Jeff Bezos' 20th Annual Stockholder Letter

I'm a fan of Jeff Bezos, after all if you use Amazon, what's not to like? A voice-based order that arrives in 2-hours? We live in the future!

His recent annual letter displays his leadership qualities of connecting the dots, while setting high standards not just for himself, but for everyone involved at Amazon - all 560,000 of them (and growing). In the letter, he mentions our position of being "divinely discontent." In other words, we're never pleased as a consumer - ever. Why? "Their expectations are never static – they go up. It’s human nature. We didn’t ascend from our hunter-gatherer days by being satisfied. People have a voracious appetite for a better way, and yesterday’s ‘wow’ quickly becomes today’s ‘ordinary’"

Think about the technology we have in our hands today - in a tap of a button, we could compare prices, information, anything to gain more knowledge in order to make the best-informed decision - whether it's simple purchases or more. His thought on how to stay ahead to meet the rising demands and expectations are common sense, but also incredibly wise: Set high standards. After all, shouldn't we expect better from ourselves?

High Standards have 4 sections:

• Intrinsic or Teachable: Are high standards intrinsic or teachable? ie "If you take me on your basketball team, you can teach me many things, but you can’t teach me to be taller."

• Universal or Domain Specific: Are high standards universal or domain specific? "if you have high standards in one area, do you automatically have high standards elsewhere?"

• Recognition and Scope: "What do you need to achieve high standards in a particular domain area? First, you have to be able to recognize what good looks like in that domain. Second, you must have realistic expectations for how hard it should be (how much work it will take) to achieve that result – the scope."

I found myself needing to adopt this structure and it only shows how well designed the memo is, which he talks about later, the six-page narratives.

What are your thoughts on High Standards? Do you apply it to yourself as well as others professionally? What about personally? Do you eat healthy, go to the gym, read books, check out the outdoors, be kind to others? What are you lacking that you can work on?

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1018724/000119312518121161/d456916dex991.htm