How Working For the World’s Richest Person Changed my Life

My experience working under Jeff Bezos, indirectly.

As many of you know I held a full time job for a month after my layoff in February. This company is the online retailer, Amazon. ๐Ÿ™‚ I was a warehouse associate at an Amazon Fulfillment Center. It was a lot of fun! And I’ll never forget the lessons I learned there.

But I quit after a month because I wanted to spend more time pursuing other job opportunities. Besides, I was feeling a lot of pressure because my company’s CEO is literally the wealthiest man on the planet, and I didn’t want to risk disappointing him. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is currently worth about $115,000,000,000 – give or take a few billion dollars! ๐Ÿ˜ฎย Wow that’s a big number. And for a brief moment of my humble existence I was granted the privilege of working indirectly with him. ๐Ÿ˜€

Although I didn’t work directly under him, he was only 7 management levels above me. So if I had kept working and be promoted just 7 times I would have easily taken his job as CEO. ๐Ÿ˜‰

What Jeff Bezos taught me about business

During my short tenure with Amazon it was clear that Jeff’s influential principles and management style trickled all the way down the corporate ladder to the employees working on the ground floor.

I believe Amazon’sย Prime ๐Ÿ˜Žย reason for success is Jeff’s unique management style. He operates the leanest company I have ever seen. Any workplace inefficiency or redundancy, no matter how insignificant, will be eliminated as soon as it is found. From the workers picking and packing to the automated labeling machines and conveyor belts, everything in the warehouse operates like clockwork. ๐Ÿ™‚ The impressive logistics system has to manage over 100 workers, moving and sorting 50,000+ items every day.

Consistency is important. All the managers at Amazon have to mimic the same disciplined style of leadership as set by Jeff. This is apparent across all levels of the company. That’s not to say Amazon is all work and no play. They have a well stocked break room, as well as a leisure area with video games, table tennis, and comic books. Amazon’sย workplace policies are firm, but fair.

Speaking of company culture, here’s a handful of Jeff’s business principles that every Amazonian is expected to follow and practice:

  • Act on behalf of the entire company, beyond just your own team. Never say โ€œthatโ€™s not my job.”
  • Strive to create a customer-centric company. Start with the customer and work backwards.
  • Practice good judgement. Management is doing things right while leadership is doing the right things.
  • Insist on having the highest standards – not just for yourself, but for your coworkers as well.
  • When making decisions, always choose long-term value over short-term results.

Jeff somehow managed to create a competitive work environment without it feeling toxic or hostile. Based on the free market approach his policies often involve Amazonians competing against each other. If a team consistently underperforms, it gets cut. If another team excels, it gets more resources from the team that was cut. This guarantees that resources are allocated and utilized in the most effective manner. By making the internal business environment more competitive than the actual outside world, Jeff has been able to speed up innovation within Amazon so it can stay ahead of the competition. It’s a brilliant and effective way to maximize utility and efficiency. ๐Ÿ™‚

Increasing my net worth is a high priority for me. So working under the influence of the world’s richest man was an incredible learning experience. ๐Ÿ™‚ I felt like a foodie Instagrammer who was given the chance to work in Gordon Ramsay’s flagship restaurant kitchen. Under Jeff’s management Amazon was namedย the second most admired company in the world by Fortune this year.

Based on what I’ve seen around the workplace, Jeff’s principles work really well. ๐Ÿ™‚ As a result I will borrow his ideas to help me with my financial goals. I use to make a lot of decisions automatically, cruising through life on autopilot without being mindful that I’m constantly making choices. But from now on I will consider the consequences of my actions. If I become more consciously aware of my options, then I can make better decisions that will benefit my long term values over short term desires.

Working at Amazon is not suitable for everyone. But the benefits are good. And employees are overwhelmingly happy to work there. I felt like I was really making a difference. Children’s birthday presents were delivered on time because of me. ๐Ÿ˜€ Maybe Amazon warehouses are called Fulfillment Centers because its employees feel happy and fulfilled when they work there, lol.

 

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Random Useless Fact

According to CNN, the U.S. is still using floppy disks to run its nuclear program.

 

Author: Liquid Independence

Editor in Chief at Freedom 35 Blog.

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Roadmap2Retire
Roadmap2Retire
04/25/2018 10:25 am

Heard too many horror stories from ppl working at Amazon, but good to hear that you got a taste for it and learnt a bunch of lessons. Thanks for sharing. There are a lot of very interesting principles out of Amazon business culture…definitely worth a good luck for other corporations.

cheers
R2R

Financial Orchid
Financial Orchid
04/25/2018 5:17 pm
Reply to  Roadmap2Retire

He left after 2 weeks so…

vivianne
vivianne
04/25/2018 6:22 pm

It’s impressive to me that you left the company only taking away all the positive thoughts. LOL ๐Ÿ™‚ my tenant didn’t last long there either, even when they pay $20/hr.

SmokingWasOnceCool
SmokingWasOnceCool
04/26/2018 5:06 am

Not going to lie…. I read the headline and the first paragraph and was bracing for an article full of cringe but I have to say that you lay out a really good piece and rad into why they are so successful.

My experience with Amazon is on a different front: their technology offerings like S3, CloudFront, and LightSail. I cannot believe how on the ball and well integrated their services are for what they cost and after using them for work related projects, it’s hard to imagine anyone being able to compete.

GYM
GYM
04/26/2018 5:59 am

Thanks for sharing your experience! Sounds like he runs a tight ship. I met a guy traveling a few years ago who worked for Amazon and he said everyone was miserable and he was miserable working there. Maybe it’s different working at a fulfilment centre compared to the headquarters

Financial Orchid
Financial Orchid
04/27/2018 5:02 pm

In Chinese culture, a shiny bald head is considered to be extremely prosperous. Hindsight is 20/20

Dividend Earner
04/28/2018 1:51 pm

Thanks for sharing your story. I really like your takeaways and the focus on the positive and what we could all learn.

PP Gal
04/29/2018 11:47 am

Have you thought of starting an e-commerce side hustle on Amazon after this experience?

S Arun
04/30/2018 6:01 am

Thank you Liquid for sharing your experience! I know few workers who are not happy there, but they no other options than work there..

You left there for a good reason. You have lots of talent; you have solid passive income to cover your bills (almost). Then why don’t you spend a year or two and try to build a business in your interested field? Just curious.. ๐Ÿ™‚

Cheers,

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