3 Lessons From Jeff Bezos on Avoiding Getting Taken Advantage of in Business Deals
Written by
Cynthia Measom
Edited by
Zuri Anderson
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During a 2024 New York Times DealBook Summit interview, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos shared lessons he’s learned about making business deals. Over the years, he’s figured out how to avoid getting taken advantage of, whether it’s refusing to be cynical, recognizing that risk is often overestimated (and opportunities underestimated), or staying committed even when others doubt him.
Here are three valuable lessons Bezos has learned to keep the upper hand in business deals.
Avoid Being Cynical
Bezos and Elon Musk are competitors when it comes to space explorations: Bezos owns Blue Origin and Musk owns SpaceX.
When Bezos was asked by the interviewer whether he believes that Musk’s close relationship with political leaders could give him an unfair advantage in the space industry, Bezos remarked he chooses to believe that won’t happen.
“I take at face value what has been said, which is that he is not going to use his political power to advantage his own companies or to disadvantage his competitors,” he said. “I take that at face value. Again, I could be wrong about that, but I think it could be true.”
Bezos further explained that taking things at face value is an approach that has served him well.
“I’ve had a lot of success in life not being cynical, and I’ve very rarely been taken advantage of as a result,” he said. “It’s happened a couple of times, but not very often.”
Avoid Overestimating Risk and Underestimating Opportunity
When asked by the interviewer where his confidence came from to build Amazon to such a gigantic scale, Bezos basically said that he believes that people focus too much on risk instead of grasping opportunities.
“I think it’s generally human nature to overestimate risk and underestimate opportunity,” he said. “The risks are probably not as big as you perceive, and the opportunities may be bigger than you perceive. Thinking small is a self-fulfilling prophecy.”
Stay the Course, Even When Others Doubt You
When Bezos was raising his first million dollars of seed money for Amazon, he had to take 60 meetings before finally getting the funding he needed. His challenge was convincing multiple investors to write $50,000 checks even while he admitted to them that there was a 70% chance they’d lose their money. He recalled the process as being extremely difficult.
Looking back, he acknowledged that he might have been over-optimistic about Amazon’s chances for success.
“I think that might have been a little naive, but I thought… it was true” Bezos said. “In fact, if anything, I think I was giving myself better than the odds… better than the real odds.”
However, even with all of the uncertainty, Bezos stayed committed to his vision, and it paid off handsomely.
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