The Secret To Building a (long-lasting) Business

Nugget from Jeff Bezos

Mar 01, 2024

Hey Friend!

Today’s insight comes from one of my favorite interviews with Jeff Bezos (with Werner Vogels), and it resonated with me so much!

I hope you will too find it valuable :)

👤 Author

💡Nugget

🟠 Jeff Bezos
Video → Fireside Chat with Jeff Bezos and Werner Vogels
I very frequently get the question: “What's gonna change in the next 10 years?” And that’s an interesting question, it's a very common one.
[But] I almost never get the question: “What's not going to change in the next 10 years?”
And I submit to you that that second question it's actually the more important of the two… Because you can build a business strategy around the things that are stable in time.
In our retail business we know the customers want:
Low prices.
Fast delivery.
Vast selection.
It's impossible to imagine a future 10 years from now where a customer comes up to me and says:
“Jeff I love Amazon I just wish the prices were a little higher”
“I love Amazon I just wish you'd delivered a little more slowly”
Impossible!
And so the effort that we put into those things—spinning those things up—we know the energy we put into it today will still be paying dividends for our customers 10 years from now.

This is also the way that I see Content Creation. If I can create timeless content, then it will still be valuable for people 10 years from now! And if it's monetized, it creates a stream of passive income. 

Whereas if I were to create timely content (e.g./ News about any specific industry) I would essentially be trading my time for money, because there is no content longevity.

"A [Social Media] account that's talking about politics has to continue putting out political content because it goes stale almost the instant that it's out you know. All the news journalists who think they're building followings... they're not! They building fans as long as they continue to work -- so basically if you're building a following based on politics or journalism or timely things: you're renting out your time. You're getting a higher and higher hourly rate but you're still renting out your time. But if you're creating timeless content then you have compounding principles -- you're no longer renting your time, it's all leveraged."

- Naval Ravikant (Interview with Akira The Don)


"If you're creating content that is easily consumed but no longer relevant in a week, a month, even a year, then that content can't work for you when you're not working. But a lot of the stuff that you [Tim Ferriss] do on your blog, and definitely the stuff that we 
do on FS Blog is... it's always relevant. It's evergreen. We just re-aired that interview with Naval Ravikant, we recorded it six years ago... People thought it was recorded yesterday!"

- Shane Parrish (Source: The Tim Ferriss Podcast)

And so when you have something that you know is true… even over the long term, you can afford to put a lot of energy into it.
On AWS, the big ideas are also pretty straightforward. It's impossible for me to imagine that 10 years from now somebody is going to say:
“I love AWS I just wish it were a little less reliable.”
“I love AWS I just wish you would raise prices… it should be a little more expensive.”
“I love AWS and I wish you would innovate and improve the API at a slightly slower rate.”
None of those things you can imagine!
And so the big ideas in business are often very obvious but it's very hard to maintain a firm grasp of the obvious at all times.

“Take a simple idea, and take it seriously.” - Charlie Munger

But if you can do that and continue to spin up those flywheels and put energy into those things—as we're doing with AWS—over time you build a better and better service for your customers on the things that genuinely matter to them.

“The Corporation has to follow the service. The service does not follow the Corporation.” - Henry Ford

📁 All the ideas in this article are saved and classified in a searchable Database, which (as of July 2024) contains nearly 2,000 timeless ideas (sourced directly from the most influential doers and entrepreneurs — captured on books, interviews/podcasts and articles).

I call this Database the Doers Notebook, and I’ve recently opened it for anyone who wants it.

🤔 Why did I build this?

Well, as the Latin motto goes, “A chief part of learning is simply knowing where you can find a thing.” And since it’s all 🔎 searchable, we only need to type a keyword to immediately get a list of insights related to it!

For instance, if I’m unsure about how to get more sales in my business, I can simply type the word “sales” and immediately get 88 search results! In this case from Jim Edwards, Peter Thiel, Naval Ravikant, Paul Graham, Sam Altman, Balaji Srinivasan, Nassim Taleb, and many other remarkable individuals.

It’s like having a 🧠 second brain from which we can pull wisdom on demand.

And this is super valuable because it can significantly decrease the error rate in our judgment.

“In an age of infinite leverage [code and media], judgment is the most important skill.”
- Naval Ravikant

I actually made a video where I went through the list of insights I got for the keywords “sales” and “creative”.

So, if you wanna get better at sales and learn to be more creative (and also see all the features of the database and how you can get access) then definitely check out the video 👇

💥 Stuff I Loved

✍️ Essay

I recently wrote an essay on the differences between Correlation and Causation, and why we tend to think that Correlation entails Causation even when we are consciously aware of the difference (grounded in the work of Daniel Kahneman and Nassim Taleb).

Correlation vs. Causation: The Danger of Misinterpreting Them → Click here to read the full essay

I received great inspiration and editing help from Brian David Crane 🙏🏻(https://www.briandavidcrane.com/)

Contrast between Correlation and Causation

Wishing you a great weekend :)

Julio xx

P.S. If you liked this article, you'll definitely enjoy my free 80-page ebook. It’s packed with 23 big ideas (from top influential doers and entrepreneurs) to become better, richer and wiser. Download your copy here!