This presentation has the key takeways, salient points & notable quotes from the book "The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos & the age of Amazon" by Brad Stone. If you like it, please do read the book

1. The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the
age of Amazon – By Brad Stone
(The Amazon logo is a copyright of Amazon – Just using it in this
presentation about the book about its founder – Jeff Bezos)
Key Takeaways from the book:

2. Quotes by Jeff Bezos
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• There is so much stuff that has yet to be invented, there’s so
much new that’s going to happen. People don’t have any
idea how impactful the internet is going to be and that this
is still Day 1 in a big way.
• Amazon isn’t happening to the book business; the future is
happening to the book business.
• We are genuinely customer centric, we are genuinely long
term oriented and we genuinely like to invent.

3. Quotes by Jeff Bezos
• We don’t make money when we sell things. We make
money when we help customers make purchase decisions.
• Every time we hire someone, he or she should raise the bar
for the next hire, so that the overall talent pool is always
improving – (another Jeffism).
• The “Either-Or” mentality, that if you are doing something
good for customers it must be bad for shareholders, is very
amateurish.
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4. Quotes by Jeff Bezos
• Great merchants have never had the opportunity to
understand their customers in a truly individualized way; e-
commerce is going to make that possible.
• When you are small, someone else that is bigger can always
come along and take away what you have.
• Disruptive small companies can triumph.
• The internet is disrupting every media industry. People can
complain about that, but complaining is not a strategy.
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5. Quotes by Jeff Bezos
• It is far better to cannibalize yourself than have someone
else do it. We didn’t want to be Kodak
• There are 2 kinds of retailers- there are those folks who
work to figure how to charge more, and there are
companies that work to figure how to charge less, and we
are going to be the second.
• It’s one thing to have a good idea but it’s another to have
confidence in a person to execute it.
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6. • Even the name has informally entered the business lexicon and
not in an altogether favorable way. To be Amazoned means ‘to
watch helplessly as the online upstart from Seattle vacuums up
the customers and profits of your traditional brick-and-mortar
business.’
• At Amazon, PowerPoint decks or slide presentations are
never used in meetings. Instead, employees are required to
write 6 page narratives laying out their points in prose,
because Bezos believes doing so fosters critical thinking. For
each new product, they craft their documents in the style of a
press release. The goal is to frame a proposed initiative in the
way a customer might hear about it for the first time. Each
meeting begins with everyone silently reading the document
and discussion commences afterward.
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Takeaways from the book:

7. • Most companies are focused on the competitor not the
customer. They want to work on things that will pay
dividends in two or three years, and if they don’t work in
two or three years they will move to something else. And
they prefer to be close followers rather than inventors,
because it’s safer.
• Bezos was disciplined and precise, constantly recording
ideas in a notebook he carried with him, as if they might
float out of his mind if he didn’t jot them down.
• When interviewing a potential new hire, Bezos asked
improbable questions. ‘How many gas stations are there in
the United States?’ It was a test to measure the quality of a
candidate’s thinking; he wasn’t looking for the correct
answer, only for the individual to demonstrate creativity by
coming up with a sound way to derive a possible solution.
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8. • ‘Regret minimization framework’:-
Bezos: ‘When you are in the thick of things, you can get
confused by the small stuff. I knew when I was 80 that I
would never, for example, think about why I walked
away from my 1994 Wall Street bonus right in the
middle of the year at the worst possible time. That kind
of thing just isn’t something you would worry about
when you’re 80 years old. At the same time, I knew that
I might sincerely regret not having participated in this
thing called the Internet that I thought was going to be
revolutionizing event. When I thought about it that
way, it was incredibly easy to make the decision.’
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9. • Jeff Bezos was insistent that Amazon be always
called Amazon.com
• Amazon’s early strategy: maximizing the internet’s
ability to provide a superior selection of products
as compared to those available at traditional retail
stores.
• In Amazon’s 1st letter to its public shareholders in
1998, Bezos wrote that the company would make
decisions based on the long term prospects of
boosting free cash flow and growing market share
rather than on short term profitability.
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10. • Amazon’s 6 core values: Customer Obsession,
Frugality, Bias For Action, Ownership, High Bar For
Talent, Innovation.
• Benjamin Graham (British Investor who inspired
Warren Buffet) – In the short term, the stock
market is a voting machine. In the long run, it’s a
weighing machine that measures a company’s true
value.
• For Walmart - Our marketing strategy is our pricing
strategy, which is everyday low pricing.
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11. • Amazon was restructured around ‘two pizza
teams’. Employees would be organized into
autonomous groups of fewer than 10 people –
small enough that, when working late, the team
members could be fed with 2 pizza pies.
• Jeff has this unbelievable ability to be incredibly
intelligent about things he had nothing to do with
and he was totally ruthless about communicating
it.
• Bezos believed that high margins justified rivals’
investments in R&D & attracted more
competition, while low margins attracted more
customers and were more defensible.
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12. • In his book The Innovator’s Dilemma, Harvard
professor Clayton Christensen wrote that great
companies fail not because they want to avoid
disruptive change but because they are reluctant to
embrace promising new markets that might
undermine their traditional businesses and that do
not appear to satisfy their short-term growth
requirements.
• The companies that solved the Innovator’s
Dilemma succeeded when they ‘set up
autonomous organizations charged with building
new and independent businesses around the
disruptive technologies’.
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13. • Amazon’s culture is notoriously confrontational,
and it begins with Bezos who believes that truth
springs forth when ideas and perspectives are
banged against each other, sometimes violently.
• Jeff doesn’t believe in work-life balance. He
believes in work-life harmony. The idea is you
might be able to do everything all at once.
• One did not work with Jeff Bezos, one worked for
Jeff Bezos.
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14. Amazon’s 14 Leadership Principles
https://www.amazon.jobs/en/principles
• Customer Obsession
Leaders start with the customer and work backwards. They
work vigorously to earn and keep customer trust. Although
leaders pay attention to competitors, they obsess over
customers.
• Ownership
Leaders are owners. They think long term and don’t sacrifice
long-term value for short-term results. They act on behalf of
the entire company, beyond just their own team. They never
say “that’s not my job".
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15. Amazon’s 14 Leadership Principles
https://www.amazon.jobs/en/principles
• Invent and Simplify
Leaders expect and require innovation and invention
from their teams and always find ways to simplify. They
are externally aware, look for new ideas from
everywhere, and are not limited by “not invented
here". As we do new things, we accept that we may be
misunderstood for long periods of time.
• Are Right, A Lot
Leaders are right a lot. They have strong judgment and good
instincts. They seek diverse perspectives and work to
disconfirm their beliefs.
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16. Amazon’s 14 Leadership Principles
https://www.amazon.jobs/en/principles
• Learn and Be Curious
Leaders are never done learning and always seek to improve
themselves. They are curious about new possibilities and act
to explore them.
• Hire and Develop the Best
Leaders raise the performance bar with every hire and
promotion. They recognize exceptional talent, and willingly
move them throughout the organization. Leaders develop
leaders and take seriously their role in coaching others. We
work on behalf of our people to invent mechanisms for
development like Career Choice.
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17. Amazon’s 14 Leadership Principles
https://www.amazon.jobs/en/principles
• Insist on the Highest Standards
Leaders have relentlessly high standards - many people may
think these standards are unreasonably high. Leaders are
continually raising the bar and driving their teams to deliver
high quality products, services and processes. Leaders
ensure that defects do not get sent down the line and that
problems are fixed so they stay fixed.
• Think Big
Thinking small is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Leaders create
and communicate a bold direction that inspires results. They
think differently and look around corners for ways to serve
customers.
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18. Amazon’s 14 Leadership Principles
https://www.amazon.jobs/en/principles
• Bias for Action
Speed matters in business. Many decisions and actions are
reversible and do not need extensive study. We value
calculated risk taking.
• Frugality
Accomplish more with less. Constraints breed
resourcefulness, self-sufficiency and invention. There are no
extra points for growing headcount, budget size or fixed
expense.
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19. Amazon’s 14 Leadership Principles
https://www.amazon.jobs/en/principles
• Earn Trust
Leaders listen attentively, speak candidly, and treat others
respectfully. They are vocally self-critical, even when doing
so is awkward or embarrassing. Leaders do not believe their
or their team’s body odor smells of perfume. They
benchmark themselves and their teams against the best.
• Dive Deep
Leaders operate at all levels, stay connected to the details,
audit frequently, and are skeptical when metrics and
anecdote differ. No task is beneath them.
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20. Amazon’s 14 Leadership Principles
https://www.amazon.jobs/en/principles
• Have Backbone; Disagree and Commit
Leaders are obligated to respectfully challenge decisions
when they disagree, even when doing so is uncomfortable
or exhausting. Leaders have conviction and are tenacious.
They do not compromise for the sake of social cohesion.
Once a decision is determined, they commit wholly.
• Deliver Results
Leaders focus on the key inputs for their business and
deliver them with the right quality and in a timely fashion.
Despite setbacks, they rise to the occasion and never settle.
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