Jeff Bezos’ Annual Letter
sec.gov
Jeff Bezos’ Annual Letter
1–10 of 272 posts
Re: Jeff Bezos’ Annual Letter
#2"A common example is process as proxy. Good process serves you so you can serve customers. But if you’re not watchful, the process can become the thing. This can happen very easily in large organizations. The process becomes the proxy for the result you want. You stop looking at outcomes and just make sure you’re doing the process right. Gulp."
Seems like this is exactly the kind of issue companies like United Airlines suffer from.
Re: Jeff Bezos’ Annual Letter
#3"A common example is process as proxy. Good process serves you so you can serve customers. But if you’re not watchful, the process can become the thing. This can happen very easily in large organizations. The process becomes the proxy for the result you want. You stop looking at outcomes and just make sure you’re doing the process right. Gulp." Seems like this is exactly the kind of issue companies like United Airlin…
Amazon is guilty of this, not so much with customers, but with partners/sellers.
Re: Jeff Bezos’ Annual Letter
#4"A common example is process as proxy. Good process serves you so you can serve customers. But if you’re not watchful, the process can become the thing. This can happen very easily in large organizations. The process becomes the proxy for the result you want. You stop looking at outcomes and just make sure you’re doing the process right. Gulp." Seems like this is exactly the kind of issue companies like United Airlin…
> It’s not that rare to hear a junior leader defend a bad outcome with something like, “Well, we followed the process.” - Bezos
> We sought volunteers and then followed our involuntary denial of boarding process - Munoz
Ouch
Re: Jeff Bezos’ Annual Letter
#5I particularly like the concept of 'Day 1'.
No matter what stage you are in as a business or individual, it is still day 1 for rest of your life. Taking long term view , keeping where you want to go in focus is really important.
Re: Jeff Bezos’ Annual Letter
#6Earlier thread about the letter https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14103818
Re: Jeff Bezos’ Annual Letter
#7I often say that we don't need to agree, just commit together. I particularly like disagree and commit better. It seems like it would shorten time to decision as long as no one takes it personally.
Re: Jeff Bezos’ Annual Letter
#8I particularly like the concept of 'Day 1'. No matter what stage you are in as a business or individual, it is still day 1 for rest of your life. Taking long term view , keeping where you want to go in focus is really important.
I always thought "it's day one" sounded like something a man says to his wife after he's been caught having an affair.
Re: Jeff Bezos’ Annual Letter
#9Does this come across as oddly inconsistent to anyone else?
"These big trends are not that hard to spot (they get talked and written about a lot), but they can be strangely hard for large organizations to embrace. We’re in the middle of an obvious one right now: machine learning and artificial intelligence."
"Another example: market research and customer surveys can become proxies for customers – something that’s especially dangerous when you’re inventing and designing products. 'Fifty-five percent of beta testers report being satisfied with this feature. That is up from 47% in the first survey.' That’s hard to interpret and could unintentionally mislead."
What about ML as a proxy for customers?
Re: Jeff Bezos’ Annual Letter
#10"A common example is process as proxy. Good process serves you so you can serve customers. But if you’re not watchful, the process can become the thing. This can happen very easily in large organizations. The process becomes the proxy for the result you want. You stop looking at outcomes and just make sure you’re doing the process right. Gulp." Seems like this is exactly the kind of issue companies like United Airlin…
This is how I feel about our democratic process. The process is you pick one of two parties. Then you get into a face bloodying fight with the other party. Nothing gets done, then you pat yourself on the back for doing your part. When you come to the realization that nothing has been accomplished, you blame those who didn't participate in the brawl. Suggesting that people work ON the process rather than IN the process will get you looks as if you've just insulted their religion.