Jeff Bezos is a name synonymous with e-commerce giant Amazon. But that’s not all the world’s once-richest man has done. Before founding Amazon in 1994, he worked at a hedge fund, where he rose to become senior vice-president at the age of 30.
Given his success at running an ecommerce businesses, one through which independent businesses sold a record $4.8 billion during the holiday season, his letter of resignation as chief executive last week to to spend more time on other interests, such as space exploration, came as a shock to the business world.
Mr Bezos is a business tycoon that many entrepreneurs strive to emulate, but his business journey hasn't always been paved with roses, and he encountered a number of failures throughout his career. Shortly after its debut in 2014, Amazon’s Fire Phone spiralled downwards, costing Amazon $170 million in losses.
In an interview with Business Insider in 2014, Mr Bezos says he's suffered "billions of dollars of failures at Amazon".
As the business world reflects on Mr Bezos’s career at Amazon, I share key life lessons that entrepreneurs can learn from him.
Don’t get comfortable
Mr Bezos led what many would perceive as a comfortable life when he worked at a hedge fund. Had he stayed, his life would probably be filled with fewer financial failures and more predictability. But he didn’t succumb to that feeling and didn’t want to be filled with regret later in life.
“When you think about the things that you will regret when you’re 80, they’re almost always the things that you did not do. They’re acts of omission. Very rarely are you going to regret something that you did that failed,” he said. Think about how your life would change if you took risks or welcomed failure. Even though he endured multiple failures, that didn’t stop him from expanding Amazon and developing new services.
Take life one step at a time
When he started Amazon in 1994, did Mr Bezos envision that people would depend on it for groceries? Or that his e-commerce platform would be the business that many depended on during a pandemic? Maybe. He had an idea and he followed it. He wanted to sell books, and that’s what he did at first. He took it one step at a time. Today he wants to attend to his space exploration interest, and that could lead to another revolutionary venture. Sometimes, potential entrepreneurs overwhelm themselves before they embark on their journey. They think about how risky their journey would be if it expanded at a rapid pace or how they would be unable to handle failure, and that thinking puts them off. Take one step at a time. Start small and then slowly expand your operations.
Your customers are your business’s foundation
When Mr Bezos started his journey, many people thought he was crazy to compete with book giants such as Barnes & Noble and that he would lose when the latter took their business online. When his team worried about the competition, he advised them to focus on their customers. “No matter what the drama is, whatever the external distraction is, your response to it should be to double down on the customer, satisfying them," he said. "Not just satisfying them, delighting them."
Embrace innovation
“If you double the number of experiments you do per year, you're going to double your inventiveness,” Mr Bezos has said. This mindset isn’t exclusive to Amazon, but is one shared by most innovative companies, like Google with its Google Labs and innovative governments like the UAE’s, where innovation is at the core of strategising and planning. If your business doesn’t innovate, it won’t grow. And if you don’t experiment with it, you will never know its full potential.
Jeff Bezos is an innovative visionary whose business lessons are applicable to life. Embrace innovation and take risks – and life – one step at a time.
Manar Al Hinai is an award-winning Emirati journalist and entrepreneur, who manages her marketing and communications company in Abu Dhabi
ETFs explained
Exhchange traded funds are bought and sold like shares, but operate as index-tracking funds, passively following their chosen indices, such as the S&P 500, FTSE 100 and the FTSE All World, plus a vast range of smaller exchanges and commodities, such as gold, silver, copper sugar, coffee and oil.
ETFs have zero upfront fees and annual charges as low as 0.07 per cent a year, which means you get to keep more of your returns, as actively managed funds can charge as much as 1.5 per cent a year.
There are thousands to choose from, with the five biggest providers BlackRock’s iShares range, Vanguard, State Street Global Advisors SPDR ETFs, Deutsche Bank AWM X-trackers and Invesco PowerShares.
Three ways to limit your social media use
Clinical psychologist, Dr Saliha Afridi at The Lighthouse Arabia suggests three easy things you can do every day to cut back on the time you spend online.
1. Put the social media app in a folder on the second or third screen of your phone so it has to remain a conscious decision to open, rather than something your fingers gravitate towards without consideration.
2. Schedule a time to use social media instead of consistently throughout the day. I recommend setting aside certain times of the day or week when you upload pictures or share information.
3. Take a mental snapshot rather than a photo on your phone. Instead of sharing it with your social world, try to absorb the moment, connect with your feeling, experience the moment with all five of your senses. You will have a memory of that moment more vividly and for far longer than if you take a picture of it.
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
The five pillars of Islam
1. Fasting
2. Prayer
3. Hajj
4. Shahada
5. Zakat
Zayed Sustainability Prize
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
The years Ramadan fell in May
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Thor: Ragnarok
Dir: Taika Waititi
Starring: Chris Hemsworth, Tom Hiddleston, Cate Blanchett, Jeff Goldblum, Mark Ruffalo, Tessa Thompson
Four stars
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Company%20profile
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The years Ramadan fell in May
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
More coverage from the Future Forum
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
What are the influencer academy modules?
- Mastery of audio-visual content creation.
- Cinematography, shots and movement.
- All aspects of post-production.
- Emerging technologies and VFX with AI and CGI.
- Understanding of marketing objectives and audience engagement.
- Tourism industry knowledge.
- Professional ethics.
KILLING OF QASSEM SULEIMANI
MATCH INFO
Liverpool 4 (Salah (pen 4, 33', & pen 88', Van Dijk (20')
Leeds United 3 (Harrison 12', Bamford 30', Klich 66')
Man of the match Mohamed Salah (Liverpool)
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How to donate
Text the following numbers:
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6020 - Dh 200
*numbers work for both Etisalat and du
The%20specs
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THE SPECS
Engine: 6.75-litre twin-turbocharged V12 petrol engine
Power: 420kW
Torque: 780Nm
Transmission: 8-speed automatic
Price: From Dh1,350,000
On sale: Available for preorder now
AL%20BOOM
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TOURNAMENT INFO
Fixtures
Sunday January 5 - Oman v UAE
Monday January 6 - UAE v Namibia
Wednesday January 8 - Oman v Namibia
Thursday January 9 - Oman v UAE
Saturday January 11 - UAE v Namibia
Sunday January 12 – Oman v Namibia
UAE squad
Ahmed Raza (captain), Rohan Mustafa, Mohammed Usman, CP Rizwan, Waheed Ahmed, Zawar Farid, Darius D’Silva, Karthik Meiyappan, Jonathan Figy, Vriitya Aravind, Zahoor Khan, Junaid Siddique, Basil Hameed, Chirag Suri
Sholto Byrnes on Myanmar politics
Mohammed bin Zayed Majlis
The five pillars of Islam
Banned items
Dubai Police has also issued a list of banned items at the ground on Sunday. These include:
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Political flags or banners
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Bikes, skateboards or scooters
The years Ramadan fell in May
Read more about the coronavirus
The burning issue
The internal combustion engine is facing a watershed moment – major manufacturer Volvo is to stop producing petroleum-powered vehicles by 2021 and countries in Europe, including the UK, have vowed to ban their sale before 2040. The National takes a look at the story of one of the most successful technologies of the last 100 years and how it has impacted life in the UAE.
Read part four: an affection for classic cars lives on
Read part three: the age of the electric vehicle begins
Read part one: how cars came to the UAE
The biog
Nickname: Mama Nadia to children, staff and parents
Education: Bachelors degree in English Literature with Social work from UAE University
As a child: Kept sweets on the window sill for workers, set aside money to pay for education of needy families
Holidays: Spends most of her days off at Senses often with her family who describe the centre as part of their life too
