A Simple And Effective Lesson From Jeff Bezos In His Latest Shareholder Letter: Creating Value

Perhaps one of the most important shareholder letters written by Jeff Bezos over the years was his 1997 article. In this letter, Bezos says, "The key measure of our long-term success will be the stakeholder value we create." It was this belief that guided Bezos' decisions over the past 24 years, and he has been sending that letter as an appendix to every shareholder letter he has written since then.

With few days left as Amazon CEO, Bezos has published his final shareholder letter!

The letter received praise from various segments of society for its series of in-depth lectures. A letter definitely worth reading, as CNBC's Andrew Ross Sorkin suggests. Here are two extremely simple lessons! While they may not be fully visible from the surface, I believe they are inextricably linked and worth exploring together.

First lesson

Bezos says, "The purpose of every effort should be to create value for the people you interact with." This is both a simple statement and a lofty goal. The reason it is simple is that, after all, every business has to have a goal. And the blending of this goal with the effort to create value for customers, employees and shareholders shows the greatness of the idea. Still, many companies may overlook this simple concept because it seems rather complicated to emerge. Take, for example, Bezos' thoughts on job responsibility for Amazon employees. The company has become the focal point of criticism over the harsh working conditions of its employees, particularly when drivers complained that they had to use plastic bottles for their toilet needs. Although Bezos has overcome the pressure of distribution center workers in Bessemer, Alabama, to unionize, in his letter, he said, "Despite what we've accomplished, it's clear that we need a vision of the success of our employees and the value we will create for them. We will be the best employer and safest company in the world." A business needs one million moving parts to run successfully at the size of Amazon. Considering that Amazon has more than a million employees, it is a million times a day value change observation at an individual level that is difficult to track.

This brings us to the second and perhaps most important lesson of Bezos' letter.

Second lesson

Final shareholder letter of Jeff Bezos, "This is my last annual shareholder letter to you as the CEO of Amazon. There is one very important last thing I feel compelled to teach. I hope all Amazon stakeholders take this seriously ... We all know how valuable distinctiveness is. And we all grew up with the teaching "be yourself". What I really want you to do is embrace your originality and be realistic about how much energy it takes to maintain that difference. The world wants you to be ordinary in a thousand different ways, and it attracts you to that. Never let that happen. "

This is an incredible and correct approach.

"The world wants you to be ordinary." When Bezos tells people about his plan to sell books online to start Amazon, the question he most often gets was "What is the Internet?" There are already many ways to sell books in the world. (in stores, shelves)

Why not continue like this?

Because Jeff Bezos had a different opinion. It would take advantage of internet access for the tremendous value it will create for customers. Bezos said, "We always wanted to be the World's Most Customer Centric Company. We will not change that. This is what brings us here" In his 1997 shareholder letter, Pioneer Ceo talks about his obsession with customer focus. Creating value for customers has long been one of Amazon's most important values, and one of the reasons why so many people are so dominant in their lives. There were so many ways that it would be easier to take the ordinary course, but today's Amazon value turned out that customer-centric understanding is a very good idea. At the time of this writing, Amazon has created an extraordinary value with a market value of $ 1.7 trillion. According to Bezos, this hasn't been easy! Bezos said, "The world will always try to make us more ordinary in order to balance Amazon with our environment. It will take constant effort, but we can and should be better than that."   Jeff Bezos   Source: https://www.inc.com/ You may also be interested in: Unusual Habit of Warren Buffett That Is Going On For 75 Years!