UH College in Albuquerque, which

800
00:44:37,960 --> 00:44:40,360
Speaker 1: is where he met my mom. So I have a

801
00:44:40,480 --> 00:44:45,400
Speaker 1: kind of a fairytale story. And my grandfather um, possibly

802
00:44:45,440 --> 00:44:48,279
Speaker 1: because I mean, I'm pretty sure, because my parents were

803
00:44:48,360 --> 00:44:51,560
Speaker 1: so young. Starting at age four, he would take me

804
00:44:51,640 --> 00:44:57,040
Speaker 1: every summer on his ranch and it was the most spectacular.

805
00:44:57,400 --> 00:45:00,000
Speaker 1: From age four to sixteen, I basically spent every summer

806
00:45:00,000 --> 00:45:02,480
Speaker 1: we're working alongside him on the ranch. He was the

807
00:45:02,480 --> 00:45:07,000
Speaker 1: most resourceful man. He would um did all his own

808
00:45:07,040 --> 00:45:11,160
Speaker 1: veterinary work. He would even make his own needles. He

809
00:45:11,200 --> 00:45:14,719
Speaker 1: would pound the wire with an oxyus satelene torch and

810
00:45:14,800 --> 00:45:16,600
Speaker 1: drill a little hole in it and sharpen it and

811
00:45:16,600 --> 00:45:19,319
Speaker 1: make a suiture, like make a needle that he could suit.

812
00:45:19,360 --> 00:45:22,200
Speaker 1: Youre up the cattle with. Some of the cattle even survived,

813
00:45:22,760 --> 00:45:26,360
Speaker 1: and um he was a remarkable man and a huge

814
00:45:26,800 --> 00:45:29,640
Speaker 1: part of all of our lives. Um. But it is

815
00:45:29,800 --> 00:45:31,879
Speaker 1: you don't realize, you know, if you just look back

816
00:45:31,920 --> 00:45:35,160
Speaker 1: and you know if you if you don't have these parents, Um,

817
00:45:35,200 --> 00:45:39,719
Speaker 1: you know how it's so important. So um it's just

818
00:45:39,800 --> 00:45:41,880
Speaker 1: a really big deal. And my grandfather too, he was

819
00:45:41,920 --> 00:45:44,040
Speaker 1: like a second set of parents for me. Would