The Story of Jeff Bezos: A Ranch and a Rocket

Jeff Bezos spent a significant amount of his childhood on a ranch in Texas, where he worked alongside his grandfather to learn the value of hard work and self-reliance. From a young age, Bezos was fascinated by the ranch and its operations, watching as his grandfather fixed windmills, laid fences, and performed other tasks that required skill and ingenuity. As he grew older, Bezos became more involved in the ranch's activities, learning to fix pipelines, vaccinate animals, and perform other essential tasks.

Bezos has spoken fondly of the impact his grandfather had on his life, describing him as a "huge influence" who taught him valuable lessons about resourcefulness and problem-solving. One of the most memorable experiences Bezos shared was watching soap operas with his grandfather after school. The two would sit down at 1:00 PM every day to watch episodes of "Days of Our Lives," which provided them with a much-needed break from their daily chores.

As Bezos grew older, he began to appreciate the importance of self-reliance and independence. He credits his grandfather's ability to fix everything himself as a key factor in his own development. His grandfather would often find creative solutions to problems by using everyday materials and resources. For example, when their 1955 Caterpillar D6 bulldozer broke down, Bezos' grandfather was able to repair it by buying parts online via mail order and building a crane to lift the heavy gears into place.

This experience taught Bezos the value of persistence and ingenuity in solving problems. He remembers his grandfather's mantra: "Figure it out on your own." This approach to problem-solving would serve him well throughout his life, as he went on to build Amazon from scratch and pursue his passion for space exploration.

The Impact of Space Exploration

Bezos' love of space exploration began when he was just five years old, watching Neil Armstrong walk on the moon. The historic event inspired Bezos to learn more about space and its potential for human exploration. Looking back at the historical context and impact of the space race, Bezos is struck by the epic nature of these events.

The space race between the Soviet Union and the United States was a defining moment in modern history, marked by rapid progress and dramatic setbacks. From the launch of Sputnik in 1957 to Armstrong's first steps on the moon in 1969, the space program underwent a series of intense challenges and triumphs. Bezos is particularly inspired by the words of Wernher von Braun, a key figure in the development of the Saturn V rocket that took Armstrong to the moon.

Von Braun's quote, "If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the recipe," resonates deeply with Bezos. He believes that this mindset is essential for overcoming seemingly insurmountable challenges and achieving greatness. The space race was a testament to human ingenuity and determination, and Bezos sees himself as part of this legacy.

The Future of Space Exploration

As we look to the future of space exploration, Bezos is leading the charge with his company Blue Origin. With its mission to make humanity a multi-planetary species, Blue Origin is working towards a future where humans can live and thrive on other planets.

Bezos' vision for space exploration is driven by his passion for adventure and discovery. He believes that space travel has the power to inspire new generations of scientists, engineers, and innovators, and he is committed to making this dream a reality. As he looks back on his childhood experiences on the ranch, Bezos knows that he owes a debt of gratitude to his grandfather, who instilled in him a love of hard work, self-reliance, and creativity.

With Blue Origin, Bezos aims to create a new era of space exploration that is driven by innovation, collaboration, and a sense of wonder. As we embark on this journey, we can draw inspiration from the story of Jeff Bezos, who went from watching soap operas with his grandfather to becoming one of the most successful entrepreneurs in the world.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: en- The following is aconversation with Jeff Bezos,founder of Amazon and Blue Origin.This is his first timedoing a conversationof this kind and of this length.And as he told me, it felt likewe could have easily talkedfor many more hours, and I'm sure we will.This is the Lex Fridman podcast.And now, dear friends, here's Jeff Bezos.You spent a lot of yourchildhood with your grandfatheron a ranch here in Texas,and I heard you had a lot ofwork to do around the ranch.So what's the coolest jobyou remember doing there?- Wow, coolest.- Most interesting.Most memorable.- Most memorable.Most impactful.- And it was a real working ranch.My grand, I spent allmy summers on that ranchfrom age four to 16.And my grandfather wasreally taking me to thosein the summers, in the early summers,he was letting me pretendto help on the ranch.'Cause of course, a4-year-old is a burden,not a help in real life.He was really just watchingme and taking care of meand be was doing thatbecause my mom was so young.She had me when she was 17,and so he was sort of giving her a break.And my grandmother and my grandfatherwould take me for these summers.But as I got a little older,I actually was helpful onthe ranch and I loved it.I was out there,like my grandfather hada huge influence on me,huge factor in my life.I did all the jobs youwould do on a ranch.I've fixed windmills and laid fencesand pipelines and youknow, done all the thingsthat any rancher would do,vaccinated, the animals, everything.But we had a you know, my grandfather,after my grandmother died, I was about 12and I kept coming to the ranch.So it was then, it was justhim and me, just the two of us.And he was completelyaddicted to the soap opera,the Days of Our Lives.And we would go back tothe ranch house every dayaround 1:00 PM or so towatch days of our liveslike sands through an hourglass.So are the days of our lives.- Just the image of the two sitting therewatching a soap opera as ranchers.- He had these big, crazy dogs.It was really a veryformative experience for me.But the key thing about it for me,the great gift I got from itwas that my grandfather wasso resourceful, you know,he did everything himself.He made his own veterinary tools.He would make needles tosuture the cattle up with,like he would find a littlepiece of wire and heat it upand pound it thin and drilla hole in it and sharpen it.So, you know, you learn different thingson a ranch than you would learnyou know, growing up in a city.- So self-reliance.- Yeah, like figuring outthat you can solve problemswith enough persistence and ingenuity.And my grandfather bought a D6 bulldozer,which is a big bulldozer, andhe got it for like $5,000.'cause it was completely broken down.It was like a 1955Caterpillar, D6 bulldozerknew it would've cost, I don't know,more than a $100,000.And we spent an entire summer fixing,like repairing that bulldozer.And we'd, you know, use mail orderto buy big gears for the transmission.And they'd show up.They'd be too heavy to move,so we'd have to build a crane, you know,just that kind of, kinda thatproblem solving mentality.He had it so powerfully, you know,he did all of his own.He'd just, he didn't pick upthe phone and call somebody.He would figure it out on his own.Doing his own veterinary work, you know.- But just the image of the two of youfixing a D6 bulldozer and then going infor a little break at 1:00PM to watch a soap opera.- Laying on the floor.That's how he watched TV.- Yeah.- He was a really, really remarkable guy.- That's how I imagine Clint Eastwood alsoin all those westerns.When he's not doing what he is doing,he's just watching soap operas.All right, I read that you fell in lovewith the idea of spaceand space explorationwhen you were five watching Neil Armstrongwalking on the moon.So let me ask you to lookback at the historical contextand impact of that.So the space race from 1957 to 1969between the Soviet Union andthe US was in many ways epic.It was a rapid sequence of dramatic eventsfor satellite to space,for a human to space,for a spacewalk, firstuncrewed landing on the moon,then some failures, explosions,deaths on both sides actually,and then the first humanwalking on the moon.What are some of themore inspiring momentsor insights you take away from that time,those few years, that just 12 years?- Well, I mean, there'sso much inspiring there.You know, one of the greatthings to take away from that,one of the great von Braun quotes is\"I have come to use the wordimpossible with great caution.\"- Yeah, yeah, yeah.- And so that's kind ofthe big story of Apollois that things, youknow, going to the moonwas literally an analogy that people usedfor something that's impossible.You know, oh yeah, you'lldo that when you know,men walk on the moon.- Yeah.- And of course it finally happened.So, you know, I think itwas pulled forward in timebecause of the space race,I think you know, with thegeopolitical implicationsand you know, how muchresource was put into it,you know, at the peak,that program was spending,you know, two or 3% ofGDP on the Apollo program.So much resource.I think it was pulled forward in time.You know, we kind of did it aheadof when we quote unquoteshould have done it.- Yeah.- And so in that way, it'salso a technical marvel.I mean, it's truly incredible.It's, you know, it'sthe 20th century versionof building the pyramids or something.It's you know, it's an achievementthat because it was pulled forward in timeand because it did somethingthat had previously thought impossible,it rightly deservesits place, as you know,in the pantheon of greathuman achievements.- And of course, you namedthe projects The Rocketsthat Blue Origin is working onafter some of the folks involved.- Yeah.- I don't understand whyI didn't say New Gagarin.is that-- There's an American bias in the naming.I apologize.- It's very strange.- Lex.- Just asking for a friend.Clarify.- I'm a big fan of Gagarin though.And in fact, I think hisfirst words in space,I think are incredible.He, you know, he purportedlysaid \"my God, it's blue.\"And that really drives home.No one had seen the earth from space.No one knew that we wereon this blue planet.- Yeah.- No one knew what itlooked like from out there.And Gagarin was thefirst person to see it.- One of the things I thinkabout is how dangerousthose early days were for Gagarin,for Glen, for everybody involved.Like how big of a riskthey were all taking.- They were taking huge risks.I'm not sure what the Soviets thoughtabout Gagarin's flight,but I think that the Americans thoughtthat the Alan Shephard flight,the flight that you know,New Shephard is named after,the first American in space.He went on his suborbital flight.They thought he had abouta 75% chance of success.So, you know, that's apretty big risk, a 25% risk.- It's kind of interestingthat Alan Shephardis not quite as famous as John Glenn.So for people who don'tknow, Alan Shephardis the first astronaut-- The first American in space.- American in suborbital flight.- Correct.- And then the first orbital flight is-- John Glenn is the firstAmerican to orbit the earth.By the way, I have themost charming, sweet,incredible letter from John Glenn,which I have framed andhang on my office wall.- What did he say?- Where he tells me how grateful he isthat we have named New Glenn after him.And he sent me that letterabout a week before he died.And it's really an incredible,it's also a very funny letter.He's writing and he says you know,this is a letter about NewGlenn from the original Glenn.And he's just, he's gota great sense of humor,and he's very happy about it and grateful.It's very sweet.- Does he say ps don't mess this up?Or is that-- No, he doesn't.- Make me look good.- He doesn't do that.- Okay.- But wait, but John, wherever you are,we got you covered.- All right, good.So back to maybe the big picture of space.When you look up at thestars and think big,what do you hope isthe future of humanity?Hundreds, thousands ofyears from now out in space?- I would love to see, you know,a trillion humans livingin the solar system.If we had a trillion humans,we would have at any giventime a thousand Mozartsand a thousand Einsteins.That would, you know, our solarsystem would be full of lifeand intelligence and energy.And we can easily supporta civilization that largewith all of the resourcesin the solar system.- So what do you think that looks like?Giant space stations?- Yeah, the only way to get to that visionis with giant space stations.You know, the planetarysurfaces are just way too small.So you can, I mean, unless you turn theminto giant space stations or something.But, but yeah, we will takematerials from the moonand from near earth objectsand from the asteroid beltand so on, and we'll buildgiant O'Neill style coloniesand people will live in those.And they have a lot of advantagesover planetary surfaces.You can spin them to getnormal earth gravity.You can put them where you want them.I think most people aregonna wanna live near Earth,not necessarily in earthorbit, but in you know, earth,but near earth vicinity orbits.And so they can move youknow, relatively quicklyback and forth betweentheir station and Earth.So I think a lot of people,especially in the early stages,are not gonna want togive up Earth altogether.- They go to earth for vacation.- Yeah.Same way that you know, you might goto Yellowstone National Park for vacation.People will, and no one,and people will get to choosewhere they live on earthor whether they live in space,but they'll be able touse much more energyand much more material resource in spacethan they would be able to use on earth.- One of the interesting ideas you hadis to move the heavyindustry away from Earth.So people sometimes have this ideathat somehow spaceexploration is in conflictwith the celebration of the planet earth,that we should focus on preserving earth.And basically your ideas that space traveland space exploration isa way to preserve earth.- Exactly.This planet, we've sent roboticprobes to all the planets.We know that this is the good one.- Yeah.Not to play favorites or anything.- But earth really is the good planet.It's amazing, the ecosystem we have here,all of the life and thelush, the plant lifeand you know, the waterresources, everything.This planet is really extraordinary.And of course, we evolved on this planet,so of course it's perfect for us,but it's also perfect forall the advanced life formson this planet, all the animals and so on.And so this is a gem.We do need to take care of it.And as we enter the Anthropocene,as we get, as we humans have gottenso sophisticated and large and impactful,as we stride across this planet, you know,that is going to, as we continue,we want to use a lot of energy.We want to use a lot of energy per capita.We've gotten amazing things.We don't want to go backwards.You know, if you thinkabout the good old days,they're mostly an illusion.Like in almost every way,life is better for almost everyone todaythan it was say, 50 yearsago or a hundred years.We live better lives by andlarge than our grandparents did,and their grandparents did, and so on.And you can see that inglobal illiteracy rates,global poverty rates, globalinfant mortality rates,like almost any metric you choose,we're better off than we used to be.And we get, you know, antibioticsand all kinds of lifesaving medical careand so on and so on.And there's one thingthat is moving backwards,and it's the natural world.So it is a fact that 500years ago, pre-industrial age,the natural world was pristine.It was incredible.And we have traded someof that pristine beautyfor all of these other gifts that we haveas an advanced society.And we can have both.But to do that, we have to go to space.And all of this, really,the most fundamental measureis energy usage per capita.And when you look at, you know,you do want to continue touse more and more energy,it is going to make yourlife better in so many ways.But that's not compatible ultimatelywith living on a finite planet.And so we have to go outinto the solar systemand really you could argueabout when you have to do that,but you can't credibly argueabout whether you have to do that.- Eventually, we have to do that.- Exactly.- Well, you don't often talk about it,but let me ask you on thattopic about the Blue Ringand the orbital reef spaceinfrastructure projects.What's your vision for these?- So Blue Ring is a veryinteresting spacecraftthat is designed to take upto 3000 kilograms of payloadup to geosynchronous orbitor in lunar vicinity.It has two different kinds of propulsion.It has chemical propulsion,and it has electric propulsion.And so it can,you can use blue ring ina couple different ways.You can slowly move, let'ssay up to geosynchronous orbitusing electric propulsionthat might take you know, a hundred daysor 150 days depending on howmuch mass you're carrying.And then, and reserveyour chemical propulsionso that you can change orbits quicklyin geosynchronous orbit.Or you can use thechemical propulsion firstto quickly get up to geosynchronousand then use your electrical propulsionto slowly change yourgeosynchronous orbit.Blue Ring has a coupleof interesting features.It provides a lot of servicesto these payloads.So the payload, it couldbe one large payload,or it can be a number of small payloads,and it provides thermal management,it provides electricpower, it provides compute,provides communications.And so when you designa payload for Blue Ring,you don't have,you don't have to figureout all of those thingson your own.So kind of radiation tolerant computeis a complicated thing to do.And so we have an unusually large amountof radiation tolerantcompute on board Blue Ring,and you can, yourpayload can just use thatwhen it needs to.So it's sort of all these services,it's you know, it's like a set of APIs.It's a little bit likeAmazon web services,but for space payloadsthat need to move aboutan earth vicinity or lunar vicinity.- AWSS space.Okay, so computing space.So you get a giant chemical rocketto get a payload out to orbit,and then you have theseadmins that show up,this Blue Ring thing thatmanages various thingslike compute.- Exactly.And it can also provide transportationand move you around to different orbits.- Including humans, you think?- No, but Blue Ring is notdesigned to move humans around.It's designed to move payloads around.- Okay.- So we're also building a lunar lander,which is of course designed to land humanson the surface of the moon.- I'm gonna ask you about that,but let me ask you to juststep back to the old days.You were at Princetonwith aspirations to bea theoretical physicist.- Yeah.- What attracted you to physicsand why did you change your mindand not become, why you're not Jeff Bezos,the famous theoretical physicist?- So I loved physics and I studied physicsand computer science,and I was proceedingalong the physics path.I was planning to major in physicsand I wanted to be atheoretical physicist.And the computer sciencewas sort of something I was doing for fun.I really loved it.And I was very good at the programmingand doing those things.And I enjoyed all my computerscience classes immensely,but I really was determinedto be a theoretical physicist.It's why I went to Princetonin the first place.It was definitely, and then I realizedI was gonna be a mediocretheoretical physicist.And there were a few people in my classes,like in quantum mechanics and so on,who they could effortlessly do thingsthat were so difficult for me.And I realized like you know,there are a thousand waysto be smart and to be a really, you know,theoretical physics isnot one of those fieldswhere only the top few percentactually move the stateof the art forward.It's one of those thingswhere you have to bereally just, your brain hasto be wired in a certain way.And there was a guy named,one of these people who convinced me.He didn't mean to convince me,but just by observing him, he convinced methat I should not try tobe a theoretical physicist.His name was Yosanta.And Yosanta was from Sri Lanka.And he was one of the mostbrilliant people I'd ever met.My friend Joe and I wereworking on a very difficultpartial differential equationsproblem set one night.And there was one problem thatwe worked on for three hours,and we made no headway whatsoever.And we looked up at eachother at the same timeand we said, Yosanta.So we went to Yosanta's dorm room.And he was there, hewas almost always there.And we said Yosanta, we'rehaving trouble solvingthis partial differential equation,would you mind taking a look?And he said of course.By the way, he was the mosthumble, most kind person.And so he took our,he looked at our problemand he stared at itfor just a few seconds, maybe 10 seconds.And he said cosine.And I said, what do you mean Yosanta?What do you mean cosine?He said that's the answer.And I said no, no, no, come on.And he said let me show you.And he took out some paperand he wrote down threepages of equations,everything canceled out.And the answer was cosine.And I said Yosanta, didyou do that in your head?And he said oh no, thatwould be impossible.A few years ago I solved a similar problemand I could map thisproblem onto that problem.And then it was immediately obviousthat the answer was cosine.I had a few, you know, youhave an experience like that,you realize maybe beinga theoretical physicistisn't what your,isn't what the universe wants you to be.And so I switched to computerscience and you know,that worked out really well for me.I enjoy it.I still enjoy it today.- Yeah, there's a particularkind of intuition you needto be a great physicist,applied to physics.- I think the mathematicalskill required today is so high.You have to be a world-class mathematicianto be a successfultheoretical physicist today.And it's not you know,you probably need other skills too,intuition, lateral thinking, and so on.But without just top-notch math skills,you're unlikely to be successful.- And visualization skill,you have to be able to really kind of dothese kinds of thought experiments.And if you want truly great creativity,actually Walter Isaacson writes about you.It puts you on the same level as Einstein.- Well, that's very kind.I'm an inventor.If you wanna boil down what I am,I'm really an inventor.And I look at thingsand I can come up with atypicalsolutions and you know,and then I can create ahundred such atypical solutionsfor something.99 of them may not survive,you know, scrutiny.But one of those 100 islike hmm, maybe there is,maybe that might work.And then you can keep going from there.So that kind of lateral thinking,that kind of inventivenessin a high dimensionalityspace where the search spaceis very large, that's wheremy inventive skills come.That's the thing is I self-identifyas an inventor more than anything else.- Yeah, and he describes inall kinds of different ways,Walter Isaacson does that creativitycombined with childlikewander that you've maintainedstill to this day, all ofthat combined together.Is there, like if you were to studyyour own brain introspect,how do you think,what's your thinking process like?We'll talk about the writing processof putting it down on paper,which is quite rigorousand famous at Amazon.But how do you, when yousit down, maybe alone,maybe with others,and thinking through thishigh dimensional spaceand looking for creativesolutions, creative paths forward,is there something you couldsay about that process?- It's such a good question,and I honestly don't know how it works.If I did, I would try to explain it.I know it involves lots of wandering.- Yeah.- So I, you know, when I sitdown to work on a problem,I know I don't know where I'm going.So to go in a straightline, to be efficient,efficiency and inventionare sort of at oddsbecause invention, real invention,not incremental improvement.Incremental improvement is so importantin every endeavor, in everything you do.You have to work hard onalso just making thingsa little bit better.But I'm talking about real invention,real lateral thinking,that requires wandering.And you have to give yourselfpermission to wander.I think a lot of people,they feel like wandering is inefficient.And you know, like whenI sit down at a meeting,I don't know how longthe meeting is gonna takeif we're trying to solve a problem.Because if I did, then I'd already,I'd know there's somekind of straight linethat we're drawing to the solution.The reality is we may haveto wander for a long time.And I do like group invention.I think there's certainly nothing more funthan sitting at awhiteboard with you know,a group of smart people and spit ballingand coming up with new ideasand objections to those ideas,and then solutions to the objectionsand going back and forth.So like you know, sometimesyou wake up with an ideain the middle of the nightand sometimes you sit downwith a group of peopleand go back and forthand both things are really pleasurable.- And when you wander,I think one key thingis to notice a good ideaand to maybe, to noticethe kernel of a good idea.Maybe pull at that string.Because I don't think a goodidea has come fully formed.- A hundred percent right.In fact, when I come up withwhat I think is a good ideaand it survives kind of thefirst level of scrutiny,you know, that I do in my own headand I'm ready to tellsomebody else about the idea,I will often say look,it is going to be really easyfor you to find objectionsto this idea, but work with me.- There's something there.- There's something there.And that is intuition.- Yeah.- Because it's reallyeasy to kill new ideasin the beginning.'Cause they do have so many,so many easy objections to them.So you need to,you need to kind of forewarn peopleand say look, I know it'sgonna take a lot of workto get this to a fully formed idea.Let's get started on that.It'll be fun.- So you got that ability to say cosinein you somewhere after all.Maybe not on math, but-- In a different domain.- Yeah.- There are a thousand waysto be smart, by the way.- Yeah.- And that is a really, likewhen I go around, you know,and I meet people, I'm always lookingfor the way that they're smart.And you find it is,that's one of the things thatmakes the world so interestingand fun is that it is not,it's not like IQ is a single dimension.There are people who aresmart in such unique ways.- Yeah, you just gave me a good responseto when somebody calls mean idiot on the internet.You know, that's a thousandways to be smart, sir.- Well, they might tell you,yeah, but there are a millionto be ways to be dumb.- Yeah, right.I feel like that's a Mark Twain quote.Okay.All right, you gave me an amazing tourof Blue Origin RocketFactory and Launch Complexin the historic Cape Canaveral.That's where New Glenn,the big rocket we talkedabout is being builtand will launch.Can you explain whatthe New Glenn Rocket isand tell me some interestingtechnical aspectsof how it works?- Sure.New Glenn is a very large,a heavy lift launch vehicle.It'll take about 45 metric tons to LEO,very, very large class.It's about half the thrust,a little more than half the thrustof the Saturn V Rocket.So it's about 3.9 millionpounds of thrust on liftoff.The booster has seven BE-4 engines.Each engine generates a little morethan 550,000 pounds of thrust.The engines are fueledby liquid natural gas,liquified natural gas, LNG as the fueland LOX as the oxidizer.The cycle is an ox-richedstage combustion cycle.It's a cycle that was reallypioneered by the Russians.It's a very good cycle.And that engine is also goingto power the first stageof the Vulcan rocket,which is the UnitedLaunch Alliance rocket.Then the second stage of New Glennis powered by two BE-3U engines,which is a upper stage variantof our New Shephardliquid hydrogen engine.So the BE-3U has 160,000 pounds of thrust.So two of those 320,000 pounds of thrustand hydrogen is a very good propellantfor upper stages becauseit has very high ISP.It's not a great propellantin my view for booster stagesbecause the stages thenget physically so large.Hydrogen has very high ISP,but liquid hydrogen is very,is not dense at all.So to store liquid hydrogen, you know,if you need to store many thousandsof pounds of liquid hydrogen,your tanks, your liquidhydrogen tank, it's very large.So you really, you get morebenefit from the higher ISP,the specific impulse.You get more benefit fromthe higher specific impulseon the second stage.And that stage carries less propellant.So you don't get suchgeometrically gigantic tanks.The Delta IV is an example of a vehiclethat is all hydrogen.The booster stage is also hydrogen.And I think that it's avery effective vehicle,but it never was very cost effective.So it's operationally very capablebut not very cost effective.- So size is also costly.- Size is costly.So it's interesting.Rockets love to be big.Everything works better.- What do you mean by that?You've told me that before.It sounds epic, but what does it mean?- I mean, when you look at the,kind of the physics of rocket enginesand also when you look at parasitic mass,it doesn't, if you have,let's say you have an avionic system,so you have a guidance and control system,that is gonna be aboutthe same mass and sizefor a giant rocket as it isgonna be for a tiny rocket.And so that's just parasitic massthat is very consequentialif you're buildinga very small rocket,but is trivial if you'rebuilding a very large rocket.So you have the parasitic mass thing.And then if you look at, for example,rocket engines have turbo pumps.They have to pressurizethe fuel and the oxidizerup to a very high pressure levelin order to inject itinto the thrust chamberwhere it burns.And those pumps, allrotating machines, in factget more efficient as they get larger.So really tiny turbo pumpsare very challenging to manufacture.And any kind of gaps, you know,are like between the housing for example,and the rotating impellerthat pressurizes the fuel,there has to be some gap there.You can't have those partsscraping against one another.And those gaps drive inefficiencies.And so, you know, if youhave a very large turbo pump,those gaps in percentageterms end up being very small.And so there's a bunch of thingsthat you end up lovingabout having a large rocketand that you end uphating for a small rocket.But there's a giantexception to this rule,and it is manufacturing.So manufacturing large structuresis very, very challenging.It's a pain in the butt.And so, you know, it's just if you have,if you're making a small rocket engine,you can move all the pieces by hand,you could assemble it on atable, one person can do it,you know, you don't need cranesand heavy lift operationsand tooling, and so on and so on.When you start building bigobjects, infrastructure,civil infrastructure,just like the launchpadand the you know, all this,we went and visited,I took you to the launchpadand you can see it's so monumental.- Yeah, it is.- And so just these thingsbecome major undertakings,both from an engineering point of view,but also from a constructionand cost point of view.- And even the foundationof the launchpad,I mean, this is Florida,like isn't like swamp land?Like how deep do you have to go?- You have to at Cape Canaveral,in fact, at most ocean,you know, most launch padsare on beaches somewhere in the oceanside.'cause you wanna launch overwater for safety reasons.The yes, you have to drive pilings,you know, dozens and dozensand dozens of pilings,you know, 50, a 100, 150 feet deepto get enough structural integrityfor these very large, you know, it's yes,these turn into majorcivil engineering projects.- I just have to sayeverything about that factoryis pretty badass.You said tooling, the bigger it gets,the more epic it is.- It does make it epic.- Yeah.- It's fun to look at.It's extraordinary.- It's humbling also,'cause you know, humans areso small compared to it.- We are building these enormous machinesthat are harnessing enormous amountsof chemical power, you know,in very, very compact packages.It's truly extraordinary.- But then there's allthe different componentsand that you know, the materials involved.Is there something interestingthat you can describe about the materialsthat's comprised the rockets?So it has to be as lightas possible, I guess,whilst withstanding the heatand the harsh conditions?- Yeah, I play a littlekind of game sometimeswith other rocket peoplethat I run into wheresay what are the thingsthat would amaze the 1960s engineers?Like what's changed?'Cause surprisingly, someof rocketry greatest hitshave not changed.They are still,they would recognize immediatelya lot of what we do today.And it's exactly what theypioneered back in the '60s.But a few things have changed.You know, the use of carbon compositesis very different today.You know, we can build very sophisticated,you saw our carbon tape laying machinethat builds the giant fairings.And we can build these incredibly light,very stiff fairing structuresout of carbon composite materialthat they could not have dreamed of.I mean the efficiency,the structural efficiencyof that material is so highcompared to any you know,metallic material youmight use or anything else.So that's one.Aluminum lithium and the abilityto friction stir weld aluminum lithium.Do you remember the frictionstir welding that I showed you?- Yes, incredible.- This is a remarkable technology.This was invented decades ago,but has become very practicalover just the last couple of decades.And instead of usingheat to weld two piecesof metal together, itliterally stirs the two pieces.There's a pin thatrotates at a certain rateand you put that pin betweenthe two plates of metalthat you wanna weld together.And then you move it ata very precise speed.And instead of heating the material,it heats it a littlebit because of friction,but not very much.You can literallyimmediately after weldingwith stir friction welding,you can touch the materialand it's just barely warm.It literally stirs the molecules together.It's quite extraordinary.- Relatively low temperature.And I guess high temperatureis what makes them,that makes it a weak point?- Exactly.So with traditional weldingtechniques, you may havewhatever the underlyingstrength characteristicsof the material are,you end up with weakregions where you weld.And with friction stir welding,the welds are just asstrong as the bulk material.So it really allows you,and so, 'cause when you're,you know, let's say you're building a tankthat you're gonna pressurizeyou know, a large liquid natural gas tankfor our booster stage, for example.You know, if you are weldingthat with traditional methods,you have to size those weld lands,the thickness of those pieceswith that knockdown forwhatever damage you're doingwith the weld.And that's gonna add a lotof weight to that tank.- I mean, even just thelooking at the fairings,the result of that,the complex shape that it takes and-- Yeah.- And like what it's supposedto do is kind of incredible'cause so people don't knowit's on top of the rocket,it's gonna fall apart.That's its task.But it has to stay strong sometimes.- Yes.- And then disappear when it needs to.- That's right.- Which is a very difficult task.- Yes.When you need something thatneeds to have 100% integrityuntil it needs to have 0% integrity.It needs to stay attacheduntil it's ready to go away.And then when it goes away,it has to go away completely.You use explosive charges for that.And so it's a very robust wayof separating structurewhen you need to.- Exploding- Yeah.Little tiny bits of explosive materialand it just, it'll severthe whole connection.- So if you wanna go from100% structural integrityto zero as fast aspossible use explosives,- Use explosives.- The entirety of this thing is so badass.Okay, so we're back to the two stages.So the first stage is reusable.- Yeah.Second stage is expendable.Second stage is liquidhydrogen, liquid oxygen.So we could take advantage ofthe higher specific impulse.The the first stage landsdownrange on a landing platformin the ocean, comes back for maintenanceand get ready to do the next mission.- I mean there's a million questions,but also is there apath towards reusabilityfor the second stage?- There is, and we know how to do that.Right now we're gonnawork on manufacturingthat second stage to make itas inexpensive as possible.Sort of two paths for a second stage,make it reusable,or work really hard to make it inexpensiveso you can afford to expend it.And that trade is actually notobvious which one is better.- Even in terms of cost.Even like time cost?- I'm talking about cost is, you know,space flight, getting intoorbit is a solved problem.We solved it back in youknow, the '50s and '60s.- You're making it sound easy.- So the only thing that,the only interesting problemis dramatically reducingthe cost of access to orbit,which is if you can do that,you open up a bunch ofnew, you know, endeavorsthat lots of startup companies,everybody else can do.So that's, we really,that's one of our missionsis to you know, be part of this industryand lower the cost toorbit so that there can beyou know, a kind of arenaissance, a golden ageof people doing all kinds ofinteresting things in space.- I like how you said gettingto orbit is a solved problem.It is just the only interestingthing is reducing the cost.You know, how you candescribe every single problemfacing human civilization that way.The physicist would sayeverything is a solved problem.We've solved everything.The rest is just well,Rutherford said that\"it's just stamp collecting.\"It's just the details.It's some of the greatestinnovations and inventionsand you know, brilliance isin that cost reduction stage.Right, and you, you've had along career of cost reduction.- For sure.And when you,what does cost reduction really mean?It means inventing a better way.- Yeah, exactly.- Right, and when you invent a better way,you make the whole world richer.So, you know, whatever it was,I don't know how manythousands of years ago,somebody invented the plow.And when they invented the plow,they made the whole world richerbecause they made farming less expensive.And so it is a big dealto invent better ways.That's how the world gets richer.- So what are some ofthe biggest challengeson the manufacturing sideand the engineering sidethat you're facing in workingto get to the first launch of New Glenn?- The first launch is one thingand we'll do that in 2024coming up in this coming year.The real thing that's the bigger challengeis making sure that our factoryis efficiently manufacturing at rate.So rate production.So consider if you wanna launch New Glennyou know, 24 times a year.You need to manufacture a upper stagesince they're expendableevery, you know, twice a month,you need to do one every two weeks.So you need to be,you need to have all of yourmanufacturing facilitiesand processes and inspection techniquesand acceptance tests andeverything operating at rate.And rate manufacturingis at least as difficultas designing the vehiclein the first place.And the same thing.So every upper stagehas two BE-3U engines.So those engines you know, you needif you're gonna launch thisthe vehicle twice a month,you need four engines a month.So you need an engine every week.So you need to be,that engine needs to bebeing produced at rate.And that's a,and there's all of the thingsthat you need to do that,all the right machine tools,all the right fixtures,the right people, process, et cetera.So it's one thing to builda first article, right.So that's you know, to launchNew Glenn for the first time,you need to produce a first article.But that's not the hard part.The hard part iseverything that's going onbehind the scenes to build a factorythat can produce New Glenn's at rate.- So the first one is produced in a waythat enables the productionof the second and thirdand the fourth and thefifth and sixth, and so on.- You could think of the first articleas kind of pushing,it pushes all of the ratemanufacturing technology along.You know, in otherwords, it's kind of the,it's the test article in a waythat's testing out yourmanufacturing technologies.- The manufacturing is the big challenge.- Yes.I mean I don't want to make itsound like any of it is easy.I mean the people whoare designing the enginesand all this, all of it is hard for sure.But the challenge rightnow is driving really hardto get to rate manufacturingand to do that in an efficient way.Again, kind of back to our cost point.If you get to rate manufacturingin an inefficient way,you haven't really solved the cost problemand maybe you haven't really movedthis state of the art forward.All this has to beabout moving the state-of-the art forward.There are easier businesses to do.I always tell people look, ifyou are trying to make money,you know, like start asalty snack food companyor something, you know.- I'm gonna write that idea down.- Like make the Lex Fridman potato chips,you know, this is-- Don't say it, people are gonna steal it.But yeah, it's hard.- You see what I'm saying?It's like there's nothingeasy about this businessbut it's its own reward.It's fascinating, it'sworthwhile, it's meaningful.And so you know, not,I don't wanna pick onsalty snack food companies,but I think it's less meaningful.You know, at the end of the day,you're not gonna haveaccomplished something amazing.- Yeah, there's-- Even if you do make alot of money out of it.- Yeah, there's somethingfundamentally differentabout the quote unquotebusiness of space exploration.- Yeah, for sure.- It's a grand project of humanity.- Yes.It's one of humanity's grand challenges.And especially as youlook at going to the moonand going to Mars and buildinggiant O'Neill coloniesand unlocking all the things.You know, I won't live long enoughto see the fruits of this,but the fruits of this comefrom building a road to space,getting the infrastructure.I'll give you an analogy.When I started Amazon,I didn't have to develop a payment system.It already existed.It was called the credit card.I didn't have to developa transportation systemto deliver the packages.It already existed.It was called the postal serviceand Royal Mail and Deutsche Post.And so all this heavylifting infrastructurewas already in place.And I could stand on its shoulders.And that's why when youlook at the internet,you know, by the way, anothergiant piece of infrastructurethat was around in the early,I'm taking you back to like 1994,people were using dial up modems.And it was piggybackingon top of the long distance phone network.That's how the internet,that's you know, how peoplewere accessing serversand so on.And that again, if that hadn't existed,it would've been hundredsof billions of CapExto put that out there.No startup company could have done that.And so the problem you know, you see in,if you look at the dynamismin the internet spaceover the last 20 years,it's because you know, you seelike two kids in a dorm roomcould start an internet companythat could be successfuland do amazing things.Beause they didn't have tobuild heavy infrastructure.It was already there.And that's what I wanna do.I take you know, my Amazon winningsand use that to build heavy infrastructureso that the next generation you know,the generation that's mychildren and their children,these, you know, those generationscan then use that heavy infrastructure.Then there'll be space entrepreneurswho start in their dorm room.- Yeah.- Like that will be a marker of success.When you can have a reallyvaluable space companystarted in a dorm room,then we know that we'vebuilt enough infrastructureso that ingenuity and imaginationcan really be unleashed.I find that very exciting.- As they will of course, as kids do,take all of this hardinfrastructurability for granted.- Of course.Which is-- That's the entrepreneurial spirit.- That's an inventors greatest dream.- Yeah.- Is that their inventionsare so successfulthat they are one day taken for granted.You know, nobody thinks ofAmazon as an invention anymore.Nobody thinks of customer reviews as,we pioneered customer reviews,but now they're so commonplace.Same thing with oneclick shopping and so on.But that's a compliment.That's how you know,you invent something that's so used,so beneficially used by so many peoplethat they take it for granted.- I don't know about nobody.That's every time I use Amazon,I'm still amazed how does this work?Logistics.- Well, that proves you'revery curious explorer.- All right, all right, back to rockets.Timeline.You said 2024.As it stands now,are both the first testlaunch and the launchof escapade explorersto Mars still possible?- In 2024?- In 2024.Yeah.- Yeah, I think so.For sure the first launch,and then we'll see ifescapade goes on that or not.I think that the first launch for sure.And I hope escapade too.- Hope.- Well, I just don't know which missionit's actually gonna be slated on.So we also have other thingsthat might go on that first mission.- Oh, I got it.But you're optimistic thatthe launches will still-- Oh, the first launch,I'm very optimistic that the first launchof New Glenn will be in 2024.And I'm just not a hundred percent certainwhat payload will be on that first launch.- Are you nervous about it?- Are you kidding?I'm extremely nervous about it.- Oh man.- A hundred percent.I've, you know, every launch I go to,you know, for New Shephard,for other vehicles too,I'm always nervous for these launches.But yes, for sure.A first launch to haveno nervousness about thatwould be, you know, somesign of derangement,I think so.- Well, I got to visit the launchpad,it's pretty, I mean, it's epic.- You know, we havedone a tremendous amountof ground testing, a tremendousamount of simulation.So, you know, a lot of the problemsthat we might find inflight have been resolved,but there are some problemsyou can only find in flight.So, you know, cross your fingers.I guarantee you, you'llhave fun watching itno matter what happens.- 100% when the thing isfully assembled and comes up.- Yeah, the transporter erector.- The erector, yeah.- Just the transporter erectorfor a rocket of this scale- Yeah.- is extraordinary.- That's an incredible machine.- The vehicle travels out horizontallyand then kind of-- Yeah.- You know, comes up.- Over a few hours?- Yeah, it's a beautiful thing to watch.- Speaking of which, ifthat makes you nervous,I don't know if you remember,but you were aboard a New Shephardon its first crude flight.How was that experience?Were you terrified then?- You know, strangely, I wasn't, you know.- When you ride the rocket-- It's true.- less nerve wracking.- Its true.I've watched other people ride the rocketand I'm more nervousthan when I was inside the rocket myself.It was a difficult conversationto have with my motherwhen I told her I wasgonna go on the first one.And not only was I gonna go,but I was gonna bring my brother too.This is a tough conversationto have with a mom.- There's a long pause when you told her.- She's like both of you?And it was an incredible experienceand we were laughing inside the capsuleand you know, we're not nervous.The people on the groundwere very nervous for us.It was actually one of themost emotionally powerful partsof the experience was nothappened even before the flightat 4:30 in the morning,brother and I are getting readyto go to the launch siteand Lauren is gonna takeus there in her helicopterand we're getting ready to leave.And we go outside the ranch house therein west Texas wherethe launch facility is.And all of our family, mykids and my brother's kidsand our you know, ourparents, and close friendsare assembled there.And they're saying goodbye to us,but they're kind of saying,maybe they think they'resaying goodbye to us forever.And you know, we mightnot have felt that way.But it was obvious from their faceshow nervous they werethat they felt that way.And it was sort of powerfulbecause it allowed us to see,it was almost like attendingyour own memorial serviceor something.Like you could feel how lovedyou were in that moment.And it was really amazing.- Yeah, and I mean there'sjust a epic nature to it too.- The accent, thefloating and zero gravity.I'll tell you something very interesting.Zero gravity feels very natural.I don't know if it's because we are,you know, it's like returnto the womb or what.- You just confirmed you're an alien.But that's okay.I think that's what you just said.- It feels so natural to be in zero G.It was really interesting.And then what people talkabout the overview effectand seeing earth from space,I had that feeling very powerfully.I think everyone did.You see how fragile the earth is.If you're not an environmentalist,it will make you one.The the great Jim Lovell quote, you know,he looked back at the earth from spaceand he said he realized\"you don't go to heavenwhen you die.You go to heaven when you're born.\"And it's just you know, that's the feelingthat people get when they're in space.You see all this blackness,all this nothingness,and there's one gem oflife, and it's earth.- It is a gem.What, you know, you've talked a lotabout decision making throughoutyour time with Amazon.What was that decisionlike to be the firstto ride New Shephard?Like what, just be beforeyou talked to your mom.- Yeah.- What, like the pros and cons,like actually as one human being,as a leader of a company on all fronts,like what was that decision making like?- I decided that, first of all,I knew the vehicle extremely well.I know the team who built it.I know the vehicle.I am very comfortable withlike the escape system.We put as much effort into theescape system on that vehicleas we put into all the restof the vehicle combined.It's one of the hardestpieces of engineeringin the entire New Shephard architecture.- Can you actually describe,what do you mean by escape system?What's involved?- We have a solid rocket motorin the base of the crew capsuleso that if anything goes wrong on ascent,you know, while the mainrocket engine is firing,we can ignite this solid rocket motorin the base of the crew capsuleand escape from the booster.It's a very challenging systemto build, design, validate,test, all of these things.It is the reason that I amcomfortable letting anyonego on New Shephard.So the booster is as safe andreliable as we can make it.But we are harnessing,whenever you're talkingabout rocket engines,I don't care what rocketengine you're talking about,you are harnessing such vast powerin such a small, compact, geometric space.The power density is soenormous that it is impossibleto ever be sure thatnothing will go wrong.And so the only way to improve safetyis to have an escape system.And you know, and historically rockets,human rated rocketshave had escape systems.Only the space shuttle did not.And, but Apollo had one,you know, all of the previous,you know, Gemini, et cetera,they all had escape systems.And we have on New shephardof unusual escapes,most escape systems are towers.We have a pusher escape system.So the solid rocket motoris actually embeddedin the base of the crew capsule.And it pushes and it's reusablein the sense that if we don't use it,so if we have a nominalmission, we land with it.The tower systems have to be ejectedat a certain point in the mission,and so they get wastedeven in a nominal mission.And so again, you know, costreally matters on these things.So we figured out how tohave the escape systembe a reusable ,in the event that it'snot used, you can reuse itand have it be a pusher system.It's a very sophisticated thing.So I knew these things.You asked me about my decision to goand so I know the vehicle very well.I know the people who designed it.I had great trust in themand in the engineering that we did.And I thought to myself look,if I am not ready to go,then I wouldn't want anyone to go.A tourism vehicle has tobe designed in my view,to have very, to be assafe as one can make it.You can't make it perfectly safe.It's impossible.But you know, you just have to,people will do things.People take risks, youknow, they climb mountains,they skydive, they do deepunderwater scuba diving,and so on.People are okay taking risk.You can't eliminate the risk.But it is something, becauseit's a tourism vehicle,you have to do your utmostto eliminate those risks.And I felt very good about the system.I think it's one of thereasons I was so calminside and maybe others weren't just calm,they didn't know asmuch about it as I did.- Who was in charge ofengaging the escape system?Did you have-- It's automated.- Okay.- The escape system is-- I was visualizing deployment of that.- is completely automated.Automated is better becauseit can react so much faster.- So yeah, for tourism rocketssafety is a huge, huge, hugepriority for space explorationalso, but a tiny, you know, a delta less.- Yes.I mean I think for youknow, if you're doing,you know, there are human activitieswhere we tolerate more risk.If you're savingsomebody's life, you know,if you are engaging in real exploration,these are things where, you know,I personally think wewould accept more riskin part because you have to.- Is there a part of you that's frustratedby the rate of progress in Blue Origin?- Blue Origin needs to be much faster.And it's one of thereasons that I left my roleas the CEO of Amazona couple of years ago.I needed, I wanted to come inand Blue Origin needs me right now.And so I had always, whenI was the CEO of Amazon,my point of view on this is if I'm the CEOof a publicly traded companyit's going to get my full attention.And I really, it's justhow I think about things.It was very important to me.I felt I had an obligationto all the stakeholdersat Amazon to do that.And so having, you know, turned the CEO,I'm still the executive chair there,but I've turned the CEO role over.And the reason, theprimary reason I did thatis so that I could spendtime on Blue Originadding some you know, energy,some sense of urgency.We need to move muchfaster and we're going to.- What are the ways to speed it up?So, I mean there's,you've talked a lot of differentways to sort of at Amazon,you know, removing barriersfor progress or distributing,making everybodyautonomous and self reliantin terms of all those kinds of things.Is that apply at Blue Originor is the-- It does apply.You know, I'm leading this directly.We are gonna become theworld's most decisive companyacross any industry.And so you know, at Amazonever since the beginning,I said we are gonna becomethe world's most customerobsessed company.And no matter the industry, like people,one day people are going to come to Amazonfrom the healthcareindustry and wanna knowhow did you guys,how are you so customer obsessed?How do you actually notjust pay lip service,but actually do that?And from you know,all different industriesshould come on and study usto see how we accomplish that.And the analogous thing at Blue Originand it will help us move fasteris we are gonna become theworld's most decisive company.We're gonna get really goodat taking appropriate technology riskand making those decisions quickly.You know, being bold on those things.That's what, and having the right culturethat supports that.You need people to be ambitious,technically ambitious.You know, if there arefive ways to do something,we'll study them.But let's study them veryquickly and make a decision.We can always change our mind.It doesn't you know,changing your mind is,I took about one-waydoors and two-way doors.Most decisions are two-way doors.- Can ou explain that?'Cause I love that metaphor.- If you make the wrong decision,if it's a two-way doordecision, you walk out the door,you pick a door, you walk out,and you spend a little time there.It turns out to be the wrong decision,you can come back inand pick another door.Some decisions are so consequentialand so important and so hard to reversethat they really areone-way door decisions.You go in that door,you're not coming back.And those decisions have to be madevery deliberately, very carefully.If you can think of yet anotherway to analyze the decision,you should slow down and do that.So, you know, when Iwas the CEO of Amazon,I often found myself in the positionof being the chief slowdown officerbecause somebody would be bringing mea one-way door decision.And I would say okay, I canthink of three more waysto analyze that.So let's go do that.Because we ha we are not gonna be ableto reverse this one easily.Maybe you can reverse it,but it's gonna be very costlyand very time consuming.We really have to get thisone right from the beginning.And what happens,unfortunately in companies,what can happen is that youhave a one size fits alldecision making processwhere you end up usingthe heavyweight processon all decisions.- For everything, yeah.- Including the lightweight ones.The two-way door decisions.Two-way door decisionsshould mostly be madeby single individualsor by very small teamsdeep in the organization.And one-way door decisions are the onesthe irreversible ones,those are the ones thatshould be elevated upto you know, the senior most executiveswho should slow them down and make surethat the right thing is being done.- Yeah, I mean, part of the skill hereis to know the differencein one-way and two-way,I think you mentioned.- Yes.- I mean I think youmentioned Amazon Prime,the decision to sortof create Amazon Primeas a one-way door.I mean, it's not, it'sunclear if it is or not,but it probably is, and it'sa really big risk to go there.- There are a bunch ofdecisions like that that areyou know, changing the decisionis gonna be very, very complicated.Some of them are technical decisions too,because some technical decisionsare like quick drying cement.You know, if you'regonna, once you make 'em,it gets really hard.I mean, you know,choosing which propellantsto use in a vehicle.You know, selecting LNGfor the booster stageand selecting hydrogenfor the upper stage,that has turned out tobe a very good decision.But if you changed yourmind, that would be a very,that would be a very big setback.Do you see what I'm saying?- Yeah.- So that's the kind of decisionyou scrutinize very, very carefully.Other things just aren't like that.Most decisions are not that way.Most decisions should bemade by single individuals,but they need,and done quickly in the full understandingthat you can always change your mind.- Yeah, one of the things I really liked,perhaps it's not a two-way door decisionis I disagree and commit phrase.So don't,so somebody brings up an idea to you.If it's a two-way door,you state that you don'tunderstand enough to agree,but you still back them.I'd love for you to explain it.- Yeah, disagree and commit isa really important principlethat saves a lot of arguing.- Yeah.- So-- I'm gonna use that in my personal life.I disagree, but commit.- It's very common inany endeavor in life,in business, and any you know,anybody where you have teammates.You have a teammate andthe two of you disagree.At some point you have to make a decision.And you know, in companieswe tend to organize hierarchically.So there's this you know,whoever's the more senior personultimately gets to make the decision.So ultimately the CEO getsto make that decision.And the CEO may notalways make the decisionthat they agree with.So like you know, I would oftenI would be the one whowould disagree and commit.One of my direct reportswould very much wanna do it,do something in a particular way.I would think it was a bad idea.I would explain my point of view.They would say Jeff, I thinkyou're wrong, and here's why.And we would go back and forthand I would often say you know what?I don't think you're right,but I'm gonna gamble with youand you're closer to theground truth than I am.I had known you for 20 years,you have great judgment.I don't know that I'm right either.Not really, not for sure.All these decisions are complicated.Let's do it your way.But at least then you've made a decision.And I'm agreeing tocommit to that decision.So I'm not gonna be second guessing it.I'm not gonna be sniping at it.I'm not gonna be saying I told you so.I'm gonna try actively tohelp make sure it works.That's a really importantteammate behavior.There's so many waysthat dispute resolutionis a really interesting thing on teams.And there are so many wayswhen two people disagreeabout something, even,I'm assuming in the casewhere everybody's well intentioned,they just have a very different opinionabout what the right decision is.And we have, in our societyand inside companies,we have a bunch of mechanismsthat we use to resolvethese kinds of disputes.A lot of 'em are, I think really bad.So, you know, an exampleof a really bad wayof coming to agreement is compromise.So compromise, you know, look,we're in a room here and I could sayLex, how tall do youthink this ceiling is?And you'd be like I don'tknow, Jeff, maybe 12 feet tall.And I would say I think it's 11 feet tall.- Yeah.- And then we'd say you know what?Let's just call it 11 and a half feet.That's compromise.- Yeah.- Instead of the rightthing to do is you know,to get a tape measureor figure out some wayof actually measuring,but think getting that tape measureand figure out how to getit to the top of the ceilingand all these things that requires energy.Compromise, the advantage of compromiseas a resolution mechanismis that it's low energy,but it doesn't lead to truth.And so in things like theheight of the ceiling,where truth is a noble thing,you shouldn't allow compromise to be usedwhen you can know the truth.Another really bad resolution mechanismthat happens all the timeis just who's more stubborn.- Yeah.- This is also, let's saytwo executives who disagreeand they just have a war of attrition.And whichever one gets exhausted firstcapitulates to the other one.Again, you haven't arrived at truth.And this is very demoralizing.So, you know, this is where escalation,I try to ask people whoyou know, on my teamand say never get to a pointwhere you are resolvingsomething by you know,who gets exhausted first.Escalate that.I'll help you make the decision.Because that's so de-energizedand such a terrible, lousyway to make a decision.- So you want to get to the resolutionas quickly as possiblebecause that ultimately leadsto high velocity of decision.- Yes.And you wanna try to get asclose to truth as possible.So you want like you know,exhausting the other personis not truth seeking.- Yes.- And compromise is not truth seeking.So, you know, it doesn't mean,now, and there are a lot of caseswhere no one knows the real truthand that's where disagreeingcommit can come in.But it's escalation is betterthan more of attrition.Escalate to you know, to your bossand say hey, we can't agree on this.We like each other, we'rerespectful of each other,but we strongly disagree with each other.We need you to you know,make a decision hereso we can move forward.But decisiveness, movingforward quickly on decisionsas quickly as you responsibly canis how you increase velocity.Most of what slows thingsdown is taking too longto make decisions at all scale levels.You know, so it has tobe part of the cultureto get high velocity.You know, Amazon has amillion and a half peopleand the company is still fast.We're still decisive, we're still quick.And that's because theculture supports that.- At every scale in a distributed way.- Yes.- Try to maximize thevelocity of decisions.- Exactly.- You've mentioned the lunar program.Let me ask you about that.- Yeah.- There's a lot going on thereand you haven't reallytalked about it much.So in addition to theArtemis program with NASA,Blue is doing its own lander program.Can you describe it?There's a sexy picture onInstagram with one of them.Is it the MK1, I guess?- Yeah,The MK1.The picture is me with BillNelson, the NASA administrator.- Just to clarify, theLander is the sexy thingabout the Instagram.Really wanna clarify that.- I know it's not me.I know it was either the lander or Bill.- Okay.I love Bill, but-- Thank you for clarifying.- Okay.- Yes, the MK1 Lander isdesigned to take 3000 kilogramsto the surface of the moonin a cargo, expendable cargo.It's an expendable lander.Lands on the moon, stays there,take 3000 kilograms to the surface.It can be launched on asingle New Glenn flight,which is very important.So it's a relatively simple architecture,just like the human landing system landerthat they called the MK2.MK1 is also fueled with liquid hydrogen,and which is for high energy emissions,like landing on the surface of the moon,the high specific impulse of hydrogenis a very big advantage.The disadvantage ofhydrogen has always beenthat it's, since it's such a deep cryogen,it's not storable.So it's constantly boiling offand you're losing propellantbecause it's boiling off.And so we're doing, aspart of our lunar program,it's developing solar powered cryo coolersthat can actually makehydrogen a storable propellantfor deep space.And that's a real game changer.It's a game changer forany high energy mission.So to the moon, but to the outer planets,to Mars, everywhere.- So the idea with MK1, both MK1 and MK2is the New Glenn can carryit from the surface of earthto the surface of the moon.- Exactly.So the Mk1 is expendable.The lunar lander we'redeveloping for NASA,the Mk2 lander, that's partof the Artemis program.They call it thesustaining lander program.So that lander is designed to be reusable.It can land on the surface of the moonin a single stage configurationand then take off.So the whole you know,if you look at the Apollo program,the lunar lander and Apollowas really two stages.It would land on the surfaceand then it would leave the descent stageon the surface of the moon,and only the absent stage would go back upinto lunar orbit where it would rendezvouswith the command module.Here what we're doing is wehave a single stage lunar landerthat carries down enough propellantso that it can bringthe whole thing back upso that it can be reused over and over.And the point of doing that, of course,is to reduce cost so thatyou can make lunar missionsmore affordable over time,which is, that's one ofNASA's big objectivesbecause this time thewhole point of Artemisis go back to the moon,but this time to stay.So, you know, back in the Apollo program,we went to the moon six timesand then ended the programand it really was tooexpensive to continue.- And so there's a few questions there,but one is how do you stay on the moon?What ideas do you have about-- Yeah.- Like sustaining life wherea few folks can stay therefor prolonged periods of time?- Well, one of the things we're working onis using lunar resourceslike lunar regolithto manufacture commoditiesand even solar cellson the surface of the moon.We've already built a solar cellthat is completely made fromlunar regolith stimulant,and this solar cell is onlyabout 7% power efficient.So it's very inefficientcompared to you know,the more advanced solar cellsthat we make here on earth.But if you can figure out howto make a practical solar cell factorythat you can land onthe surface of the moon,and then the raw materialfor those solar cellsis simply lunar regolith,then you can just you know, continueto churn out solar cellson the surface of the moon,have lots of power onthe surface of the moon.That will make it easier forpeople to live on the moon.Similarly, we're working on extractingoxygen from lunar regolith.So lunar regolith by weighthas a lot of oxygen in it.It's bound very tightly, you know,as oxides with other elements.And so you have to separate the oxygen,which is very energy intensive.So that also could worktogether with the solar cells.But if you can,and then ultimately we may be ableto find practical quantities of icein the permanently shadowed craterson the poles of the moon.And we know there is ice waterin those, or water ice in those craters.And we know that we can breakthat down with electrolysisinto hydrogen and oxygen.And then you'd not only have oxygen,but you'd also have a verygood high efficiency propellantfuel in hydrogen.So there's a lot we can doto make the moon moresustainable over time.But the very first step, the thing,the kind of gate that allof that has to go throughis we need to be ableto land cargo and humanson the surface of the moonat an acceptable cost.- To fast forward a little bit,is there any chance Jeff Bezos steps footon the moon and on Mars?One or the other, or both?- It's very unlikely.I think it's probablysomething that gets doneby future generations bythe time it gets to me.I think in my lifetimethat's probably gonna be doneby professional astronauts.Sadly, I would love tosign up for that mission.So don't count me out yet, Lex, you know,give me a fighting shot here maybe.But I think if we areplacing reasonable betson such a thing,in my lifetime, thatwill continue to be doneby professional astronauts.- Yeah, so these arerisky, difficult missions.- And probably missions thatrequire a lot of training.You know, you are going therefor a very specific purposeto do something.We're gonna be able todo a lot on the moon toowith automation.So, you know, in terms ofsetting up these factoriesand doing all that, we aresophisticated enough nowwith automation and weprobably don't need humansto tend those factories and machines.So there's a lot that'sgonna be done in both modes.- So I have to ask thebigger picture questionabout the two companiespushing humanity forwardout towards the stars,Blue Origin and SpaceX.Are you competitors, collaborators?Which, and to what degree?- Well, I would say you know,just like the internet is bigand there are lots ofwinners at all scale levels.I mean, there are halfa dozen giant companiesthat you know, the internet has made,but they're a bunch ofmedium sized companiesand a bunch of smallcompanies, all successful,all with profits, dreams,all driving great customer experiences.That's what we wanna see in space.That kind of dynamism and space is big.There's room for a bunch of winnersand it's gonna happen at all skill levels.And so you know, SpaceX isgonna be successful for sure.I want Blue Origin to be successfuland I hope there are another you know,five companies right behind us.- But, you know, I spoke toElon a few times recentlyabout you, about Blue Origin,and he was very positiveabout you as a person and very supportiveof all the efforts you'vebeen leading at Blue.What's your thoughts?You worked with a lot ofleaders at Amazon, at Blue.What's your thoughts aboutElon as a human beingand a leader?- Well, I don't reallyknow Elon very well.You know, I know his public persona,but I also know you can't know anyoneby their public persona.It's impossible.I mean you may think you do,but I guarantee you don't.So I don't really know,you know Elon way better than I do Lex,but in terms of his,judging by the results,he must be a very capable leader.There's no way you couldhave you know, Teslaand SpaceX without being a capable leader.It's impossible.- Yeah, I just, I hope youguys hang out sometimes,shake hands, and sort ofhave a kind of friendshipthat would inspire justthe entirety of humanity.'cause you, what you're doingis like one of the big grandchallenges ahead for humanity.- Well, I agree with youand I think in a lot of these endeavors,we're very like-minded.- Yeah.- And so I think, you know,I'm not saying we're identical,but I think we're very like-minded.And so I, you know, I love that idea.- All right, going back to sexypictures on your Instagram,there's a video of you fromthe early days of Amazongiving a tour of yourquote sort of offices.I think your dad is holding the camera.- He is, yeah.I know, right.Yes.This is what the giant orangeextension cord and yeah.- And you're like explaining the geniusof the extension cordand how this is a deskand the CRT monitor and sort ofthat's where all the magic happens.I forget what your dad said,but this is like the center of it all.So what was it like,what was going throughyour mind at that time?You left a good job in NewYork and took this leap.Were you excited?Were you scared?- So excited and scared.Anxious, you know, thoughtthe odds of success were low,told all of our early investorsthat I thought there wasa 30% chance of successby which I mean just begetting your money back.Not like, not what actually happened.Because that's the truth.Every startup company is unlikely to work.It's helpful to be in reality about that,but that doesn't meanyou can't be optimistic.So you kind of have to havethis duality in your head.Like on the one hand,you know what the baseline statistics sayabout startup companies.And the other hand youhave to ignore all of thatand just be a hundredpercent sure it's gonna work.And you're doing boththings at the same time.You're holding thatcontradiction in your head.But it was so, it was so exciting.I love you know, every, from 1994when the company was founded to 1995,when we opened our doorsall the way until today,I find Amazon so exciting.And that doesn't meanit's like full of pain,full of problems, you know,it's like there's so manythings that need to be resolvedand worked and made better, and et cetera.But on balance, it's so fun.It's such a privilege.It's been such a joy.I feel so grateful that I'vebeen part of that journey.It's just been incredible.- So in some sense, you don'twant a single day of comfort.You've written about this many times.We'll talk about your writing,which I would highly recommend people readand just the letters to shareholders.So you wrote up explainingthe idea of day one thinking,I think you first wrote aboutin 97 letters to shareholders.Then you also, in a waywrote it about sad to say,is your last letter toshareholders as CEO.And you said that day two is stasisfollowed by irrelevance,followed by excruciating painfuldecline, followed by death.And that is why it's always day one.Can you explain this day one thing?This is a really powerful wayto describe the beginningand the journey of Amazon.- It's really a very simple,and I think age old ideaabout renewal and rebirth.And like every day is day one.Every day you are decidingwhat you're gonna do.And you are not trappedby what you were or who you were,or any self-consistency.Self-consistency even can be a trap.And so day one thinking is kind of,we start fresh every dayand we get to make new decisionsevery day about invention,about customers, about howwe're going to operate,what our, even as deeplyas what our principles are.We can go back to that.It turns out we don'tchange those very often,but we change them occasionally.And when we work on programs at Amazon,we often make a list of tenants.And this, the tenants are kind of,they're not principles.They're a little moretactical than principles,but it's kind of the main ideasthat we want this program to embody,whatever those are.And one of the things that we dois we put, these are thetenets for this program.And in parentheses we always put,unless you know a better way.And that idea, unlessyou know a better way,is so important because you never wantto get trapped by dogma.You never wanna get trapped by history.It doesn't mean you discardhistory or ignore it.There's so much value inwhat has worked in the past.But you can't be blindlyfollowing what you've done.And that's the heart of day oneis you're always starting fresh.- And to the question ofhow to fend off day two,you said such a question,can't have a simpleanswer as you're saying,there will be many elements,multiple paths, and many traps.I don't know the whole answer,but I may know bits of it.Here's a starter pack of essentials.Maybe others come to mindfor day one, defense,customer obsession, askeptical view of proxies,the eager adoption of external trendsand high velocity decision making.So we talked about highvelocity decision making,that's more difficult than it sounds.So maybe you can pick onethat stands out to youas you can comment on.Eager adoption of external trends,high velocity decision making,skeptical view of proxies.How do you fight off day two?- Well, you know, I'll talk about,because I think it's the onethat is maybe in some waysthe hardest to understand isthe skeptical view of proxies.One of the things thathappens in business,probably anything that you're,where you're you know, youhave an ongoing programand something is underwayfor a number of years,is you develop certain thingsthat you're managing tolike, let's say the typicalcase would be a metric.And that metric isn't thereal underlying thing.And so you know, maybe the metricis efficiency metricaround customer contactsper unit sold or something.If you sell a million units,how many customer contacts do you get?Or how many returns do you get?And so on and so on.And so what happens is a little bitof a kind of a inertia sets inwhere somebody a long timeago invented that metricand they invented that metric.They decided we needto watch for you know,customer returns per unitsold as an important metric.But they had a reason whythey chose that metric.The person who invented that metricand decided it was worth watching.And then fast forward five years,that metric is the proxy.- The proxy for truth, I guess.- The proxy for truth,the proxy for customer,let's say in this case, it's aproxy for customer happiness.And, but that metric is notactually customer happiness,it's a proxy for customer happiness.The person who invented the metricunderstood that connection.Five years later, a kindof inertia can set inand you forget the truthbehind why you were watchingthat metric in the first place.And the world shifts a little.And now that proxy isn't asvaluable as it used to beor it's missing something.And you have to be on alert for that.You have to know, okay, this is,I don't really care about this metric.I care about customer happiness.And this metric is worthputting energy intoand following andimproving and scrutinizingonly in so much as it actuallyaffects customer happiness.And so you've gottaconstantly be on guard.And it's very, very common.This is a nuanced problem.It's very common, especiallyin large companies,that they're managing to metricsthat they don't really understand.They don't really know why they exist.And the world may have shiftedout from under them a little.And the metrics are no longeras relevant as they werewhen somebody 10 yearsearlier invented the metric.- That is a nuance, butthat's a big problem, right?- It's a huge problem.- That something so compellingto have a nice metric to try to optimize.- Yes.And by the way, you do need metrics.- Yes you do.- You know, you can'tignore them, and want them,but you just have tobe constantly on guard.This is, you know, a way toslip into day two thinkingwould be to manage yourbusiness to metricsthat you don't really understand.And you're not really surewhy they were inventedin the first place,and you're not surethey're still as relevantas they used to be.- What does it take to be the guy or galwho brings up the point thatthis proxy might be outdated?I guess what does ittake to have a culturethat enables that in the meeting?'Cause that's a very uncomfortable thingto bring up at a meeting.We all showed up here, it's a Friday.- This is such,you have just asked amillion dollar question.So this is what you're,if I generalize what you're asking,you are talking in generalabout truth telling.- Yeah.- And we humans are notreally truth seeking animals.We are social animals.- Yeah, we are.- And you know, take youback in time 10,000 yearsand you're in a small village,if you go along to getalong, you can survive.You can procreate.If you're the village truth teller,you might get clubbed to deathin the middle of the night.Truths are often, theydon't want to be heard.'Cause important truthscan be uncomfortable,they can be awkward,they can be exhausting.- Impolite and all that kind of stuff.- Yes, challenging.They can make people defensiveeven if that's not the intent.But any high performing organization,whether it's a sportsteam, a business, you know,a political organization,an activist group,I don't care what it is.Any high performing organizationhas to have mechanisms and a culturethat supports truth telling.One of the things you have to dois you have to talk about that.And you have to talk about the factthat it takes energy to do that.And you have to talk to people,you have to remind people it'sokay that it's uncomfortable.You have to literally tell peopleit's not what we'redesigned to do as humans.It's not really, it'skind of a side effect.You know, we can do that,but it's not how we survive.We mostly survive by being social animalsand being cordial and cooperative.And that's really important.And so there's a, you know,science is all about truth telling.It's actually a very formal mechanismfor trying to tell the truth.And even in science,you find that it's hard to tell the truth.Right.Even, you know, you'resupposed to have hypothesisand test it and find dataand reject the hypothesis,and so on.It's not easy.- But even in science, there'slike the senior scientistsand the junior scientists.- Correct.- And then there's a hierarchy of humanswhere somehow seniority matters.- Yes.- In the scientific process, which is odd.- And that's true inside companies too.And so you wanna set up your cultureso that the most junior personcan overrule the most seniorperson if they have data.And that really is abouttrying to you know,there are little things you can do.So for example, in everymeeting that I attend,I always speak last.And I know from experience that,you know, if I speak first,even very strong-willed,highly intelligent,high judgment participants in that meetingwill wonder, well if Jeff thinks thatI came in this meeting thinking one thing,but maybe I'm not right.And so you can do little thingslike if you're the most seniorperson in the room, go last.Let everybody else go first.In fact, ideally let's try tohave the most junior persongo first and the secondand try to go in orderof seniority so that youcan hear everyone's opinionin a kind of unfiltered way.Because we really do,we actually literally change our opinions.If somebody who you reallyrespect says something,it makes you change your mind a little.- So you're sayingimplicitly or explicitlygive permission for peopleto have a strong opinionas long as it's backed by data.- Yes.And sometimes it can even, by the way,a lot of our most powerfultruths turn out to be hunches.They turn out to be based on anecdotes.They're intuition based.And sometimes you don'teven have strong data,but you may know the person well enoughto trust their judgment.You may feel yourself leaning in.It may resonate with aset of anecdotes you have.And then you may be able to say you know,something about that feels right.Let's go collect some data on that.Let's try to see if we canactually know whether it's right.But for now, let's not disregard it'cause it feels right.You can also fight inherent bias.There's an optimism bias.Like if there are twointerpretations of a new set of dataand one of them is happyand one of 'em is unhappy,it's a little dangerousto jump to the conclusionthat the happy interpretation is right.You may want to sort ofcompensate for that human biasof looking for you know, tryingto find the silver liningand say look, that might be good,but I'm gonna go with it'sbad for now until we're sure.- So speaking of happinessbias, data collection,and anecdotes, you have to,how's that for a transition?You have to tell me thestory of the call you made,the customer service call you madeto demonstrate a point about wait times.- Yeah, this is very earlyin the history of Amazon.And we were going overa weekly business reviewand a set of documents,and I have a saying,which is when the data andthe anecdotes disagree,the anecdotes are usually right.And it doesn't mean you just slavishlygo follow the anecdotes then.It means you go examine the data.'Cause the data,and it's usually not that thedata is being miscollected,it's usually that you're notmeasuring the right thing.And so, you know, if youhave a bunch of customerscomplaining about something,and at the same time, you know,your metrics look like why are,they shouldn't be complaining.You should doubt the metrics.And an early example ofthis was we had metricsthat showed that ourcustomers were waiting,I think less than I don't know, 60 secondswhen they called a 1-800 number to get,you know, phone customer service.The wait time was supposedto be less than 60 seconds.And, but we had a lot of complaintsthat it was longer than that.And anecdotally itseemed longer than that.Like, you know, I would callcustomer service myself.And so one day we're ina meeting, we're goingthrough the WBR and theweekly business review,and we get to this metric in the deck,and the guy who leads customer serviceis to fit in the metric.And I said, okay,let's call picked up the phone.And I dialed the 1-800 numberand called customer service.And we just waited in silence.- What did it turn out tobe, like a couple minutes?- Oh, it was really long.More than 10 minutes, I think.- Oh wow.- I mean it was many minutes.And so, you know, itdramatically made the pointthat something was wrongwith the data collection.We weren't measuring the right thing.And that, you know, setoff a whole chain of eventswhere we started measuring it right.And that's an example bythe way of truth telling,is like that's anuncomfortable thing to do.But you have to seek trutheven when it's uncomfortableand you have to get people's attentionand they have to buy into it,and they have to get energizedaround really fixing things.- So that speaks to the obsessionwith the customer experience.So one of the definingaspects of your approachto Amazon is just being obsessedwith making customers happy.I think companies sometimes say that,but Amazon is really obsessed with that.I think there's somethingreally profound to that,which is seeing the worldthrough the eyes of the customer,like the customerexperience, truly like being,that's using the product,that's enjoying the product.They like the subtle little thingsthat make up their experience.Like how do you optimize those?- This is another really goodand kind of deep questionbecause there are big thingsthat are really important to manage.And then there are smallthings internally in Amazon,we call them paper cuts.So we have, we're alwaysworking on the big things,like if you ask me,and most of the energygoes into the big thingsas it should.So, and you can identify the big things.And and I would encourage anybodyif anybody listening tothis as a entrepreneur,has a small business, whatever,you know, think about the thingsthat are not going tochange over 10 years.And those are probably the big things.So like I know in ourretail business at Amazon,10 years from now,customers are still gonna want low prices.I know they're stillgonna want fast delivery.And I just know they're stillgonna want big selection.So it's impossible to imagine a scenariowhere 10 years from now I say,where a customer says, I love Amazon,I just wish the priceswere a little higher.Or I love Amazon,I just wish you delivereda little more slowly.So when you identify the big things,you can tell they'reworth putting energy intobecause they're stable in time.Okay, but you're asking aboutsomething a little different,which is in every customer experience,there are those big things.And by the way, it'sastonishingly hard to focuseven on just the big things.So even though they're obvious,they're really hard to focus on.But in addition to that,there are all these little tinycustomer experience deficiencies.And we call those paper cutsand we make long lists of them.And then we have dedicatedteams that go fix paper cutsbecause the teamsworking on the big issuesnever get to the paper cutsand they never work theirway down the list to get to,they're working on bigthings as they shouldand as you want them to.And so you need special teamswho are charged with fixing paper cuts.- Well, where would you put,on the paper cuts spectrum,the buy now with one click button,which is I think pretty genius.So to me like, okay,my interaction with thingsI love on the internet,there's things I do a lot.I may be representing regular human,I would love for thosethings to be frictionless.For example, booking airline tickets.Just saying, but youknow, it's buying a thingwith one click, making thatexperience frictionless,intuitive, all aspects of that.Like that just fundamentallymakes my life better.Not just in terms of efficiency,in terms of some kind of-- Cognitive load.- Yeah, cognitive load andinner peace and happiness.First of all, buying stuffisn't a pleasant experience.Having enough money to buy a thingand then buying it isa pleasant experience.And like having painaround that is somehowjust you're ruining abeautiful experience.And I guess all I'm sayingas a person who loves goodideas, is that a paper cut,a solution to a paper cut?- Yes.So it's probably, that particular thingis probably a solution toa number of paper cuts.So if you go back andlook at our order pipelineand how people shopped on Amazon,before we invented 1-click shopping,there were a whole,there was more friction.There was a whole series of paper cutsand that invention eliminateda bunch of paper cuts.And I think you'reabsolutely right by the way,that there, when youcome up with somethinglike 1-click shopping,again, this is like soingrained in people now,I'm impressed that you even notice it.I mean, most people-- Every time I click the button.- I just, surge of happiness.- This, there is in the perfect inventionfor the perfect moment,in the perfect context,there is real beauty.- Yeah.- It is actual beauty.And it feels good.It's emotional, it'semotional for the inventor,it's emotional for theteam that builds it.It's emotional for the customer.It's a big deal.And you can feel those things.- But to keep coming up with that idea,with those kinds of ideas,I guess is the the dayone thinking effort.- Yeah, and you need a big group of peoplewho feel that kind of satisfactionwith creating that kind of beauty.- There's a lot ofbooks written about you.There's a book Invent and Wanderwhere Walter Isaacson does an intro.It's mostly collective writings of yours.I've read that.I also recommend people checkout the Founders Podcast.That covers you a lot andit does different analysisof different business adviceyou've given over the years.I bring all that upbecause I saw that there,I mentioned that you saidthat books are an antidotefor short attention spans.And I forget how it was phrased,but that when you werethinking about the Kindle,that you are thinking abouthow technology changes us.Yeah.- We co-evolve with our tools.So, you know, we invent new toolsand then our tools change us.- Which is fascinating to think about.- It goes in a circle.- And there's some aspect, you know,even just inside businesswhere you don't justmake the customer happy,but you also have to think about likewhere is this going to take humanityif you zoom out a bit.- A hundred percent.And you know, you can feel in your brain,brains are plastic,and you can feel yourbrain getting reprogrammed.I remember the firsttime this happened to mewas when Tetris, itfirst came on the scene.I'm sure you've had,anybody who's been a gameplayer has this experiencewhere you close your eyesto lay down to go to sleepand you see all the little blocks moving.And you can, you're kind ofrotating them in your mindand you can just tell asyou walk around the worldthat you have rewiredyour brain to play Tetris.And, but that happens with everything.And so, you know, oneof the, I think we stillhave yet to see the fullrepercussions of this, I fear.But I think one of the thingsthat we've done online,you know, and largelybecause of social mediais we have trained ourbrains to be really goodat processing super short form content.And, you know, your podcastflies in the face of this.You know, you do these long format thingsand reading books do too.Reading books is a long format thing.And we all do more of if you,if something is convenient,we do more of it.And so when you make tools,you know that we carry around a little,we carry around in our pocket a phone.And one of the things that phone doesfor the most part is it is anattention shortening devicebecause most of thethings we do on our phoneshorten our attention spans.And I'm not even gonna say weknow for sure that that's bad,but I do think it's happening.That's one of the ways we'reco-evolving with that tool.But I think it's importantto spend some of your timeand some of your life doinglong attention span things.- Yeah, I think you'vespoken about the valuein your own life of focus,of singular focus on a thingfor prolonged periods of time.And that's certainly what books doand that's certainly whatthat piece of technology does.But I bring all that up toask you about another pieceof technology, AI that has the potentialto have a various trajectoriesto have an impact on human civilization.How do you think AI will change us?- You're talking aboutyou know, generative AI,large language models, things like ChatGPTand its soon successors,and these are incrediblypowerful technologies.To believe otherwise is tobury her head in the sand,soon to be even more powerful.It's interesting to me thatthat large language modelsin their current form are not inventions,they're discoveries.You know, the telescope was an invention,but looking through it at Jupiter,knowing that it had moons was a discovery.My God, it has moons.And that's what Galileo did.And so this is closer onthat spectrum of invention.You know, we know exactlywhat happens with a 787.It's an engineered object.We designed it, we know how it behaves.We don't want any surprises.Large language models aremuch more like discoveries.We're constantly gettingsurprised by their capabilities.They're not really engineered objects.Then you know, you have this debateabout whether they'regonna be good for humanityor bad for humanity.You know, even specialized AIcould be very bad for humanity.I mean, you know, just regularmachine learning modelsthat can make you know,certain weapons of warthat could be incrediblydestructive are very powerful.And they're not general AIs, they're just,they could just be very smart weapons.And so we have to thinkabout all of those things.I'm very optimistic about this.So even in the face ofall this uncertainty,my own view is that these powerful toolsare much more likely tohelp us and save us eventhan they are to unbalance,hurt us, and destroy us.I think you know, we humanshave a lot of ways of,we can make ourselves go extinct.You know, these thingsmay help us not do that.You know, so they may actually save us.So the people who are youknow, overly concerned,in my view, overly concerned.It's a valid debate.I think that they may bemissing part of the equation,which is how helpful they could bein making sure we don't destroy ourselves.I don't know if you sawthe movie Oppenheimer,but to me, first of all, I loved the movieand I thought the best part of the movieis this bureaucrat playedby Robert Downey Jr.who you know, some ofthe people I've talked tothink that's the mostboring part of the movie.I thought it was the most fascinatingbecause what's going on hereis you realize we have inventedthese awesome, destructive,powerful technologiescalled nuclear weaponsand they're managed andyou know, we humans are,we're not really capableof wielding those weapons.We're, you know, that'swhat he representedin that movie is here's this guywho is just, he wrongly thinks,he's like being so petty.He thinks that he said something,that Oppenheimer said somethingbad to Einstein about him.They didn't talk about him at all,as you find out in thefinal scene of the movie.And yet he spent his careertrying to be vengefuland petty.And that's the problem.We as a species are notreally sophisticated enoughand mature enough tohandle these technologies.And so, and by the way,before you get to general AIand the possibility of AI having agencyand there's a lot of thingswould have to happen,but there's so muchbenefit that's gonna comefrom these technologies in the meantime,even before they're, you know, general AIin terms of better medicinesand better tools to developmore technologies, and so on.I think it's an incrediblemoment to be aliveand to witness the transformationsthat are gonna happen.How quickly will happen no one knows.But over the next 10 years and 20 years,I think we're gonna seereally remarkable advances.And I personally am very excited about it.- First of all, really interesting to saythat it's discoveries that it's truethat we don't know thelimits of what's possiblewith the current language models.- We don't.- And like it could bea few tricks and hackshere and there that that open doorsto whole entire new possibilities.- We do know that humans aredoing something differentfrom these models in part becauseyou know, we're so power efficient.You know, the human braindoes remarkable thingsand it does it on about 20 watts of power.And you know, the AItechniques we use todayuse many kilowatts of powerto do equivalent tasks.So there's something interestingabout the way the human brain does thisand also we don't need as much data.So, you know, like self-driving cars are,they have to drive billionsand billions of milesto try to learn how to drive.And you know, your average 16-year-oldfigures it out with many fewer miles.So there are still some tricks I thinkthat we have yet to learn.I don't think we'velearned the last trick.I don't think it's just aquestion of scaling things up,but what's interesting isthat just scaling things up,and I put just in quotesbecause it's actually hardto scale things up,but just scaling things up also appearsto pay huge dividends.- Yeah, and there'ssome more nuanced aspectabout human beings that's interesting.If it's able to accomplishlike being truly originaland novel to you know,large language models,being able to come upwith some truly new ideas.That's one.And the other one is truth.It seems that large languagemodels are very goodat sounding like they'resaying a true thing,but they don't requireor often have a groundingin sort of a mathematical truth.It can just, it basicallyis a very good bullshitter.So if there's not enough data,if there's not enough sort of datain the training dataabout a particular topic,it's just going to concoctaccurate sounding narratives,which is a very fascinatingproblem to try to solve.How do you get language modelsto infer what is true andnot to sort of introspect?- Yeah, they need to be taught to sayI don't know more often.- Yeah.- And I know of several humanswho could be taught that as well.- Sure.- And then the other stuff,because you're still a bitinvolved in the Amazon sidewith the AI things,the other open questionis what kind of productsare created from this?- Oh, so many.- Yeah.- I mean, you know, just to,we have Alexa and Echoand Alexa has you know,hundreds of millions ofinstalled base, you know, inputs.And so there's, you know,there's Alexa everywhereand guess what Alexa isabout to get a lot smarter.- Yeah.- And so that's really you know,from a product point ofview, that's super exciting.- There's so many opportunities there.- So many opportunities.Shopping assistant, you know,like all that stuff is amazing.And AWS you know, we're building Titan,which is our foundational model.We're also building Bedrock,which our corporate clients atAWS, our enterprise clients,they want to be able touse these powerful modelswith their own corporate dataWithout accidentallycontributing their corporate datato that model.And so those are the tools we're buildingfor them with Bedrock.So there's tremendous opportunity here.- Yeah, the security, the privacy,all those things arefascinating of how to,'cause so much value can be gainedby training on private datathat you want to keep the secure.It's a fascinating technical problem.- Yes.This is a very challengingtechnical problemand it's one that we're youknow, making progress onand dedicated to solvingfor our customers.- Do you think there will be a daywhen humans and robots maybe Alexahave a romantic relationship?Like in the movie Her.- Well, I mean, I think-- I'm just brainstorming products here.- If you look at thespectrum of human varietyand what people like youknow, sexual variety.- Yes.- You know, there arepeople who like everything.So the answer to yourquestion has to be yes.- Okay.- I don't know how-- I guess I'm asking when?- I don't know howwidespread that will be.- All right.- But it will happen.- I was just asking when fora friend, but it's all right.Moving on.Next question.What's a perfectly productiveday in the life of Jeff Bezos?You're one of the mostproductive humans in the world.- Well, I first of all,I get up in the morning and I putter.I like have a coffee.- Can you define putter?- Just like I slowly move around.I'm not as productiveas you might think I am.I mean, 'cause I do believe in wanderingand I sort of I, you know,I read my phone for a while.I read newspapers for a while.I chat with Lauren, Idrink my first coffee.So I kind of, I move pretty slowlyin the first couple of hours.I get up early just naturally.And then, you know, I exercise most daysand most days it's not that hard for me.Some days it's reallyhard and I do it anyway.I don't want to youknow, and it's painful.And I'm like why am Ihere and I don't want to.- Why am I here at the gym?- Why am I here at the gym?Why don't I do something else?You know, it's not always easy.- What's your socialmotivation in those moments?- I know that I'll feelbetter later if I do it.And so like the real source of motivation,I can tell the days when I skip it,I'm not quite as alert.I don't feel as good.And then there's harder motivations.It's longer term, you wantto be healthy as you age,you know, you want healthspan, you want, ideally,you know, you want to behealthy and moving aroundwhen you're 80 years old, you know,and so there's a lot of,but that kind of motivationis so far in the future.It can be very hard to work in the second.So thinking about thefact I'll feel betterin about four hours if I do it now.I'll have more energyfor the rest of my dayand so on and so on.- What's your exercise routine?Just to linger on that.How much do you curl?I mean, what are we talking about here?That's all I do at the gym.So I just-- My routine, you know, on a good day,I do about half an hour of cardioand I do about 45minutes of weightlifting,resistance training ofsome kind, mostly weights.I have a trainer who you know, I lovewho pushes me, which is really helpful.You know, I'll be like,he'll say Jeff, you think you could,can we go up on that weight a little bit?And I'll think about it?And I'll be like no, I don't think so.And he'll look at me andsay yeah, I think you can.And of course he's right.- Yeah, of course, of course.- So it's cool to havesomebody push you a little bit.- But almost every day you do that?- I do, almost every day.I do a little bit of cardioand a little bit of weightliftingand I rotate.I do a pulling day and apushing day and a leg day.It's all pretty standard stuff.- So puttering, coffee, gym.- Puttering, coffee, gym, and then work.- Work.What's work look like?What are the productivehours look like for you?- I, you know, so a couple years agoI left as the CEO of Amazon.And I have never worked harder in my life.I am working so hard andI'm mostly enjoying it.But there are also some very painful days.Most of my time is spent on Blue Originand I've been, I'm sodeeply involved here nowfor the last couple of years.And in the big, I love itand the small, there'sall the frustrationsthat come along with everything.You know, we're trying toget to rate manufacturingas we talked about.That's super important.We'll get there.We just hired a new CEO,a guy I've known forclose to 15 years now,a guy named Dave Limp, who I love.He's amazing.You know, so we'resuper lucky to have Daveand you know, we're going to,you're gonna see us move faster there.But, so my day of work, youknow, reading documents,having meetings, sometimes inperson, sometimes over Zoom,depends on where I am.It's all about you know, the technology.It's about the organization.It's about you know, I'm very,I have architectureand technology meetingsalmost every day on varioussubsystems inside the vehicle,inside the engines.It's super fun for me.My favorite part of it is the technology.My least favorite part of it isyou know, buildingorganizations and so on.That's important, but it'salso my least favorite part.So, you know, that'swhy they call it work.You don't always get todo what you wanna do.- How do you achievetime where you can focusand truly think through problems?- I do little thinking retreats.So for, this is not the only,I can do that all day long.I'm very good at focusing.I'm very good at you know,I don't keep to a strict schedule.Like my meetings oftengo longer than I planfor them to because Ibelieve in wandering,My perfect meeting startswith a crisp document.So the document should bewritten with such claritythat it's like angelssinging from on high.I like a crisp documentand a messy meeting.And so the meeting isabout like asking questionsthat nobody knows the answer toand trying to like wanderyour way to a solution.And because like whenthat happens just right,it makes all the othermeetings worthwhile.It feels good.It has a kind of beauty to it.It has an aesthetic beauty to it.And you get real breakthroughsin meetings like that.- Can you actually describethe crisp document?Like this is one of thelegendary aspects of Amazon,of the way you approach meetings?Is this the six page memo?Maybe first describe the processof running a meeting with memos.- Meetings at Amazon andat Blue Origin are unusual.When we get new,when new people come in,like a new executive joins,they're a little taken aback sometimesbecause a typical meeting,we'll start with a six pagenarratively structured memoand we do study hall.For 30 minutes, we sitthere silently togetherin the meeting and read.- I love this.- Take notes in the margins.And then we discuss.And the reason, by the way we do study,you could say I would likeeverybody to read these memosin advance, but the problemis people don't have timeto do that.And they end up coming to the meetinghaving only skimmed the memoor maybe not read it at all.And they're trying to catch up.And they're also bluffinglike they were in collegehaving pretended to do the reading.- Yeah,Exactly.- It's better just to carveout the time for people- And do it together.- So now we're all on the same page.We've all read the memoand now we can have areally elevated discussion.And this is so much betterfrom having a slideshowpresentation, you know,a PowerPoint presentation of some kindwhere that has so many difficulties.But one of the problems is PowerPointis really designed to persuade.It's kind of a sales tool.And internally the lastthing you want to do is sell.You want to, you're again,you're truth seeking.You're trying to find truth.And the other problem with PowerPointis it's easy for the authorand hard for the audience.And a memo is the opposite.It's hard to write a six page memo.A good six page memo mighttake two weeks to write.You have to write it,you have to rewrite it,you have to edit it, you haveto talk to people about it.They have to poke holes in it for you.You write it again, itmight take two weeks.So the author, it's reallya very difficult job,but for the audience it's much better.So you can read a half hour and you know,there are little problems withPowerPoint presentations too.You know, senior executivesinterrupt with questionshalfway through the presentation.That question's gonna beanswered on the next slide,but you never got there.If you read the whole memo in advance,you know, I often write lots of questionsthat I have in the margins of these memos,and then I go cross them all outbecause by the time I getto the end of the memo,they've been answered.That's why I save all that time.You also get, you know,if the person who's preparing the memo,we talked earlier aboutyou know, group thinkand you know, the factthat I go last in meetingsand that you don't wantyou know, your ideasto kind of pollute themeeting prematurely.You know, the author of the memoshas kind of got to be very vulnerable.They've gotta put alltheir thoughts out there.And they've got to go first.But that's great 'causeit makes 'em really good.And so, and you get tosee their real ideasand you're not trampling onthem accidentally in a big,you know, PowerPoint presentation.- What's that feel likewhen you've authored a thingand then you're sitting thereand everybody's reading your thing,you're like-- I think it's mostly terrifying.- Yeah.Like maybe in a good way?- I think it's-- Like purifying.- I think it's terrifyingin a productive way.- Yeah.- But I think it's emotionallya very nerve wracking experience.- Is there a art science to the writingof the six page memo or justwriting in general to you?- I mean, it's reallygot to be a real memo.So it means you know,paragraphs have topic sentences,like it's verbs and nouns.You can't, that's the otherproblem with PowerPoints,they're often just bullet pointsand you can hide a lot of sloppy thinkingbehind bullet points.When you have to writein complete sentenceswith narrative structure,it's really hard to hide sloppy thinking.So it does, it forces theauthor to be at their best.And so you're getting somebody's,they're getting somebody'sreally their best thinking.And then you don't haveto spend a lot of timetrying to tease thatthinking out of the person.And you've got it from the very beginning.So it really saves youtime in the long run.- So that part is crispand then the rest is messy,crisp document.- Yeah, so you don't wanna pretendthat the discussion should be crisp.There's, you know, most meetings,you're trying to solvea really hard problem.There's a different kind of meeting,which we call weekly business reviewsor business reviews thatmay be weekly or monthlyor daily, whatever they are.But these business review meetings,that's usually forincremental improvement.And you're like lookingat a series of metrics,every time it's the same metrics.Those meetings can be very efficient.They can start on time and end on time.- So we're about to run out of time,which is a good time to askabout the 10,000 year clock.That's what I'm known for, is the humor.Okay.Can you explain what the10,000 year clock is?- 10,000 year clock is a physicalclock of monumental scale.It's about 500 feet tall.It's inside a mountain in west Texasin a chamber that'sabout 12 feet in diameterand 500 feet tall.10,000 year clock is a idea conceivedby brilliant guy named Danny Hillisway back in the '80s.The idea is to build a clock as a symbolfor long-term thinking.And you can kind of justvery conceptually thinkof the 10,000 year clock as it you know,it ticks once a year.It chimes once you know,every a hundred years.And the cuckoo comes outonce every a thousand years.So it just sort of slows everything down.And it's a completely mechanical clock.It is designed to last 10,000 yearswith no human intervention.So the material choicesand everything else.It's in a remote location,both to protect it,but also so that visitors haveto kind of make a pilgrimage.The idea is that over time,this will take hundreds of years,but over time it willtake on the patina of ageand then it will become asymbol for long-term thinkingthat will actually, hopefully get humansto extend their thinking horizons.And my view that's reallyimportant as we have become,as a species, as acivilization more powerful,you know, we're reallyaffecting the planet now.We're really affecting each other.We have weapons of mass destruction,we have all kinds of thingswhere we can really hurt ourselves.And the problems wecreate can be so large.You know, the unintended consequencesof some of our actionslike climate change,putting carbon in theatmosphere is a perfect example.That's an unintended consequenceof the industrial revolutionthat a lot of benefits from it.But we've also got this side effectthat is very detrimental.We need to be, we need tostart training ourselvesto think longer term.Long-term thinking is a giant lever.You can literally solve problemsif you think long-termthat are impossible to solveif you think short term.And we aren't really goodat thinking long-termas you know, it's not really,we're kind of, you know, fiveyears is a tough timeframefor most institutions to think past.And we probably need tostretch that to 10 yearsand 15 years and 20 years and 25 years.And we do a better job for our childrenor our grandchildren if we could stretchthose thinking horizons.And so the clock is, in away, it's an art project,it's a symbol.And if it ever has anypower to influence peopleto think longer term,that won't happen for hundreds of years.But we have to, you know,we're gonna build it nowand let it accrue the patina of age.- Do you think humans will be herewhen the clock runs out?Here on earth?- I think so.But you know, the UnitedStates won't exist.Like whole civilizations rise and fall.10,000 years is so long.Like no nation state has ever survivedfor anywhere close to 10,000 years.- And the increasing rate of progressmakes that even-- Even less likely so.Do I think humans will be here?Yes.What, you know, how willwe have changed ourselvesand what will we be and so on and so on.I don't know, but I think we'll be here.- On that grand scale,a human life feels tiny.Do you ponder your own mortality?Are you afraid of death?- No, I'm you know, I usedto be afraid of death.I did.I like I remember as a young personbeing kind of like veryscared of mortality,like didn't want tothink about it and so on.And always had a big, and asI've gotten older, I'm 59 now.As I've gotten older, somehow that fearhas sort of gone away.I don't, you know, Iwould like to stay alivefor as long as possible,but I'd like to be,I'm really more focused on health span.I want to be healthy.I want that square wave.I want to you know,this I wanna be healthy,healthy, healthy, and then gone.I don't want the long decay.And I'm curious, I wannasee how things turn out.You know, I'd like to be here.I love my family and my close friendsand I want to,I'm curious about them and I wanna see,so I have a lot of reasons to stay around,but it's mortality doesn'thave have that effecton me that it did you know,maybe when I was in my 20s.- Well Jeff, thank youfor creating Amazon,one of the most incrediblecompanies in history.And thank you for tryingyour best to make humansand multi-planetary species expanding outinto our solar system, maybe beyond,to meet the aliens out there.And thank you for talking today.- Well, Lex, thank you for doing your partto lengthen our attention spans.Appreciate that very much.- Thanks for listening to thisconversation with Jeff Bezos.To support this podcast,please check out our sponsorsin the description.And now let me leave you with some wordsfrom Jeff Bezos himself.\"Be stubborn on vision, butflexible on the details.\"Thank you for listening andhope to see you next time.\n"