Renewed Respect for Jeff Bezos
I've never not respected Amazon's founder. He's obviously fairly smart. Today was the first time that I actually sat down to watch a recent TV interview he did here. From watching this interview and other things I have noticed over the years (and via Jeff's blog), here are a few qualities that really stand out:
- Bezos takes a long term view of things. His endeavors are rarely for quick wins. He'll take losses up front (i.e. Kindle Fire) for long-term gains down the road.
- He has a customer first mentality. In his interview he notes wanting to avoid putting customers on a vicious product upgrade cycle. The way Amazon has set up Kindle products, if you aren't using their products, they aren't making money. He gets pride in seeing a five-year-old Kindle product being used in the wild.
- He asks the right questions. Bezos doesn't try to chase every new thing. He looks for constants and builds a business model based on them.
- On the surface, he seems fairly humble, which I respect.
Check out the interview via ABC here below. I liked it. You probably will too.