WEBVTT - Jeff Bezos 0:00:02.000 --> 0:00:06.360 In a young engineer named Jeff Bezos have the idea 0:00:06.440 --> 0:00:10.280 to sell books online. He called his new company Amazon 0:00:10.680 --> 0:00:14.760 and warned many of his early investors, which included his parents, 0:00:14.800 --> 0:00:17.720 that there was a seventy percent chance the venture would 0:00:17.760 --> 0:00:21.680 either fail or go bankrupt. Twenty five years later, it's 0:00:21.880 --> 0:00:26.159 very clear that Bezos' idea did not fail. Amazon not 0:00:26.280 --> 0:00:30.040 only survived, it thrived, whethering the dot com bubble and 0:00:30.120 --> 0:00:34.560 eventually expanding to become the world's largest online sales company 0:00:34.640 --> 0:00:38.839 and the world's largest provider of cloud infrastructure services. According 0:00:38.840 --> 0:00:42.760 to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Amazon's success has made Bezos 0:00:42.800 --> 0:00:45.640 the wealthiest person in the world, with a net worth 0:00:45.680 --> 0:00:49.120 of nearly one hundred sixty billion dollars, which he's using 0:00:49.120 --> 0:00:53.400 to fund his space company Blue Origin and contributing to charity, 0:00:53.640 --> 0:00:56.720 including his recent pledge to spend two billion dollars to 0:00:56.800 --> 0:01:00.920 help homeless families. Bezos recently sat down with Carlisle Group 0:01:00.960 --> 0:01:04.959 co founder David Rubinstein. They spoke on David Rubenstein's Bloomberg 0:01:04.959 --> 0:01:08.639 television program Peer to Peer Conversations. Your stock is actually 0:01:08.720 --> 0:01:12.000 up seventy this year, Um, is there one thing that 0:01:12.040 --> 0:01:14.160 you think is responsible for that is several things, because 0:01:14.920 --> 0:01:21.280 is pretty good now, I am it's I have been lecturing. 0:01:21.640 --> 0:01:25.200 We have all hands meetings at Amazon and for twenty years, 0:01:25.200 --> 0:01:30.160 ever since we've been twenty one years now. Um, every 0:01:30.240 --> 0:01:33.280 at almost every all hands meeting, I said, look, when 0:01:33.319 --> 0:01:37.680 the stock is up in a month, don't feel thirty 0:01:37.720 --> 0:01:43.000 percent smarter, because when the stock is down in a month, 0:01:43.360 --> 0:01:47.480 it's not gonna feel so good to feel dumber. And 0:01:47.880 --> 0:01:50.640 that's what happens. Never spend any time thinking about the 0:01:50.720 --> 0:01:54.160 daily stock price. I don't. Okay, So, as a result 0:01:54.200 --> 0:01:57.080 of going up seventy percent this year, you have become 0:01:57.920 --> 0:02:00.680 the wealthiest man in the world. It is that a 0:02:00.720 --> 0:02:04.960 title that you really wanted or not? I is it? 0:02:05.000 --> 0:02:07.440 I can assure you I have never sought that title. 0:02:08.040 --> 0:02:11.360 And um, it was fine being the second wealthiest person 0:02:11.400 --> 0:02:14.880 in the world. That actually worked. Fine. Um, it's not. 0:02:15.320 --> 0:02:19.040 It isn't a it. I would say people, it's something 0:02:19.080 --> 0:02:21.400 people naturally are curious about, you know, it's a kind 0:02:21.440 --> 0:02:24.520 of an interesting curiosity. But it's not the thing I 0:02:24.520 --> 0:02:27.160 would much rather if they said, like, um, you know 0:02:27.360 --> 0:02:32.600 inventor Jeff Bezos or entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, or you know, 0:02:33.480 --> 0:02:36.079 father and Jeff Bezo. Those kinds of things are much 0:02:36.120 --> 0:02:39.840 more meaningful to me. And the you know, the it's 0:02:39.840 --> 0:02:42.040 an output measure that if you look at the financial 0:02:42.080 --> 0:02:45.760 success of Amazon and the stock I own sixteen percent 0:02:45.800 --> 0:02:49.720 of Amazon. Um, Amazon is worth roughly a trillion dollars. 0:02:50.320 --> 0:02:53.000 That means that what we have built over twenty years, 0:02:53.400 --> 0:02:55.760 we have built eight hundred and forty billion dollars of 0:02:55.800 --> 0:03:00.320 wealth for other people. And that's great. That's how should be. 0:03:00.360 --> 0:03:05.240 You know. There, I believe so powerfully in uh the 0:03:05.280 --> 0:03:09.480 ability of entrepreneurial capitalism and free markets to solve so 0:03:09.520 --> 0:03:11.680 many of the world's frothers. Not all of them, but 0:03:11.800 --> 0:03:15.800 so many of them. So, Um, you live in Washington State, 0:03:16.040 --> 0:03:18.639 near in Seattle. We're outside of Seattle. Now. The man 0:03:18.720 --> 0:03:20.880 who was the richest man for about twenty years is 0:03:21.080 --> 0:03:24.360 named Bill Gates, And um, what is the likelihood that 0:03:24.400 --> 0:03:26.519 the two richest men in the world live not only 0:03:26.560 --> 0:03:28.800 in the same country, not only the same state, not 0:03:28.840 --> 0:03:30.920 only the same city, but in the same neighborhood. I mean, 0:03:30.960 --> 0:03:33.040 is there something in that neighborhood that we should know about? 0:03:33.040 --> 0:03:35.960 And are there any are there any more houses for sale? 0:03:36.000 --> 0:03:44.880 There After I saw Bill uh not not too long ago. Um, 0:03:45.520 --> 0:03:47.839 you know, we were joking about the World's Richest Man 0:03:47.880 --> 0:03:50.200 thing and I basically said thank you know, I said 0:03:50.200 --> 0:03:52.760 you're welcome, and he immediately turned to me and said 0:03:52.760 --> 0:03:56.600 thank you. Um, but no me. Dina is a great 0:03:56.640 --> 0:03:59.760 little uh it's a suburb of Seattle, and you know, 0:03:59.800 --> 0:04:02.000 I'd don't think there's anything special in the water there. 0:04:02.080 --> 0:04:05.440 And you know, I did locate Amazon in Seattle because 0:04:05.960 --> 0:04:08.720 of Microsoft. I thought that that big pool of technical 0:04:08.760 --> 0:04:12.080 talent would provide a good place to recruit talented people 0:04:12.200 --> 0:04:14.840 from and that did turn out to be true. So 0:04:14.880 --> 0:04:18.520 it's not a complete coincidence. There's some correlation there. Do 0:04:18.560 --> 0:04:20.560 you go into a store when you want to buy something? 0:04:20.560 --> 0:04:22.039 Do you have to put a credit card down you 0:04:22.080 --> 0:04:24.320 to say I'm Jeff Bezos and they send you the stuff? 0:04:24.320 --> 0:04:26.039 How do you do that? And you have to carry 0:04:26.040 --> 0:04:28.000 you carry cash around or you carry yeah? I think 0:04:28.000 --> 0:04:32.960 I do carry cash, and I have I have credit cards. Yeah, 0:04:33.080 --> 0:04:35.560 and if your credit have to show my driver's license 0:04:35.680 --> 0:04:37.480 and you know, but have you ever had a credit 0:04:37.520 --> 0:04:41.880 card denied? Never? Had I have? I've had my credit 0:04:41.880 --> 0:04:44.960 card denied. So what do you say when then you 0:04:44.960 --> 0:04:47.000 say don't you know, I give him another credit card. 0:04:47.680 --> 0:04:51.400 I stay here, try this one. O. Thank you. So, UM, 0:04:51.440 --> 0:04:54.800 you made an announcement that is, uh, the most significant 0:04:54.839 --> 0:04:58.440 philanthropic gift you've made in this type. UM. It was 0:04:58.520 --> 0:05:06.320 a in about a about a year ago. You said 0:05:06.360 --> 0:05:09.040 you wanted to look for some good philanthropic ideas and 0:05:09.080 --> 0:05:11.960 you've got I think forty seven thousand of them and 0:05:12.080 --> 0:05:15.520 you yea reviewed them. And how did you decide where 0:05:15.560 --> 0:05:18.000 to put this two billion dollars? And would you describe 0:05:18.000 --> 0:05:20.440 exactly what you're gonna Well, that process was very helpful. 0:05:20.480 --> 0:05:24.640 So I I solicited ideas, kind of crowdsourced, and I 0:05:24.680 --> 0:05:27.360 got literally, as you said, something like forty seven thousand, 0:05:27.440 --> 0:05:29.480 maybe even a little more. Some of them came to 0:05:29.600 --> 0:05:32.679 my inbox, most of them came on social media, and 0:05:33.120 --> 0:05:37.000 I read through thousands and thousands of them. My office 0:05:37.120 --> 0:05:39.520 kind of correlated them all and put them into buckets, 0:05:39.560 --> 0:05:43.400 and UM, there were some themes that emerged. But the 0:05:43.480 --> 0:05:45.880 other thing that's fascinating about the kind of exercises you 0:05:45.920 --> 0:05:49.680 see just how long tailed it is. People are interested 0:05:49.720 --> 0:05:52.080 in trying to help the world in so many different ways. 0:05:52.400 --> 0:05:56.800 A lot of people, UM, are very interested homelessness, including me. 0:05:57.160 --> 0:06:00.320 A lot of people are very interested in education of 0:06:00.360 --> 0:06:03.880 all kinds. I'm very interested an early education. And um, 0:06:03.880 --> 0:06:06.159 I made that. You know, the apple doesn't fall far 0:06:06.200 --> 0:06:09.120 from the tree. My mother has become in running the 0:06:09.120 --> 0:06:12.880 Bezos family Foundation, she has become an expert in in 0:06:13.400 --> 0:06:18.840 early education. I'm a student of Monastory schools. I started 0:06:19.640 --> 0:06:24.560 at Monastory when I was two years old, and uh, 0:06:25.839 --> 0:06:28.640 the teacher complained to my mother. The Monetary school teacher 0:06:28.640 --> 0:06:31.440 complained to my mother the I was two task focused 0:06:31.440 --> 0:06:34.120 and that she she couldn't get me to switch tasks, 0:06:34.120 --> 0:06:35.640 so she would have to just pick up my chair 0:06:35.680 --> 0:06:38.320 and move me. And by the way, I think that's 0:06:38.680 --> 0:06:40.320 you asked the people who work with me. That's still 0:06:40.320 --> 0:06:43.760 probably true. That teacher ever call you since, and she 0:06:43.839 --> 0:06:47.520 was responsible for your succession. Now I'm in touch with 0:06:47.560 --> 0:06:51.279 several of my UM high schooled elementary school teachers though, 0:06:51.279 --> 0:06:53.520 but I don't know any of my Monastory school teachers. 0:06:54.240 --> 0:06:57.080 So the gift that you're giving, essentially you're gonna have 0:06:57.120 --> 0:07:00.160 some for preschool for children who need preschool. For each 0:07:00.160 --> 0:07:06.040 treaty full tuition preschool Monastory inspired. Um, I'm very excited 0:07:06.080 --> 0:07:09.080 about that because I'm going to operate that. That's going 0:07:09.120 --> 0:07:11.680 to be an operating nonprofit, and we're gonna put them 0:07:11.720 --> 0:07:15.000 in low income neighborhoods. We know for a fact that 0:07:15.320 --> 0:07:18.520 if a kid falls behind UM, it's really really hard 0:07:18.520 --> 0:07:22.040 to catch up. And if you can give somebody a 0:07:22.120 --> 0:07:24.280 leg up when they're too three or four years old 0:07:24.320 --> 0:07:26.360 by the time they get to kindergarten or first grade, 0:07:26.880 --> 0:07:30.000 they're much less likely to fall behind. You can still happen, 0:07:30.080 --> 0:07:32.920 but you've really improved their odds. The money spent there 0:07:33.400 --> 0:07:36.040 is going to pay gigantic dividends for decades. And the 0:07:36.080 --> 0:07:39.560 other part of your gift will be to give awards 0:07:39.600 --> 0:07:42.800 out to yes and that's gonna be more traditional grant 0:07:42.840 --> 0:07:46.600 making philanthropy. So there, I'm gonna identify, with the help 0:07:46.600 --> 0:07:51.920 of a team, identify and fund VET and fund um 0:07:52.680 --> 0:07:56.040 Family Homeless Shelters, and that will be You said you 0:07:56.040 --> 0:07:58.440 would give an initial two billion dollars, expect to add 0:07:58.440 --> 0:08:00.720 to that. Yeah, it's day one. Every thing I've ever 0:08:00.800 --> 0:08:07.880 done has started small. Amazon started with a couple of people, 0:08:08.480 --> 0:08:15.280 and UM Blue Origin started with five people, and the 0:08:15.320 --> 0:08:17.760 budgeted Blue organ was very very small. Now the budget 0:08:17.800 --> 0:08:20.960 of Blue Regions approaches a billion dollars a year. Next 0:08:21.000 --> 0:08:22.760 year it will be more than a billion dollars. And 0:08:22.880 --> 0:08:26.080 Amazon literally was teen people. Today it's half a million people. 0:08:26.080 --> 0:08:28.280 But you it's hard to remember for you guys, But 0:08:28.360 --> 0:08:31.360 for me, it's like yesterday I was driving the packages 0:08:31.400 --> 0:08:35.200 to the post office myself and hoping one day we 0:08:35.200 --> 0:08:38.560 could afford a forklift and so but so for me, 0:08:38.720 --> 0:08:41.440 I've seen small things get big, and it's part of 0:08:41.480 --> 0:08:44.560 this day one mentality. I like treating things as if 0:08:44.920 --> 0:08:47.440 if they're small, you know, Amazon, even though it is 0:08:47.480 --> 0:08:50.280 a large company, I wanted to have the heart and 0:08:50.360 --> 0:08:53.560 spirit of a small one. And uh. Then so anyway 0:08:53.600 --> 0:08:56.079 that the day one foundation is going to be like that, 0:08:56.600 --> 0:09:00.600 will will will will wander a little bit too. So 0:09:00.679 --> 0:09:02.920 I we have some very specific ideas of what we 0:09:02.960 --> 0:09:06.319 want to do, but I believe in the power of wandering. 0:09:06.760 --> 0:09:10.680 All of my best decisions in business and in life 0:09:11.040 --> 0:09:17.360 have been made with heart, intuition, guts, uh you know, 0:09:18.040 --> 0:09:24.640 not not uh analysis. When you can make a decision 0:09:24.640 --> 0:09:27.319 with analysis, you should do so. But it turns out 0:09:27.400 --> 0:09:30.319 in life that your most important decisions are always made 0:09:30.400 --> 0:09:34.960 with instinct, intuition, taste, heart. Um, And that's what we'll 0:09:35.000 --> 0:09:37.240 do with this Day one foundation too. It's and the 0:09:37.320 --> 0:09:40.079 customer is going to be the child. This is this 0:09:40.200 --> 0:09:43.560 is so important because the secret sauce of Amazon where 0:09:43.559 --> 0:09:45.839 there are several principles of Amazon, but the number one 0:09:45.920 --> 0:09:49.920 thing that has made us successful by far is obsessive, 0:09:50.080 --> 0:09:55.720 compulsive focus on the customer as opposed to obsession over 0:09:55.720 --> 0:10:00.080 the competitor. And I talked so often to others oh 0:10:00.880 --> 0:10:05.680 and some other CEOs and also founders and entrepreneurs, and 0:10:05.760 --> 0:10:08.760 I can tell that even though they're talking about customers, 0:10:08.920 --> 0:10:12.680 they're really focusing on competitors. And it is a huge 0:10:12.720 --> 0:10:16.560 advantage to any company if you can stay focused on 0:10:16.600 --> 0:10:18.600 your customer instead of your competitors. So then you have 0:10:18.600 --> 0:10:21.240 to identify who is your customer. Um. So at the 0:10:21.240 --> 0:10:24.240 Washington Post, for example, is the customer the people who 0:10:24.360 --> 0:10:27.720 buy advertisements from us? No, the customer is the reader. 0:10:28.080 --> 0:10:30.120 And in the school, who are the customers? Is it 0:10:30.200 --> 0:10:35.160 the parents? Is that the teachers? No, it is the child. 0:10:35.679 --> 0:10:38.319 And that's what we're gonna do. We're gonna be obsessively 0:10:38.360 --> 0:10:41.000 compulsively focused on the child. We're going to be scientific 0:10:41.040 --> 0:10:42.959 when we can be and We're gonna use heart and 0:10:43.040 --> 0:10:46.079 intuition when we when we when you use your intuition 0:10:46.080 --> 0:10:49.560 and make decisions. Where is the intuition leading you now? 0:10:49.679 --> 0:11:02.360 On your second headquarters? All right? Can can we just 0:11:02.520 --> 0:11:06.600 take a moment to acknowledge that that may be the 0:11:06.640 --> 0:11:17.400 best segue in the history of interviewing? Seriously, David? So 0:11:17.520 --> 0:11:22.560 that is that? Is all right? That's amazing? Answer is uh? 0:11:22.760 --> 0:11:25.480 The answer is very simple. We we will announce the 0:11:25.520 --> 0:11:27.920 decision before the end of this year. So we've made 0:11:27.920 --> 0:11:31.920 tremendous progress. The team is working their butts off on it, 0:11:32.440 --> 0:11:35.280 and we will get there. No, no, hey be nice. 0:11:35.520 --> 0:11:38.719 Come on, Why did you buy the Washington Post? You 0:11:38.760 --> 0:11:41.120 had no background in that area. What convinced you to 0:11:41.120 --> 0:11:43.440 do that? Okay? First of all, I was not looking 0:11:43.480 --> 0:11:46.840 for a newspaper. I had no intention of buying newspaper. 0:11:46.880 --> 0:11:48.840 I had never thought about the idea had never occurred 0:11:48.880 --> 0:11:52.000 to me. It was never something. Wasn't like a childhood dream. Nothing. 0:11:52.559 --> 0:11:56.520 And um, my friend Don Graham, who at that time 0:11:56.520 --> 0:11:58.840 I had known fifteen years. I know him twenty years now. 0:11:59.440 --> 0:12:03.400 He approached me through an intermediary and I wanted to 0:12:03.440 --> 0:12:05.320 know if I would be interested in buying the Washington Post, 0:12:05.400 --> 0:12:08.439 and I sent back word that I would not um 0:12:08.480 --> 0:12:13.079 because I didn't really know anything about newspapers, and Don 0:12:13.760 --> 0:12:19.120 over a series of conversations convinced me that, UM, that 0:12:19.240 --> 0:12:24.320 was unimportant because we had inside the Washington Post, we 0:12:24.360 --> 0:12:28.840 have so much talent that understands newspapers. That wasn't what 0:12:28.960 --> 0:12:31.640 the problem was. But they needed was somebody who had 0:12:31.679 --> 0:12:35.480 an understanding of the Internet. And so so that was 0:12:35.520 --> 0:12:37.200 the first thing. That's kind of how it got started. 0:12:37.200 --> 0:12:39.080 And then I so I did some soul searching and 0:12:39.120 --> 0:12:42.559 again my decision making process something this would definitely be 0:12:42.600 --> 0:12:47.000 intuition and on analysis the financial situation of the Washington 0:12:47.000 --> 0:12:51.040 Post at that time, this was very upside down. The 0:12:51.120 --> 0:12:54.440 problem was a secular one. The Internet was just eroding 0:12:54.640 --> 0:12:58.240 all of the traditional advantages that local newspapers had, all 0:12:58.280 --> 0:13:02.120 of them. And I said, UM, you know, is this 0:13:02.240 --> 0:13:04.280 something I want to get involved in. If I'm gonna 0:13:04.320 --> 0:13:05.960 do it, I'm gonna put some heart into it and 0:13:06.000 --> 0:13:08.400 some work into it. And I decided I would only 0:13:08.440 --> 0:13:12.400 do that if I really believed it was an important institution. UM. 0:13:12.440 --> 0:13:15.040 And I said to myself, if this were a financially 0:13:15.120 --> 0:13:19.480 upside down salty snack food company, the answer would be no. 0:13:19.880 --> 0:13:21.599 As soon as I started thinking about that way, I 0:13:21.640 --> 0:13:25.280 was like, this is an important institution. It is the 0:13:25.320 --> 0:13:30.000 newspaper in the capital city of the most important country 0:13:30.000 --> 0:13:34.240 in the world. The Washington Post has an incredibly important 0:13:34.320 --> 0:13:38.520 role to play in this democracy. There's just no doubt 0:13:38.520 --> 0:13:45.040 in my mind about that. So and and so, as 0:13:45.040 --> 0:13:47.160 soon as I had passed through that gate, I only 0:13:47.200 --> 0:13:49.000 had one more gate that I had to go through 0:13:49.040 --> 0:13:51.960 before telling Don yes, and that was I wanted to 0:13:52.480 --> 0:13:57.720 look myself, you know, be really open with myself and 0:13:58.040 --> 0:13:59.640 look in a mirror and sort of think about the 0:13:59.640 --> 0:14:03.360 company and be sure that I was optimistic that it 0:14:03.400 --> 0:14:06.840 could work, because, um, you know, if it were hopeless, 0:14:06.920 --> 0:14:09.600 that would also be not something I would get involved in. 0:14:09.880 --> 0:14:12.400 And I looked at that and I was super optimistic. Um, 0:14:12.440 --> 0:14:14.360 and it needed to be transitioned to a national and 0:14:14.480 --> 0:14:18.600 global publication. There's one gift that the Internet brings newspapers, 0:14:18.800 --> 0:14:23.920 and that is free global distribution. So we had to 0:14:23.920 --> 0:14:26.000 take advantage of that gift. And that's the That was 0:14:26.040 --> 0:14:28.600 the basic strategy. We had to switch from a business 0:14:28.640 --> 0:14:32.400 model where we made a lot of money per reader 0:14:32.840 --> 0:14:35.920 with a relatively small number of readers to a little bit, 0:14:35.960 --> 0:14:38.840 tiny bit of money per reader on a very large 0:14:38.960 --> 0:14:41.400 number of readers. And that's the transition that we did. 0:14:41.600 --> 0:14:43.920 I'm pleased to report to you that the Post is 0:14:43.960 --> 0:14:49.200 profitable today. Um. The newsroom is growing. It's been growing 0:14:49.240 --> 0:14:52.080 every year since I've been there. It's working, and I'm 0:14:52.120 --> 0:14:54.640 so proud of that team. And I know for a fact, 0:14:54.680 --> 0:14:57.480 when I'm eight year let's say, I always project myself 0:14:57.520 --> 0:14:59.000 forward to age eight, but as I get older, I 0:14:59.040 --> 0:15:02.720 was starting to do ninety. So I know that when 0:15:02.760 --> 0:15:05.480 I'm ninety it's gonna be. One of the things I'm 0:15:05.480 --> 0:15:08.440 most proud of is that I took on the Washington 0:15:08.480 --> 0:15:12.080 Post and helped them through a very rough transition. So, UM, 0:15:12.080 --> 0:15:14.440 when you when you agree to buy it, um, I 0:15:14.480 --> 0:15:18.080 think they asking price was two million dollars. You didn't negotiate, 0:15:18.120 --> 0:15:20.200 you know, h done. I asked him how much he 0:15:20.280 --> 0:15:22.640 wanted He said to fifty. I said, fine. I didn't 0:15:22.640 --> 0:15:25.840 negotiate with him, and I did no due diligence, and um, 0:15:26.560 --> 0:15:28.160 I wouldn't need to have done. He told, you have 0:15:28.280 --> 0:15:33.840 something I'd like to sell now that you own the 0:15:33.840 --> 0:15:37.920 Washington Post. Sometimes there are some people who criticize some 0:15:38.080 --> 0:15:43.160 things that the Washington Post says. And you've been remarkably quiet. 0:15:43.240 --> 0:15:46.640 I have no idea what you're talking about. Well, you've 0:15:46.640 --> 0:15:50.520 been remarkably quiet and not defending yourself. Well, I do 0:15:50.720 --> 0:15:54.440 defend the Post. It is a mistake for any elected official, 0:15:54.520 --> 0:15:57.240 in my opinion. I don't think this is a very 0:15:57.280 --> 0:16:02.280 out their opinion to attack media and journalists. Um. I 0:16:02.360 --> 0:16:08.960 believe that it is an essential component of our democracy. 0:16:09.080 --> 0:16:12.080 There has never been I was gonna say, never been 0:16:12.120 --> 0:16:14.680 elected official who like their headlines. I think there's probably 0:16:14.680 --> 0:16:18.440 a no, no public figure who has ever liked their headlines. 0:16:18.720 --> 0:16:22.640 It's okay, it's part of the process, you know. It's 0:16:22.760 --> 0:16:25.240 it's um. If you're the president of the United States 0:16:25.360 --> 0:16:28.480 or a governor of a state or whatever, you don't 0:16:28.520 --> 0:16:31.040 take that job thinking you're not going to get scrutinized. 0:16:31.960 --> 0:16:36.240 You're gonna get scrutinized. And it's it's it's healthy and um, 0:16:36.280 --> 0:16:40.280 somebody very you know what what what what the president 0:16:40.320 --> 0:16:43.920 should say is this is right, this is good. I'm 0:16:43.960 --> 0:16:47.640 glad I'm being scrutinized, and that would be so secure 0:16:47.720 --> 0:16:51.040 and confident. But it's really dangerous to demonize the media. 0:16:51.480 --> 0:16:55.040 It's dangerous to call the media low life. It's dangerous 0:16:55.080 --> 0:16:57.640 to say that they're the enemy of the people. We 0:16:57.720 --> 0:17:02.400 live in a society where it's not just the laws 0:17:02.440 --> 0:17:05.919 of the land that protect us. We do have freedom 0:17:05.920 --> 0:17:09.199 of press. It's in the constitution we but what what 0:17:09.320 --> 0:17:13.320 we But it's also the social norms that protect us 0:17:13.680 --> 0:17:18.000 those we we It works because we believe those words 0:17:18.000 --> 0:17:21.480 on that piece of paper, and every time you attack that, 0:17:21.520 --> 0:17:24.000 you're eroding it a little bit around the edges. Now, look, 0:17:24.440 --> 0:17:26.600 I don't want to be dramatic here. We are so 0:17:26.760 --> 0:17:29.960 robust in this country. The media is going to be fine. 0:17:30.200 --> 0:17:32.880 Let's talk about how you came to the situation where 0:17:32.880 --> 0:17:37.720 you are today. So you grew up in Texas initially, yes, 0:17:37.800 --> 0:17:40.719 and from early age where you are pretty smart student 0:17:40.800 --> 0:17:43.280 and your teachers tell you this. You know you were 0:17:43.280 --> 0:17:47.439 good or I have always been academically smart and um 0:17:47.520 --> 0:17:49.760 that you know. By the way the older I get, 0:17:49.800 --> 0:17:52.640 I realized how many kinds of smart there are. There 0:17:52.640 --> 0:17:53.800 are a lot of kinds of smart. There are a 0:17:53.880 --> 0:17:57.760 lot of kinds of stupid too, um, but but there 0:17:57.800 --> 0:18:00.720 are you know, I c p blaw all the time. 0:18:00.800 --> 0:18:03.399 Who I know, they wouldn't have gotten a plus is 0:18:03.480 --> 0:18:07.000 on you know, their calculus exams. But they're incredibly smart. 0:18:07.200 --> 0:18:09.320 But yes, I was a very good student. So you 0:18:09.400 --> 0:18:12.359 ultimately moved into high school in Miami and then you 0:18:12.400 --> 0:18:15.159 were valuatorian ever your class. And then you gave a 0:18:15.200 --> 0:18:18.440 speech as the valigatorian saying you thought we should colonize 0:18:18.440 --> 0:18:21.040 space or something like that. I did it. It was 0:18:21.720 --> 0:18:25.800 too I graduated from high school, big Publicist Miami palmetto 0:18:25.880 --> 0:18:30.120 Senior High, Go Panthers. Uh and uh. There were seven 0:18:30.200 --> 0:18:34.840 hundred and fifty kids in my graduating class. And um, 0:18:34.880 --> 0:18:37.840 I loved high school. I had so much fun we 0:18:37.880 --> 0:18:41.639 had I got I lost my library privileges because I 0:18:41.760 --> 0:18:45.720 laughed too loudly in the library. And about that laugh, 0:18:45.760 --> 0:18:47.240 where did you get that laugh from? You know, it 0:18:47.320 --> 0:18:50.120 is distinctive. I've had that laugh all my life. There 0:18:50.160 --> 0:18:52.480 was a short, not that short. There was a multi 0:18:52.560 --> 0:18:54.960 year period where my brother and sister would not see 0:18:55.000 --> 0:18:58.920 a movie with me because they thought it was too embarrassing. Um, 0:18:58.960 --> 0:19:01.560 and my I don't know why I have this laugh. 0:19:01.680 --> 0:19:05.680 It's just it's just and I laugh easily and often. Um, 0:19:05.800 --> 0:19:07.719 the people who know me you know, you asked my 0:19:07.800 --> 0:19:10.719 mom or anybody who knows me well, and they'll say, 0:19:11.080 --> 0:19:15.359 if Jeff's unhappy, wait five minutes. You graduated as Valgatory 0:19:15.400 --> 0:19:16.879 and you decided to go to Princeton. How come you 0:19:16.920 --> 0:19:18.639 decided to go to Princeton because I wanted to be 0:19:18.640 --> 0:19:23.159 a theoretical physicist. I changed my major very quickly to 0:19:23.240 --> 0:19:29.400 electricaltioning your company. You graduated Summa comality. I graduated Summa Kappa. 0:19:29.520 --> 0:19:33.240 And then you went into the highest calling of mankind finance. Yes, 0:19:34.119 --> 0:19:35.879 I went. I went to New York City and I 0:19:35.960 --> 0:19:38.320 ended up working at a quanty of hedge fund run 0:19:38.359 --> 0:19:41.040 by a brilliant man named David Saw d Saw and Co. 0:19:41.560 --> 0:19:43.320 I learned so much from him. I used a lot 0:19:43.359 --> 0:19:46.359 of his ideas and principles on things like HR and 0:19:46.400 --> 0:19:49.160 recruiting and what kind of people to hire. When I started, 0:19:49.240 --> 0:19:51.320 very very good, well known hedge fund, and you were 0:19:51.320 --> 0:19:54.520 a star there. As I understand what propelled you to say, 0:19:54.600 --> 0:19:57.480 I'm quitting this. I'm going to start a company selling 0:19:57.760 --> 0:19:59.679 books over the internet. I'm gonna do it from Seattle. 0:19:59.720 --> 0:20:02.800 Where did the idea come from? I came across the 0:20:02.880 --> 0:20:07.119 fact um. So this is nobody has heard of the Internet, 0:20:07.320 --> 0:20:09.520 very very few people. And I came across the fact 0:20:09.560 --> 0:20:13.199 that the web, worldwide Web was growing at something like 0:20:14.040 --> 0:20:17.560 percent a year. This is anything growing that fast is 0:20:17.840 --> 0:20:21.680 even if it's baseline usage today is tiny, it's growing 0:20:21.760 --> 0:20:24.760 so fast it's gonna be big. And so I looked 0:20:24.800 --> 0:20:26.359 at that and I was like, there's gotta be I 0:20:26.400 --> 0:20:29.200 should come up with a business idea and that get 0:20:29.240 --> 0:20:31.679 you know, on the internet, and then let the Internet 0:20:31.680 --> 0:20:33.560 go around this and we can keep working on it. 0:20:33.960 --> 0:20:35.440 And so I made a list of products that I 0:20:35.520 --> 0:20:37.800 might saw online and I started force ranking them, and 0:20:37.840 --> 0:20:41.399 I picked books because books is super unusual in one respect, 0:20:41.440 --> 0:20:43.480 which is that they're more book items in the book 0:20:43.480 --> 0:20:45.920 category than there are items in another category. There three 0:20:45.960 --> 0:20:48.720 million different books active and in print around the world 0:20:48.720 --> 0:20:53.119 and be given time. So my, my, the founding idea 0:20:53.280 --> 0:20:57.000 of Amazon was to build universal selection of books. The 0:20:57.000 --> 0:20:59.720 biggest bookstores only had a hundred and fifty thousand titles. 0:21:00.240 --> 0:21:03.159 And so that's what I did, and I, you know, 0:21:03.240 --> 0:21:06.359 I hired a small team, We built, we built software. 0:21:06.359 --> 0:21:08.560 I moved to Seattle. I mean, you told your parents 0:21:08.560 --> 0:21:11.800 you're gonna quit d Shaw where you're successful making presuming 0:21:11.840 --> 0:21:14.720 a fair amount of money. And you told your wife Mackenzie, 0:21:14.720 --> 0:21:17.120 that you're going to move across the country. What did 0:21:17.119 --> 0:21:20.560 they all say? They were immediately and reflectively supportive. Right 0:21:20.640 --> 0:21:25.000 after they asked the question, what's the internet? And UM, 0:21:25.080 --> 0:21:27.640 so you know that, but this is right, you know, um, 0:21:27.680 --> 0:21:30.320 you know you on with your loved ones. You you 0:21:30.320 --> 0:21:32.280 you bet on them. You're not betting on the idea, 0:21:32.320 --> 0:21:36.960 You're you're you are betting on the person. And that was, uh. 0:21:37.000 --> 0:21:38.720 That And it's one of those decisions I made with 0:21:38.800 --> 0:21:41.080 my heart and not my head. And I basically said, 0:21:41.440 --> 0:21:43.639 I don't want to regret. I don't when I'm a 0:21:43.760 --> 0:21:47.760 d now ninety I have. I want to have minimized 0:21:47.760 --> 0:21:50.760 the number of regrets that I have in my life. 0:21:50.800 --> 0:21:54.320 And most of our regrets our acts of omission. There 0:21:54.320 --> 0:21:58.560 are things we didn't try. It's the path untraveled. Um, 0:21:58.560 --> 0:22:01.119 those are the things that haunt. And you were telling 0:22:01.160 --> 0:22:03.320 me that you had to go deliver the books, Yeah, 0:22:03.359 --> 0:22:05.920 for the post office yourself. I still I don't still 0:22:05.920 --> 0:22:07.840 deliver too. But I was doing that for years and 0:22:08.000 --> 0:22:12.320 I was packing boxes on my hands and knees. In 0:22:12.359 --> 0:22:15.359 the first month I was packing boxes on my hands 0:22:15.359 --> 0:22:19.160 and knees on the hard cement floors, and um, with 0:22:19.240 --> 0:22:21.800 somebody else sitting standing next to kneeling next to me, 0:22:21.800 --> 0:22:24.119 we're packing and and I said, you know what, we 0:22:24.200 --> 0:22:28.360 need knee pads. This is killing my knees. And this 0:22:28.400 --> 0:22:33.320 guy packing alongside me said we need packing tables. And 0:22:33.440 --> 0:22:37.080 I was like, that's the most brilliant idea I've ever heard. 0:22:38.080 --> 0:22:40.600 And the next day I went and bought packing tables 0:22:40.600 --> 0:22:44.000 and it like doubled our productivity. Think about it as 0:22:44.000 --> 0:22:48.600 a senior executive, what do you really get um paid 0:22:48.640 --> 0:22:52.120 to do you get paid to make a small number 0:22:52.880 --> 0:22:57.480