try to listen to this speech: 22nd minute onwards
Every important thing we’ve ever done has often been misunderstood
Risk and innovation has often been misunderstood.
*****
Back then, this was crazy. The book publishers didn’t like this. Not all the reviews are positive.
Why don’t you just publish the positive reviews?
I thought about this. I don’t actually believe that. I don’t think we make money when we sell something. We make money when we help someone make a purchasing decision. Part of what they’re paying us for is to help them with a purchasing decision. Of course, its a good ecosystem because manufacturers learn from the feedback and improve.
The new and innovative quickly becomes the new normal. Do the right thing.
- Jeff Bezos
You don’t choose your passions. Your passions choose you.
You can have a job. You can have a career. You can have a calling. A lot of people end up with a job, if you’ve got a career you’re lucky. If you can get a calling, you’ve got the jackpot.
It’s not like I have a choice I have this passion. It’s captured me.
(34th minute)
It has to start with making rocket fuels productive. I was lucky in that in the last 20 years, most of the infrastructure have already been built. Credit cards built the infrastructure for payments. I didn’t have to build a transportation network. The heavy lifting was in place. I didnt have to put a computer mostly coz someone did it already and due to a lot of gamers. That’s why I could build what I could.
Two kids cannot build a giant space company in their dorm room because there’s no infrastructure yet in space. I want to create the hard part, the heavy lifting so that the future generation, trillions of people can build their giant space company someday. You won’t achieve the vision of a trillion humans in space and have a dynamic world without a big industry with thousands of companies. It starts with making vehicles more productive, that’s why we are starting with rocket fuels.
***(38th minute)
When we were in the farming convention of 1900s, we never thought in year 2018 there will be jobs like massage therapists, dog psychiatrics, dog sitters. A lot of the jobs today are new. Hence, I predict because of artificial intelligence’s ability to automate things, not only will we have a wealthier civilization, a higher fraction of people will have callings and careers relative to today.
re Washington post (42nd minute)
He cared more about the paper than himself. He finally convinced me that it was an important institution and he needed ecommerce. Democracy dies in darkness. The paper resides in Washington DC. I convinced myself that it wasn’t hopeless. It turned out very well. (It’s a lot of work, I dont mean to make it sound simple) . We’ve got a killer team at the Post but the big strategic change was flipping it from a local regional newspaper to a fantastic national global newspaper. The Internet took away so many gifts from news papers. The one gift Internet gave to almost free global distribution. We had to switch to small amount of money to a much larger number of readers.
44th minute (Who do you emulate)
I’ve been a big fan of Warren Buffett since I was in my twenties. I’ve been a big fan. CEOs I like are Jamie Dimon. If I were a big shareholder in JPMorgan Chase, I will just show up with pastries for Jamie (so you happy? you good?) coz I think he’s a terrific executive. Same thing for Disney (Bob Iger), I’ll bring him pastries. (Healthy pastries maybe). Outside I’ve had role models like my teachers in Riversbrook school. My grandfather was a gigantic force in my life. Starting age 4, I’ll be with my grandparents (to give my parents some time). I’ll spend summers with my grandparents in the Ranch. 4 year old boy in South Texas is not a lot of help but I didn’t know that so I thought I was helping. By the time I was 16, I can suit a cow. I can fix windmills. My grandfather was so resourceful and make his own veterinary needles. I watched him how resourceful he was. He never had a repairman.
