Good morning to all new and old readers! Here is your Wednesday edition of Faster Than Normal, exploring one short story about a person, a company, a high-performance tool, a trend I’m watching closely, and curated media to help you build businesses, wealth, and the most important asset of all: yourself.
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Today’s edition:
> Stories: Jeff Bezos & Mitsubishi
> High-performance: The number of failures before success
> Insights: Creativity in management
> Tactical: Curated list of productivity resources
> 1 Question: Guiding metrics
Cheers,
Alex
P.S. Send me feedback on how we can improve. I respond to every email.
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Stories of Excellence
Person: Jeff Bezos
Jeff Bezos, founder and former CEO of Amazon, is a titan of e-commerce and cloud computing. Born in 1964, Bezos showed early entrepreneurial spirit, starting a summer camp for kids at age 12. He founded Amazon in 1994, transforming it from an online bookstore to a global retail and technology powerhouse. Bezos's leadership style emphasizes long-term thinking and customer obsession. "We're stubborn on vision. We're flexible on details," he once said. His innovative approaches, like the six-page memo policy, have shaped Amazon's culture. Beyond Amazon, Bezos owns The Washington Post and space exploration company Blue Origin. His net worth, as of 2023, stands at $171 billion. Bezos stepped down as Amazon CEO in 2021 but remains executive chairman, focusing on new products and initiatives.
Key Lessons from Jeff Bezos:
On long-term thinking: "If everything you do needs to work on a three-year time horizon, then you're competing against a lot of people. But if you're willing to invest on a seven-year time horizon, you're now competing against a fraction of those people."
On decision-making: "The smartest people are constantly revising their understanding, reconsidering a problem they thought they'd already solved. They're open to new points of view, new information, new ideas, contradictions, and challenges to their own way of thinking."
On innovation: "If you double the number of experiments you do per year, you're going to double your inventiveness."
Company: Mitsubishi
Mitsubishi was founded in 1870 by Yataro Iwasaki as a shipping company in Osaka, Japan. Initially named Tsukumo Shokai, it was renamed Mitsubishi Shokai in 1873. Iwasaki, a former samurai, leveraged his connections to secure government contracts for shipping. The company expanded rapidly, diversifying into mining, shipbuilding, and banking. By 1900, Mitsubishi had become one of Japan's largest zaibatsu (conglomerates). After World War II, it was broken up into independent companies but later re-formed as a keiretsu (business group). Today, Mitsubishi Group comprises about 40 companies across various industries, with combined revenues of over $300 billion.
Key Lessons from Mitsubishi:
On innovation: Look beyond your industry. Mitsubishi's diverse portfolio allows for cross-pollination of ideas. Innovations in one sector often find applications in others. This cross-industry fertilization has been a key driver of their continued relevance across multiple markets.
On talent management: Cultivate loyalty through stability. Mitsubishi's tradition of lifetime employment, while less common now, fostered a sense of security and commitment among employees. This led to deep institutional knowledge and a strong corporate culture. As one long-time employee put it, "Mitsubishi isn't just a company, it's a family."
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High-performance tool
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The Number Of Failures Before Success
Insights
John Cleese on Creativity in Management:
"Creativity is not a talent. It is not a talent, it is a way of operating.
So how many actors does it take to screw in a lightbulb? Answer: thousands. Only one to do it but thousands to say “I could have done that.” How many Jewish mothers does it take to screw in a lightbulb? Answer: Don’t mind me, I’ll just sit here in the dark, nobody cares about… How many surgeons —
You see when I say “a way of operating” what I mean is this: creativity is not an ability that you either have or do not have.
It is, for example, (and this may surprise you) absolutely unrelated to IQ (provided that you are intelligent above a certain minimal level that is) but MacKinnon showed in investigating scientists, architects, engineers, and writers that those regarded by their peers as “most creative” were in no way whatsoever different in IQ from their less creative colleagues.
So in what way were they different?
MacKinnon showed that the most creative had simply acquired a facility for getting themselves into a particular mood — “a way of operating” — which allowed their natural creativity to function.
In fact, MacKinnon described this particular facility as an ability to play.
Indeed he described the most creative (when in this mood) as being childlike. For they were able to play with ideas… to explore them… not for any immediate practical purpose but just for enjoyment. Play for its own sake.Now here’s the negative thing: Creativity is not a talent. It is not a talent, it is a way of operating.
So how many actors does it take to screw in a lightbulb? Answer: thousands. Only one to do it but thousands to say “I could have done that.” How many Jewish mothers does it take to screw in a lightbulb? Answer: Don’t mind me, I’ll just sit here in the dark, nobody cares about… How many surgeons —
You see when I say “a way of operating” what I mean is this: creativity is not an ability that you either have or do not have.
It is, for example, (and this may surprise you) absolutely unrelated to IQ (provided that you are intelligent above a certain minimal level that is) but MacKinnon showed in investigating scientists, architects, engineers, and writers that those regarded by their peers as “most creative” were in no way whatsoever different in IQ from their less creative colleagues.
So in what way were they different?
MacKinnon showed that the most creative had simply acquired a facility for getting themselves into a particular mood — “a way of operating” — which allowed their natural creativity to function.
In fact, MacKinnon described this particular facility as an ability to play.
Indeed he described the most creative (when in this mood) as being childlike. For they were able to play with ideas… to explore them… not for any immediate practical purpose but just for enjoyment. Play for its own sake."
Tactical reads
⎯
> When looking for a curated list of productivity resources
100+ Resources for Optimizing Productivity & Performance (Read it here)
> When learning proper business networking etiquette
How to ask for and execute a valley style business introduction (Read it here)
1 question
What are you optimizing your life for at the moment?
That’s all for today, folks. As always, please give me your feedback. Which section is your favourite? What do you want to see more or less of? Other suggestions? Please let me know.
Have a wonderful rest of week, all.
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