“We are working to build something important, something that matters to our customers, something that we can all tell our grandchildren about. Such things aren’t meant to be easy.” — Jeff Bezos
Here’s a story that should blow your mind…
In the early(ish) days of Amazon, Jeff Bezos set a team of his brightest engineers to work on developing their cloud computing platform, AWS.
These days, AWS is Amazon’s most profitable segment…
…And, hosts about a third of all websites on the internet today, directly or indirectly.
(that’s absurd)
Even EGT was hosted on AWS back in the day, when we were developing our own custom tech and paying a dev team 10k a month to maintain it — not a very bueno business decision, but that’s a story for another day.
Anyway, Bezos gives his team a six month timeline, then disappears.
Six months later, he reappears, sits down, and says show me what you got.
…This should be good, right?
Amazon’s (Amazon’s!) absolute best and brightest, locked in the lab for half a year doing nothing but cooking up magic.
So they present their work.
Jeff says nothing.
Stands up.
Walks to the whiteboard at the front of the room.
And sketches, in fine detail, exactly why their plan:
- Won’t work.
- Actually sucks.
- Actually really, really sucks and they should probably all find new jobs if he can do their job better than they can and he’s not even a practicing engineer.
In about five minutes.
Then walks out.
Six months of work from the best engineers on the planet, debunked and trashed by a dude who wasn’t even working on the project.
As we said yesterday:
Business is a game that is played with the mind.
And Bezos didn’t get to the top of that game because he learned a sneaky new hack that makes your videos go viral.
He got to the top of the game operating a mind that simply has more firepower than everyone else around him.
Which means he can go into any business and see through it like x-ray vision:
Spotting vulnerabilities and opportunities twelve steps in advance.
It’s an entrepreneurial superpower.
And, while Bezos was (most likely) born with this superpower, you can be damn sure he’s also refining his thinking processes on the daily…
Working to sharpen the blade of his mind to a fine edge that cuts through the heaviest problems the business world has to offer.
If you’re an up and coming entrepreneur, I strongly suggest you do the same.
– T
P.S. Here are three ways to do it:
- Watch (or re-watch) How To Master The Skill Of Thinking
- Or, better yet, watch the full 3-hour session “Precision Thinking” inside The Path.
- If you’re not a Path member, keep an eye out:
I’m about to re-open our membership for the first time in four months — announcement coming soon.
Stay tuned…
“Stress doesn’t come from hard work. Stress comes from not taking action over something you have control over.” – Jeff Bezos
