Today marks the one year anniversary of Jeff Bezos’ last day as the CEO of Amazon. To honor this anniversary, and Jeff’s incredible contributions, I’m publishing my narrations of his incredible annual letters: https://anchor.fm/jeffs-letters
The 1997 letter is now available on your favorite podcast player and I will be publishing 1998 next week. Search for ‘Jeff’s letters’ on your podcast player of choice.
The original letter is iconic for how much it lays out the principles for how Amazon will operate. Jeff goes out of his way to set expectations. He then reaffirms those expectations by referring to this letter in every subsequent annual update. In turn, it helped accomplish Jeff’s maxim of “You get the shareholders you ask for”. This letter definitely helped me learn to be very up front about how I operate and what I value.
Why do this narration?
We live in an incredible time where we get to see and learn from the world’s best on an incredible frequency. Whether it’s Jeff and Warren’s letters, Elon’s crazy twitter account, or even Simone Bile’s instagram posts.
Jeff’s letters in particular have been very impactful for me. I’ve learned a lot about decision making, narrative, goal setting, working backwards, hiring, finance, principled expectation setting, customer obsession, and much more from them.
It may seem like heresy to do a narration of Jeff’s letters, especially considering Amazon’s notorious “written” culture. However, many people just don’t learn that well from reading. Hence, a more accessible audio version!
My hope is to help more people discover the wonderful education it provides. And I get to practice more effective speaking. Win-win!
Here is the link to the narrated 1997, original, letter to shareowners: https://anchor.fm/jeffs-letters/episodes/1997-Letter---The-Original-e42s6e