#71 Jeff Bezos' Shareholder Letters

**David Senra** (0:00)
I want to tell you about a one-time only limited event that I don't think you're going to want to miss. I am doing a live show with Patrick O'Shaughnessy from the Invest Like the Best podcast in New York City on October 19th. Patrick has interviewed over 300 of the world's best investors and founders for his podcast. I've read over 300 biographies of history's greatest entrepreneurs for my podcast. We'll be talking about what we learned from seven years of podcasting, sharing our favorite ideas and stories and doing a live Q&A. There will also be special event-only swag. If you live in New York City, I think it's a no-brainer. But if not, I think it's a great excuse to fly in. I've already heard from a bunch of people that bought tickets. They're flying in from other cities. Some people are flying in from other countries. That's setting the bar really high, so I will have at least four shots of espresso or four energy drinks before or during the show so we can make it a night that you'll never forget. If you're interested in attending this unique live event, I will leave a link down below. I highly recommend you get your tickets today, and I hope I get to see you in New York on October 19th. Bezos broke all the rules when he built Amazon. In doing so, he carved out a unique way of looking at the world, at companies, and at tech in general. And nowhere is Bezos' philosophy of business, technology, and leadership better articulated than in his annual Shareholder Letters, which he has written every year since the company's IPO in 1997 To read Bezos' Shareholder Letters is to get a crash course in running a high growth internet business from someone who mastered it before any of the playbooks were written.
Okay, so that is an excerpt from the CB Insights newsletter. And this week, so if you're a regular listener to this podcast, you know that every week I'd normally read a biography or an autobiography of an entrepreneur, and then I pull out ideas that you can use in your life and work from there. This week's gonna be different. At the same time I was reading the book, The Dow of Capital, which I covered on last week's podcast, I was also reading this CB Insights newsletter. So I spent last week reading every single shareholder letter. I'm just gonna jump right into the shareholder letters.
I read them just like I read the books, and I'm just gonna share the highlights of each one. I'll tell you which year I'm in. I'm gonna go through all of them. I think there's like 21 of them.
And I'll tell you all the notes and the highlights that I left. Okay, so let's start with 1997 This isn't a really important Amazon shareholder letter, because every single year from 1998 on, Jeff attaches this shareholder letter to the bottom of the other one. And he wants to remind the people that are thinking about investing in Amazon what they can actually expect. That he knows that, hey, I may have a different way of looking at things, but I'm going to be honest with you how I'm looking at them, and this is why I'm doing this. So don't jump in here unless you're agreeing with my philosophy. And he repeats over and over again. He's like, listen, there's plenty of other ways to run a successful business. This just happens to be the one we choose, the strategy we choose. All right, so right at the beginning, Amazon passed many milestones in 1997 By year end, we had served more than 1.5 million customers.
Yielding at 800% revenue growth to $147 million. The reason I started off there is because now they have hundreds of millions of customers. I know there's over 100 million people in the Prime program subscribing to the Prime program. And their revenue was, I think, $282 billion last year. Actually, $241 billion.
Okay, so first shareholder letter when they public, they have $147 million, and now they're doing $241 billion. Okay, and then let's go back to Jeff. He says, this is day one for the internet, and if we execute well, actually, this is day one for the internet, and if we execute well for Amazon, today online commerce saves customers money and precious time.
Tomorrow, though, personalization, online commerce will accelerate the very process of discovery. Amazon uses the internet to create real value for its customers, and by doing so, hopes to create an enduring franchise, even in established and large markets. And Jeff continues, he says, our goal is to move quickly, to solidify and extend our current position while we begin to pursue the online commerce opportunities in other areas. We see substantial opportunity in the large markets we are targeting. This strategy is not without risk. It requires serious investment and crisp execution against established franchise leaders.