Career Advice for Young People from Jeff Bezos #1:
If you can figure out what you love to do, your day will be so fun. You will work with like minded energised people and your work will be so fun.
Career Advice for Young People from Jeff Bezos #2:
“You can have a job, or you can have a career, or you can have a calling,” he says.
“And if you can somehow figure out how to have a calling, you have hit the jackpot, cause that’s the big deal.”
Career Advice for Young People from Jeff Bezos #3:
Failure is a necessary evil if you want to succeed.
“We take risks all the time, we talk about failure. We need big failures in order to move the needle. If we don’t, we’re not swinging enough. You really should be swinging hard, and you will fail, but that’s okay.”
For the career advice of another billionaire entrepreneur, read my blog post about on The Career Advice of Elon Musk
Career Advice from Jeff Bezos #4:
“The most important thing is to be customer-obsessed,” he said. “Don’t satisfy them, absolutely delight them.”
Career Advice for Young People from Jeff Bezos #5:
Building a culture of high standards is well worth the effort, and there are many benefits. Naturally and most obviously, you’re going to build better products and services for customers – this would be reason enough!
Perhaps a little less obvious: people are drawn to high standards – they help with recruiting and retention,”
Career Advice from Jeff Bezos #6:
Be willing to embrace change as that can be your competitive advantage.
“I observe people who are right a lot and have detected some patterns. People who are right a lot, they listen a lot. They also change their mind a lot which is very interesting.”
Career Advice for Young People from Jeff Bezos #7:
Don’t necessarily listen to your customer.
“No customer was asking for Echo,” Bezos wrote in his annual letter to shareholders
“Market research doesn’t help. If you had gone to a customer in 2013 and said,
‘Would you like a black, always-on cylinder in your kitchen about the size of a Pringles can that you can talk to and ask questions, that also turns on your lights and plays music?’ I guarantee you they’d have looked at you strangely and said, ‘No, thank you.’”
Career Advice from Jeff Bezos #8:
Many people think about what is going to change in 10, 20, 30 years and think about products and companies around those ideas.
Ask yourself ‘What is not going to change?’ What customer needs will be stable over the next 10 years and focus your energy there.’
No clue as to what you should be doing in 10 years time? If so, read my post on How to Find the Right Career for You
Career Advice for Young People from Jeff Bezos #9:
“High standards are contagious,” Bezos contends. “Bring a new person onto a high standards team and they will quickly adapt.”
Career Advice from Jeff Bezos #10:
What you don’t necessarily need is skill, especially if you are part of a team.
“The football coach doesn’t need to be able to throw, and a film director doesn’t need to be able to act,” he says.
“But they both do need to recognize high standards for those things and teach realistic expectations on scope.”
Career Advice for Young People from Jeff Bezos #11:
“You are going to be misunderstood. If you are doing anything interesting in the world, you are going to have critics”
