The Bezos Letters: 14 Principles to Grow Your Business like Amazon

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 AxelrodAuthor - The NEW Game of Selling™

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.

It's just me I am taking one star off because I thought the book is about 14 Principles by Jeff Bezos but instead they were from the author. However, I do love how the authors went through, digest, rationalize, analyze and come up with their 14. From time and again in the book, readers were slapped with the part of the real Bezos letters where great ah-ha moments brought up on me. Those things seemed so obvious yet important. It's a good read.

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.