STEVE AND KAREN ANDERSON | 14 Principles That Made Jeff Bezos A Billionaire
When I first heard about Jeff's Podcast, I thought it was a scam. I had never used an audio-only podcast before so naturally, my initial reaction was skepticism. However, after doing some research on the company and its founder Jeff Lerner's success in his own business ventures as well as his ability to market other people's products for them through this program -I decided to give it a try myself. After all what could go wrong? It turned out that there wasn't anything wrong with this program at all!
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Today’s interview for Millionaire Secrets is with Steve & Karen Anderson - authors of the bestselling book: "The Bezos Letters: 14 Principles To Grow Your Business Like Amazon".
I found this whole discussion totally fascinating and I could literally talk for hours-upon-hours with Steve and Karen about the inner-working of Jeff Bezos’s mind.
He’s one of those rare individuals that not only dreams big - but then truly holds the belief that those dreams are possible.
And then takes the necessary action to make them happen.
From listening to Steve & Karen today, we learn that Jeff Bezos has some unwavering and overarching principles. Rules that he’s used to guide himself through every decision (from big to small) in the growth of Amazon.
It’s about building a culture where every individual is believing in the same high-moral standards.
That’s why I loved this chat so much.
I resonate with it because it’s exactly what I try to do here at ENTRE also!
And what’s super-exciting - all of these learnings are applicable to your business too.
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📘 The Bezos Letters: 14 Principles to Grow Your Business Like Amazon
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Thank you for this info on Jeff Bezos. I think everything I have I been questioning is finally starting to click. Keep inspiring to make millions for real people who want it! Especially for there children and grandbabies.
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Awesome insight from Steve and Karen 💯. Interesting dynamic having a couple interviewed together. I remember when Amazon started and I thought that it wouldn't last. Boy was I wrong 🤣! Thanks for this one Jeff! #entrenation
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Thanks Jeff for sharing . Steve and Karen are interesting and very inspiring!
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I love this story- Bezos is inspiring!!
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Great insight.!!! Thanks Steve & Karen
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I truly hope you do write The Risk Dilemma!!!!!!!!!!
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And the Andersons are a very beautiful couple. I hope my wife and I will be the same. We are only about to hit the 34th anniversary mark.
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KAREN ANDERSON
The Bezos Letters: 14 Principles to Grow Your Business like Amazon
Audible Audiobook – Unabridged
Steve Anderson (Author, Narrator), Karen Anderson (Author), Morgan James Publishing (Publisher)
4.6 out of 5 stars
Amazon is the fastest-growing company ever to surpass $100 billion in sales and they weren't able to reach this milestone simply by staying within their familiar territory. It was the risk-taking that allowed expansion at Amazon However, the risks involved were (and remain) carefully planned, calculated and strategically.
Thomas Edison believed: "I have not failed. I've found 10,000 possibilities which don't be successful." Similar to Edison Jeff Bezos, Amazon's founder Jeff Bezos has also linked the failures and experiments to the growth of his company and its success.
However "risk-taking" can be costly (even devastating) when you don't know how to utilize this to gain. Fortunately, Bezos has provided every business owner a hidden-in-plain-sight road map for how he grew Amazon through his letters to shareholders (or as he named them, "shareowners") that he has written annually for the past 20 years.
First time in history, risk and technology specialist Steve Anderson has analyzed and extracted the letters in order to expose fundamental 14 growth principles that help you understand the lessons, mental state and strategies Bezos has taken to make Amazon the enormous business it's today.
Business owners and leaders, CEOs, employees and managers can use the same principles to expand their businesses to be more efficient successful, efficient and successful...fast!
The Secrets of the Wealthiest Entrepreneur in the World
Reviewed in the United States on August 2, 2019
Jeff Bezos is the wealthiest entrepreneur in the world, today and throughout all of history. Wouldn't you like to pick his brain? See the world how he sees it, and rethink your own approach to business based on Amazon's success?
Here I am writing this review on amazon.com, and you're reading this only because Jeff set out to create the "Earth's Biggest Bookstore" in 1994. His success has allowed him to invest in Twitter early on, start a space travel company, and buy Whole Foods for nearly $14 billion in cash!
Jeff has been documenting his business philosophy for two decades, but it's been buried in investor reports that most people don't read. What Steve has done, in this book, is brilliantly surface the 14 growth principles that show up again and again as repeated patterns of breakthrough strategy Jeff Bezos has used to succeed.
This may very well be the equivalent of an MBA or year-long coaching program, which would cost tens of thousands of dollars. Instead, you get this information for the price of one lunch!
18 people found this helpful
Great insights about building a high growth business
Reviewed in the United States on January 11, 2020
At first when I heard about this book, I thought - “really, you can divine business strategy recommendations from shareholders’ letters?” It was kind of a strange thought for me because I did a college paper where I analyzed the themes in IBM’s 100 years of shareholders’ letters. But, they were written by a whole lot of different people, rather than a single CEO. One of my favorite ideas is the last principle - Make every day, Day 1. Noticing that Amazon refers back to their first letter is a keen insight about closing the loop.
There are 3 aspects that make this book a mandatory read for business people. #1 - The 14 principles have lots of support from academic research. The author has done an excellent job of organizing these, giving examples, and even identifying weaknesses in how Amazon is moving forward/has been unsuccessful over time.
#2 - The end of chapter questions make it easy to apply the 14 principles to any business.
#3 - It is so easy to read. Complex ideas are made simple. It flows well. The stories had flavor. And, you realize there are secrets embedded (like the 6-page memo narrative).
So much of business success comes from balancing risk and uncertainty. This book really highlights and explains the risk side of business decision making. It would be nice to see some discussion of uncertainty, risk’s twin.
7 people found this helpful
Already seeing positive change
Reviewed in the United States on August 4, 2019
This book is a roadmap of how Amazon grew into the company it is today. If you want to model anything Amazon does, read this book and start implementing the 14 principles.
Each principle introduced is very well thought out and backed up by what Bezos says in the shareholder letters and also by examples. I’ve been an Amazon customer since it’s early days and it was fun to read all the stories of the successes and failures. I remember when Amazon tried to compete with eBay... that did not work but it turned out to be the basis of another platform that is working very well today and I didn’t know that until I read the book!
It’s also great that each chapter ends with a set of questions that allow deeper thought and prompts action around that principle. Some of them are simple... like the way Bezos encourages disagreement but commitment (explained in principle seven). I’ve already implemented that and I’m seeing positive change. Some are more complex and will take more time to implement.
I’m excited to see more change in my company happening because of the action I’m taking after reading this book.
Definitely pick it up this book and read it. Even if you just implement one strategy, your company will improve!
7 people found this helpful
What if Risk Actually Drives Business Growth?
Reviewed in the United States on August 1, 2019
Compelling, insight-filled, and mindset-shifting. The growth principles the authors have gleaned from reviewing the Jeff Bezos letter a unique perspective on the growth of the company, but wait......there's more...they skillfully reveal how they can apply to any business regardless of size by flipping the perspective on how risk should be viewed — delivering a compelling case that the risk mindset that has driven Amazon's success is very different from that of most business leaders.
That insight alone is powerful, but it is far from the only one you'll find yourself wishing you hadn't waited so long to learn. The 6-Page memo is my favorite — it's a game changer for any business willing to commit to the process, as are many of the other ideas revealed in the 14 growth principles.
BOTTOM LINE: If you're serious about growing your business this book is a MUST READ. If you want to stay abreast of the best thinking in business, this book is a MUST READ. If you simply wonder about the path that has created the Amazon of today (and is busy creating the one we'll see tomorrow), this book is a MUST READ.
4 people found this helpful
A formula for finding future fortunes in business!
Reviewed in the United States on August 2, 2019
Jeff Bezos took Amazon from an idea to one of the largest companies in the world with the public watching. And every year, he released a letter to Amazon's shareholders detailing what went well, what didn't go so well, and more. While interesting on their face, the letters become extremely useful when you read between the lines and study what was actually happening at Amazon when each letter was released, like Steve Anderson did to spot 14 growth principles that helped Amazon grow into what it is today.
It's not every day that you can get a look behind the curtains at one of the most successful business builders in the world. The 14 growth principles identified by Steve Anderson can help any business grow.
2 people found this helpful
Anderson's 14 Growth Principals are worth building an organization and culture around.
Reviewed in the United States on January 16, 2020
Believe it's always DAY 1.
"Day 2 is stasis. Followed by irrelevance. Followed by excruciating, painful decline. Followed by death. And THAT is why it's ALWAYS Day 1."
-Jeff Bezos, 2016 letter to Shareowners
One of countless gems in, "The Bezos Letters," by Steve Anderson.
The book is phenomenal (I've purchased 3 more copies for our leadership team. I'm not giving away mine!).
It's ALWAYS "Day 1."
This is Anderson Growth Principal #14.
And a reference Bezos makes EVERY year in his shareowner letters, dating back to his original 1997 letter where he writes, "It remains Day 1."
Bezos' belief, philosophy, and way of operating -- that it's always Day 1 --
...encapsulate so much about how & why Amazon has grown & made the decisions they have over the last 20+ years.
This "Day 1 Mindset" could not resonate with me more.
The book goes into a lot more detail, of course, and all 14 of Anderson's Growth Principals are foundational.
I believe the Anderson Growth Principals are worth building an organization and culture around.
I definitely recommend adding it to your reading list in 2020.
INCREDIBLY insightful and a game changer to grow my business!
Reviewed in the United States on August 1, 2019
The Bezos Letters is a phenomenal and insightful book that will greatly help me grow my own business in a way that profitable and wise. Not only did I gain incredible insights from the most profitable company on the planet, but it was easy and enjoyable to read. It was not a dry business book but a book that kept me engaged to learn more. I am grateful for how Steve Anderson and Karen Anderson clearly layout these 14 principles so I can use them with my business. I am excited to start utilizing them. I highly recommend everyone to get this book to improve your own leadership but to also glean from the best in the business. It is a game-changer!
3 people found this helpful
Reviewed in the United States on March 24, 2020
No book goes deeper into the mind of Jeff Bezos on how he created the most innovative and customer focused company of our time. Steve and Karen Anderson dissect every letter to break down steps that any company can implement to build a culture like Amazon. The book finishes with Bezos 2018 letter where he shares how Amazon has been Imagining the Impossible. With Bezos Letters, the tools were given on how to make the impossible practical.
This book will now become our next Book Club book for my team as a tool to inspire innovation, speed of decision making and even greater customer obsession. Ideas that stood out for me: betting little on big ideas, becoming the best place in the world to fail, the 70% rule to innovation, Type 1 vs Type 2 decisions and the Amazon hiring process to building higher standards in the workplace.
One of the key growth principles laid out in the book is to "make the complexity simple." Steve and Karen Anderson did just that in this book. What Amazon has done in every sector of their business is aboslutely remarkable, but this book has broken it down into practical action steps that can be implemented today. To be successful, every company needs to test and experiment like Amazon. As Steve and Karen share “Businesses don’t have the same amount of time today than they did, even a few years ago, to evaluate the risks and opportunities they face because not doing something is a bigger risk than doing something.”
"Bezos plays to learn," and every leader and company should do the same, starting with this book.
So much more than a book... really a “Trillion Dollar Business Blueprint”
Reviewed in the United States on August 7, 2019
The Bezos Letters is so much more than a book. It’s a “Trillion Dollar Blueprint” you can follow to start, grow and scale any business. Steve and Karen Anderson brilliantly frame out the letters into 4 “Growth Cycles” – test, build, accelerate and scale – and 14 “Growth Principles.”
They take us on a private behind the scenes journey of Amazon’s unprecedented success and shine a light on these trillion dollar principles that are “hidden in plain sight.”
The authors skillfully lay out the book so that each principle stands alone as its own chapter. You don’t have to read this linearly or sequentially. You don’t even have to finish the book… although you are cheating yourself if you don’t.
You can pick any Principle, read that chapter and apply it to your business… right now. Then come back for another.
What’s great is you get all the meat up front. Anderson highlights each of the 14 growth principles in Bezos’ original 1997 letter to shareholders. He provides thorough examples of how companies apply each of the principles.
His instructions about how to get the most from this book are so good they could stand alone as Principle 15. There’s even a simple info-graphic to follow.
He makes a key distinction between measuring traditional ROI and what he calls ROR - Return on Risk! This one insight is priceless. The nuggets in this book are too numerous to count.
If you divide Amazon’s $1 trillion valuation by 14 you get $71,428,571,428. I’m not suggesting each principle is worth $71 billion.
I am suggesting that if you integrate any one principle and it generates a fraction of what it has been worth to Amazon, it can fundamentally transform your business and enrich your life.
I would not be surprised if Anderson’s principles in The Bezos Letters impact the business world as Deming and Kaizen did. This will ignite a new wave of entrepreneurs eager to follow and implement these principles.
Read the Bezos Letters if you’re in business, want to start one or you simply want to learn the principles he used to build the worlds biggest marketplace. This book will deepen your business acumen and up your game.
Just don’t read this passively. Devour it. Deconstruct it. Highlight it and take notes. Then design or redesign your business using one or more of these principles as your new “Day 1!”
As they say all you need is one good strategy and tactic to change your game. The Bezos Letters provides 14 opportunities to find your one.
Disclosure: Steve and Karen Anderson are friends and colleagues for 30 years. I know the depth and strength of their work. That might bias me. It’s doesn’t alter or influence my review of this book. I’d be writing the same words if I didn’t know them.
Don’t take my word for it. Read this book and discover for yourself.
Mitch Axelrod
Author - The NEW Game of Selling™
One person found this helpful
Excellent Resource for Business Leaders and Students
Reviewed in the United States on October 7, 2019
This book would make a perfect case study for business school students. The book is eminently readable and full of insights that will be helpful to any business leader. I love the way it lays out Bezos's Leadership Principles and flywheel to generate growth, and then shows how each of the innovations Amazon is famous for relates to these principles. I also found the references to how the space program employed the principle of "successful failure" highly interesting and how Amazon has employed this same principle. Amazon's approaches to meetings and expedited decisionmaking are also terrific ideas that every business could benefit from. Anderson has produced a highly informative book by carefully reviewing each of Amazon's annual reports, distilling Bezos's business principles from those reports and then showing how Bezos employed those principles to create one of the most successful American companies in our history. I highly recommend this book.
One person found this helpful
The authors have done the hard work. Now you just need to read.
Reviewed in the United States on September 17, 2019
The letters that Bezos personally wrote each year over the last 20 plus years to the stockholders of Amazon are fascinating reads in themselves. What this book does is take them from an interesting read to actionable concepts that any business can put into practice. My personal favorite section is the Growth Cycle: Build (obsess over customers, apply long term thinking, understand your flywheel). “Working backwards from customer needs often demands that we acquire new competencies and exercise new muscles, never mind how uncomfortable and awkward-feeling those first steps might be.” is a great reminder no matter how long you have been in business. Steve and Karen have invested the time to extract important concepts that any business can apply. They’ve done the hard work - now you can reap the benefits by just reading the book.
One person found this helpful
Essential Reading for Anyone in Business
Reviewed in the United States on April 7, 2020
This book is a game changer for everyone from employees just starting at a company, to executives needing a fresh perspective, to entrepreneurs facing the day-to-day and long term challenges of running a business. The 14 core principles outlined in this book serve as guideposts to running an innovative, growth-oriented, and successful company. The pacing of this book and the writing are on point. Easy to read and highly impactful at the same time. Highly recommended.
Not just for a billion dollar biz
Reviewed in the United States on April 8, 2020
I was actually a bit dismissive that this book would matter for me and my small business. After all, Bezos has a multi-billion dollar biz. It has a scale I will never see. And it is in a whole different business type.
And I was wrong. Entirely wrong. Every single chapter and every lesson applied to me and my business. I’m still going through it to get all the lessons for my business. Very rich.
Oh, and super-well written, too, so enjoyable to read. FYI, I got the Kindle version and immediately grabbed the print edition.
Best business insights and analysis
Reviewed in the United States on May 26, 2021
I thoroughly enjoyed the author’s approach to appreciating and digging through over 20 years of Amazon.com annual share owners letters to understand and express the company’s business principals devised by Jeff Bezos.
Well organized, well written and an enjoyable to read.
What makes businesses successful long term? Read about it here.
Years of Information in one book
Reviewed in the United States on August 3, 2019
Steve Anderson has done all of us a favor in the Bezos Letters. He took letters Bezos wrote to shareholders (letters I never would have read myself) and pulled out the relevant information. Doing so, he discovered the secrets behind the strategy that has made Amazon so successful. The Bezos Letters is a must-read for anyone in business.
It's Like Having Bezos as Your Personal Business Coach
Reviewed in the United States on January 4, 2020
This is a profound book that has changed my understanding and mindset about risk and leadership in a fundamental way. It's like having Jeff Bezos as your personal business coach... or even better because the authors have taken what Bezos has intuitively done to build an empire and broken it down into a simple, easy to understand, set of principles.
One person found this helpful
Reviewed in the United States on January 8, 2020
Geez, this guys story is exciting. He encourages taking risks. What is known as successful failures. OMG this corner stone of doing business is like no other I've ever heard about. He's well ahead of his time. The people who caused the biggest failures in his company were certainly not fired because it was part of the culture. In fact most of the failures led to huge successes which is why he encourages people to try new things & take risks. It's the difference between being educated at a Montessori School where everyone is encouraged to learn what they want at their own speed no matter their age & help all others around them, & the crap we call public indoctrination ooops & meant education.
Years of Bezos thinking in one place by an independent observer
Reviewed in the United States on August 6, 2019
Grow like Amazon! Really? Yes. Maybe not to $200+ billion, but "like" Amazon through this synthesis of 14 principles applied through four cycles - Test, Build, Accelerate, Scale. It is that simple and that difficult. Steve Anderson culls the principles that Bezos has used to grow Amazon and provides readers insight into that world. It's not a read-and-done book. It's a guide book for executing well in any organization . . . and growing like Amazon! One nugget: "What if the biggest risk is actually not taking enough risk?"
One person found this helpful
Reviewed in the United States on May 7, 2020
This is great book and could apply to anyone , no matter what is his or her role in every industry. Customer obsession is the key for sure but how all the principles stated in the book are tightly integrated to it is very interested take away.
Bye the way I found interesting thing while using dictionary help so thought of sharing , see the screen shot attached :)
A Must Have for Anyone in Business
Reviewed in the United States on February 1, 2020
Steve Anderson does an amazing job pulling out the key takeaways from 20 years of Jeff Bezos‘ Letters to Shareholders.
He dissects them down to his 14 Growth Principles and divides them up into Cycles of Growth.
I love that he did the heavy lifting for me, I would never read all of those letters, and I know I wouldn’t have really pulled out those key takeaways that someone of his experience could have.
This book does a great job of making the complex simple with some really great examples of Amazon’s business practices, both failures and successes.
There is something in here anyone in business, from entrepreneurs to CEOs! Great job.