What’s it like to pitch your dream on Shark Tank, get rejected on national TV in front of 8 million people — and then turn that failure into a company Amazon later buys for more than $1 billion? Ring founder Jamie Siminoff did just that.
A serial inventor and entrepreneur, Siminoff joins us on this episode of the GeekWire Podcast to talk about his new book, Ding Dong: How Ring Went from Shark Tank Reject to Everyone’s Front Door (out Nov. 10), sharing the messy, high-stakes, and ultimately inspiring story behind the company.
Now back at Amazon as a vice president leading Ring and the company’s home-security businesses, Siminoff reflects on failure, reinvention, and what comes next in the age of AI.
Listen below, subscribe on Apple or Spotify, and keep reading for highlights.
What he learned writing the book: The book was almost therapeutic — just going back and looking at this stuff. … My best traits, my most powerful traits, the things that make me successful, are also the worst ones.
The importance of having a bigger mission: At Ring, if we had failed, I could still sit here today and say “We tried to make neighborhoods safer.” At least we were successful at trying something. And so that’s where I think mission is just so powerful.
Establishing a company culture with a strong point of view: A real culture is something that not everyone feels matches them … Two things can coexist at the same time: You can have a ton of empathy and care about people and also be a hard-charger.
The inventor’s mindset: Invention is not just product. Invention’s everything. It’s the process. And I think you can invent everywhere. … If you boil down what an inventor is, anything I see that’s broken, I’m fixing it. I can’t help myself.
Returning to Amazon: The thing that you get from leaving and coming back is the clarity of everything. I got to really see clearly everything we did, what we did wrong, what we did right. And so coming back, I feel like I have a newfound clarity for the business.
The impact of AI: What’s crazy now is with AI, all those timelines are collapsing on themselves. In the next 12 months, I can’t even imagine what we’re going to be able to accomplish. … AI understands more like a human, [which] allows you to do things that are just completely different and more efficient.
Related links and stories
- Pre-order the book on Amazon.
- GeekWire: Ring founder Jamie Siminoff rejoins Amazon in new VP role
- Business Insider: Amazon VP says his division is hiring and promoting based on employees’ AI usage
- Inc.: The tech founder who wants to fix small-town America
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