Amazon is one of the ten richest companies in the world, and its founder, Jeff Bezos is one of the five richest people in the world, with a net worth of over $120 billion. Founded in 1994, Amazon was the fastest company in history to reach $100 billion in sales. How did he achieve such massive success in less than 30 years of operation? 

Today, we’re getting an inside look at how Jeff Bezos approaches business from Steven Anderson, author of The Bezos Letters. Steven has over 35 years of experience in the insurance industry and he is a trusted authority on risk, technology, and innovation. 

In this episode of YAP Classic, Hala and Steven dive into the contents of The Bezos Letters, a collection and analysis of Jeff Bezos’ annual shareholder letters. They discuss some of the key strategies and lessons outlined in The Bezos Letters, like measuring your return on risk, adopting a ‘day one’ mentality, and using free cash flow as a primary metric for measuring your company’s success. They also talk about some of Amazon’s biggest failures and how Amazon encourages its employees to experiment and take risks. 

Topics Include: 

- Why did Steven write The Bezos Letters? 

- Innovation vs. experimentation 

- The value of failure 

- Amazon’s greatest failures 

- Being terrified of your customers 

- Strategic risks for growth 

- Why Bezos banned PowerPoint at Amazon 

- ROR (Return On Risk) 

- The risk of not taking risks 

- ‘It’s always day one’

- The problem with judging companies by their profitability 

- Free cash flow as a primary metric 

- Steven’s secret to profiting in life 

- And other topics…

Steven Anderson is a professional writer, speaker, and futurist. He is the co-founder and CEO of Catalyit, which simplifies technology for insurance agents. Steven’s insurance agency, The Anderson Network, is considered an industry leader in the field of insuring productivity, technology, and profits. He was named one of the original 150 LinkedIn influencers and he is a top 10 Global InsurTech influencer. His book, The Bezos Letters, has been featured on numerous podcasts and was included in Forbes’ list of the ‘Top 20 Books You Need to Read to Crush 2020.’

Resources Mentioned:

YAP Episode #75, Grow Your Business Like Amazon: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/young-and-profiting-with-hala-taha/id1368888880?i=1000487032512 

The Bezos Letters & its accompanying resources: https://thebezosletters.com/ 

Steven’s Website: https://steveanderson.com/ 

Steven’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevetn/ 

Steven’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/steveanderson/ 

Steven’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/SteveTN 

Steven’s Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SteveTN 

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