Jeff Bezos has founded two of the most successful companies of the last decade: Amazon and Blue Origin. His path to success was not only promoted by his leadership skills and his vision of the future, but also for seven fears that marked each and every one of the decisions he has made in his business career.
These fears, far from being a weakness, became a force that motivated him to take risks, innovate and build an empire that has transformed various industries. Since its inception, Bezos knew how to face their fears and turn them into growth opportunities.
1. The fear of repentance
As Jeff Bezos himself told in his Princeton’s graduation speech, before founding Amazon, Jeff Bezos was a brilliant Wall Street analyst with a promising career. However, he abandoned the security and stability of a well -paid job to launch books online when no one did.
To overcome this fear, Bezos developed what he calls his “framework for regret minimization.” This approach helps him make decisions based on what would bring him more peace of mind in the future, even if he implies assuming risks in the present.
As he said in an interview in 2001, one of the main fears that defined Bezos’ life was the fear to reach the end of his life and regret not having tried something important. “I realized that I wouldn’t regret trying something important, even if I failed. I knew that would chase me every day.”
2. The fear of losing competitiveness
Bezos has always been very aware that success attracts competition, so it is necessary for companies to always remain at the forefront with a mentality that the millionaire called the “day 1” mentality in its famous letter of 1997 to Amazon investors.
This fear has led him to promote a culture of constant innovation within Amazon, always looking for one step forward. His obsession with the client and for continuously improving the services has kept him alert to the movements of his competitors to place one step ahead. “The second day is stagnation, followed by irrelevance, followed by an unbearable and painful decline, followed by death,” he said in his manifesto.
A clear example of this was the development of Amazon Prime, a service that revolutionized the expectations of consumers in rapid shipments and digital content. This strategy was born from the fear of being overcome by other technological companies that also sought to captivate the public.
3. The fear of garages
Directly related to the previous point. His “urgency” philosophy has driven him to act quickly in the design and development of new ambitious projects. For him, every moment counts, and inaction can be a more dangerous enemy than his own error.
Jeff Bezos claims not to be afraid of his great competitors who, guiding himself by trends, can more or less predict. His true fear comes from a garage. “I am more afraid of two kids in a garage, than the competitors I already know,” he said an interview.
The great ideas and products that have changed the technology of the last 40 years have not come out of huge hierarchical structures in multinationals, but have been the ideas of young people who have developed with hardly any resources, but with large amounts of commitment and innovation. As he himself did when founding Amazon from the garage of his house.
4. The fear of failure: CEO paranoia
Although he is one of the most successful businessmen in the world, Bezos is not immune to fear of failure. It is not the only one. CEOs and managers of successful companies such as Jensen Huang de Nvidia or Peter Beck of Rocket Lab have also confessed to feeling what is already known as “CEO paranoia”: an atrocious fear of failure and that their companies are ruined.
However, these managers see failure as an essential part of the innovation and growth process. They are aware that assuming risks means accepting that some ideas will not work, but also that these errors are opportunities to learn and improve. “I asked everyone here to wake up terrified every morning, with the sheets soaked in sweat,” said the millionaire Fortune.
5. Failure as a lesson for success
Despite being a successful millionaire, Jeff Bezos’ career has not been exempt from failures. However, instead of regretting them, he assumes them as part of a growth process.
In his letter to the 2015 shareholders, the millionaire said: “I think we are the best place in the world to fail (we have a lot of practice!), And the failure and the invention are inseparable twins. To invent you have to experience, and if you know in advance that it will work, it is not an experiment.” An example of that culture of innovation were Alexay Kindle, two disruptive products, which have finally been consolidated in their respective fields.
6. Fear of uncertain future
Jeff Bezos has always shown concern about the uncertainty of the future, both personal and global. This fear motivated him to found Blue Origin, his space exploration company, with the vision of finding solutions so that humanity can survive beyond the earth. “The land is finite and if the world economy and population will continue to expand, space is the only possible way,” he said Business Insider.
Bezos believes that humanity must be able to expand towards other planets to ensure their survival. As he said in the Lex Friedman podcast, this fear, far from being pessimistic, has become an engine to develop technologies that could change the fate of our species.
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Image | Wikimedia Commons.
