Jeff Bezos On Tips For Succeeding In Business, His $2B Donation And Amazon’s HQ2

Flickr/Steve Jurveston

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos obviously knows a thing or two about business. The e-commerce giant was recently valued at more than $1 trillion and is just the second company ever to hit that milestone, behind Apple. Bezos also turned the Washington Post around from the stereotypical, dying newspaper to an advanced and profitable media powerhouse. We’d say he’s pretty badass.

On Thursday, Sept. 13, Bezos sat down for an interview with David Rubenstein, co-founder and co-executive chairman of The Carlyle Group, at the Economic Club in Washington D.C. During the 70-minute chat, he shared even more of his story, plus plans for the future.

How To Succeed In Business

With insane career success, Bezos has definitely figured out a thing or two when it comes to running a business. In the interview, Bezos shared a ton of tips and tricks for how he’s been able to manage his different ventures, while also maintaining the type of balance many of us strive for. Here are six tips and quotes from the interview for how to succeed in business and life, according to Bezos.

1. Trust yourself. “All of my best decisions in business and in life have been made with heart, intuition, guts, … not analysis.”
2. Start small — Amazon began with just five employees. “Everything I have done has started small,” Bezos said. “It’s hard to remember for you guys, but for me it’s like yesterday I was driving the packages to the post office myself, and hoping one day we could afford a forklift.”
3. Prioritize self-care and work-life balance. “I go to bed early and I get up early. I like to putter in the morning. So I like to read the newspaper. I like to have coffee. I like have breakfast with my kids before they go to school.”
4. Work efficiently. “I do my high-IQ meetings before lunch. Like anything that’s going to be really mentally challenging, that’s a 10 o’clock meeting. And by 5 p.m., I’m like, ‘I can’t think about that today. Let’s try this again tomorrow at 10 a.m.'”
5. Think ahead. “All of our senior executives operate the same way I do. They work in the future, they live in the future … Right now, I’m working on a quarter that’s going to reveal itself in 2021 sometime.”
6. Worry about the quality of the decisions you make at work, not the quantity. “If I make, like, three good decisions a day, that’s enough … Warren Buffett says he’s good if he makes three good decisions a year.”

$2 Billion Toward Charity

Wikimedia Commons/Seattle City Council from Seattle

With his kind of success, it’s not surprising that Bezos is also a philanthropist. What is surprising? The amount of money he’s able to donate. Bezos announced Thursday that he and his wife will give $2 billion toward non-profits that work toward ending homelessness, and building and operating free Montessori-inspired preschools in low-income areas.

This charitable giving comes months after Bezos donated $33 million toward college scholarships for childhood undocumented immigrants, also known as “Dreamers,” who were given the ability to stay in the U.S. under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.

Amazon’s HQ2 Location

There’s a ton of anticipation around where the second Amazon headquarters will be located, and many thought that Bezos would finally reveal it in the interview yesterday. However, his lips remained sealed.

“The answer is very simple,” Bezos told Rubenstein. “We will answer the decision before the end of the year.”

Amazon narrowed its search to 20 cities earlier this year, with top cities for business and jobs like Austin, Dallas and Denver making the list. It’s still anyone’s game, so stay tuned for that announcement in the coming months.

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[h/t Axios]

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