Top 5 takeaways from Jeff Bezos’ final shareholder letter

In February 2021 , Jeff Bezos announced that he would step down as CEO. In his final annual shareholder letter , he discussed the “ create more than you consume” theory & touched upon climate & employee issues. He championed that thought on the fight against the normalcy which is the need of the hour.

Sharing the key takeaways from the letter publish on 15th April 2021.

Amazon Achievement

Amazon hired 500k in 2020, now employ 1.3m — 200m+ Prime members (It was 100 Mn in 2017 letter ), 1.9m SMB sellers — 100m Alexa-connected devices in use — 28% of purchases are done in 3 mins or less, 50% are done in 15 mins or less.

Safety Innovation

“40% of work-related injuries at Amazon are related to musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs).WorkingWell — which we launched to 859,000 employees at 350 sites across North America and Europe in 2020.

We’re developing new automated staffing schedules that use sophisticated algorithms to rotate employees among jobs that use different muscle-tendon groups to decrease repetitive motion and help protect employees from MSD risks. This new technology is central to a job rotation program that we’re rolling out throughout 2021.

Our increased attention to early MSD prevention is already achieving results. From 2019 to 2020, overall MSDs decreased by 32%, and MSDs resulting in time away from work decreased by more than half.”

Climate Impact

“Amazon is the largest corporate buyer of renewable energy in the world.These projects have the capacity to generate over 6.9 gigawatts and deliver more than 20 million megawatt-hours of energy annually.
Amazon is making progress toward our own goal of 100% renewable energy by 2025, five years ahead of our initial 2030 target.”

Amazon employees

Bezos addressed the need “to do a better job” for Amazon’s employees, though he pointed out “94% say they would recommend Amazon to a friend as a place to work.”
He reassured , “We are going to be Earth’s Best Employer and Earth’s Safest Place to Work.”

Fight normalcy

“The world wants you to be typical — in a thousand ways, it pulls at you. Don’t let it happen,”
“In what ways does the world pull at you in an attempt to make you normal? How much work does it take to maintain your distinctiveness? You have to pay a price for your distinctiveness …don’t expect it to be easy or free.”
“The body tends to revert to a state of equilibrium with its environment…if living things didn’t work actively to prevent it, they would eventually merge into their surroundings.”

Here’s the last paragraph of the penultimate letter, Jeff Bezos will ever send to Amazon shareholders:

“To all of you: be kind, be original, create more than you consume, and never, never, never let the universe smooth you into your surroundings. It remains Day 1.”

Jeff Bezos’ 2020 Letter to Shareholders is a masterclass in Business writing & thinking like a capital distributor.

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