1. Jeff Bezos wants to conquer space
Blue Origin, a human space flight start-up founded by Jeff Bezos in September 2000 has only one goal: conquer space. It will do that by building and developing hotels and amusement parks for humans outside Earth. This has been the billionaire's ultimate dream since he finished school at University of Florida, and Blue Origin was the only way to make it happen. In his graduation speech, he said that he wants to see earth turned into a planetary national park as mankind colonises space.
2. He is brilliant, but cold-blooded
Jeff Bezos is quantitative and data driven. Journalist Alan Deutschman described him as talking in lists and enumerating criterion in order of importance for every decision he has made. According to journalist Brad Stone, Bezos is also hyper-competitive, and is notoriously opportunistic at conducting operations with little concern for obstacles. Because of this, he was called out as the "World's Worst Boss" by the ITUC or International Trade Union Confederation. Although this is the opinion of one third party trade community, Harvard Business Review ranks Jeff Bezos as the "Best performing CEO" for four years in a row in 2019.
3. The Two-Pizza Rule
When it comes to meetings, Jeff Bezos does not like early morning conferences. He also enforces a "Two Pizza Rule" which means gatherings should be small enough for two pizzas to feed everyone in the room. He also meets with Amazon investors for a total of only six hours per year and instead of using presentation slides, he requires his high level employees to present ideas and information limited to six page narratives. The Amazon founder believes that meetings should only be held in small groups, to avoid waste of time and to maintain efficiency.
4. Bezos is a real-life Supervillain
Because of the tech billionaire's cold-blooded approach and hyper-competitiveness, Sharon Burrow, Secretary-General of ITUC commented that Jeff Bezos represents the inhumanity of employers who are promoting the American corporate model. After hearing this remark, Jeff Bezos doubled down instead, on his aggressive image. The man that was once geeky, nerdy and prudent, who drove a 1996 Honda Accord had disappeared and has been replaced with a Supervillain. Parodies have also sprung up and presented the uncanny similarity of Jeff Bezos' laugh to that of Dr. Evil's from the movie Austin Powers.
5. He retrieved Apollo 11 parts from the bottom of the ocean
In 2015, Bezos funded the retrieval of F1-engine parts of the Apollo 11 from the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. Back in 69, F-1 engines powered the Saturn V rocket that carried Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins on the Apollo 11 mission to the moon. At an altitude of about 38 miles, the first stage of the spacecraft, including the engines, separated and were considered destroyed or lost forever. Like Elon Musk, Bezos has been on a mission of building reusable rockets that will take man into orbit, through his space company - Blue Origin.
6. He is a Trekkie
A Trekkie is someone who is a big fan of the Stark Trek franchise, or other television series or films within that franchise. Bezos is undoubtedly a huge fan of Star Trek and once asked Paramount Pictures to be part of the movie Star Trek Beyond. He was given the role of an alien Starfleet official who assisted a rescued space farer, and was completely unrecognizable. At the Pathfinder Awards Banquet in Seattle, Bezos told Star Trek fans that they'll have to watch very carefully and not blink, otherwise they'll miss his cameo appearance.
7. He worked at McDonalds
Before creating Amazon, a 16-year old Jeff Bezos used to work at McDonald's. Born as Jeffrey Preston Jorgenson in New Mexico on January 12, 1964, he was eventually renamed as Jeffrey Bezos when his parents got divorced and his mother remarried to a Cuban immigrant. Life was hard for the young Jeff, and helped his mother make ends meet by working part-time at McDonald's as a line cook while attending High school at the University of Florida. Apparently, he could only get a job as a cook because of his bad acne and was told to stay away from customers.
8. He wants an empty chair in every meeting
For Jeff Bezos, a customer is an omnipresent being who should be prioritized above everything else. This obsessive focus on customer service is what propelled Amazon to it's success in the 90s. In Amazon meetings, Bezos tells his employees to put an empty chair in the middle of the room, and imagine a sitting customer. This is to remind his employees that in these gatherings, everyone should always think of the buying customer and how to make experience better for them.
9. Amazon had only a 30% success rate
Being able to take risks and not mind failure is a hallmark for most successful people. When Jeff Bezos took Amazon public in 1995, he warned early investors that his company has a 70% chance of failure or bankruptcy. For several years, Amazon did lose a lot of money but every year it did have a customer increase to as many as 888,000. Because of this trend, Amazon's market share grew exponentially, which made investors buy more stocks.
10. The Bezos Principle
Journalist Walt Mossberg dubbed the idea that someone who can't tolerate criticism or critique shouldn't do anything new or interesting, and called it "The Bezos Principle." The journey that Jeff Bezos took to make Amazon the multi-billion dollar empire that it is today, was riddled with hardships and difficulties. When Bezos told his mother that he had quit his job to sell books online, she was incredulous and tried to convince him to look for another job and sell books at night or at weekends. Despite his mother's disapproval, Jeff Bezos was determined to do this because he saw the value and potential of the internet at that time.
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