Complacency is the kiss of death in business and in life. That’s why Jeff Bezos recommends using fear to drive work ethic and innovative-thinking — even when things are going well.
“I constantly remind our employees to be afraid, to wake up every morning terrified,” the Amazon founder wrote in a 1999 shareholder letter. “Our customers have made our business what it is,” he continued, “and we consider them to be loyal to us – right up until the second that someone else offers them a better service.”
sigh. I literally know people who will take this to heart, who already mostly believe this is how companies should operate, and don’t need much more " proof" like this.
Yes: if you beat your slaves, they will work harder until they die, at which point you can replace them. It’s true. You can be successful this way.
It bugs me to no end that we’ve created an economic model that measures success by exactly one metric: profit. It’s such a shitty situation with a disastrous, unsustainable end; it’s just taking a long time for it to play out.
alilbee@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Dude sucks and is ruining the planet, but this quote is taken out of context and if you read beyond the headline you’ll see that. He’s saying that his employees should “wake up every morning terrified” of losing their customers to competitors. That’s just like… a dumb capitalistic aphorism that doesn’t really mean anything.
Sanctus@lemmy.world 7 months ago
How could you say it doesn’t mean anything? They don’t say these words for no reason at all. He meant that. He wanted you to wake up and be 'terrified like he is." This whole game is how can we get the dial to go past 11? How hard can I push these people to extract the maximum amount of value? Listen to them when they speak, they mean it.