I Ran Full Text by Jeff Bezos 23 Amazon Shareholder Letters Through a Word Cloud Generator, and Insights were Amazing
Every year around this time, Jeff Bezos drops his annual letter to Amazon shareholders. Thousands or even millions are trying to separate their wisdom.
This year marked letter number 23. Now Bezos has written 44,000 words.
That's enough for a short book, so I took the whole text of all 23 letters over the years, combined them into a single document, and drove the file through a word-shy generator (which also revealed word frequency).
Takeaways are impressive. Right off the top, here are some of the most important things I found. (I think I like the first, second and last items the most.)
Customers, Customers, Customers
If there is a truism I expected to find in these letters, Bezos repeatedly encourages successful companies ̵[ads1]1; or in The smallest Amazon – should be watched over its customers, not their competition. The figures supported this to a degree that was quite astonishing.
The "customer" (or "customer") appears 443 times, making it the most common word in all 23 letters far (omission of common but uninteresting words such as "and" or "the" for example). For comparison, the word "Amazon" appears 340 times.
Statistically, you can literally choose any word randomly in this document, there is about 1 percent chance that the word you choose will be "customer". [19659009] "From the beginning, our focus has been on offering our customers convincing value," wrote Bezos in 1997.
The competition
In these shareholder letters is" customer "to [konkurranse] which is ying is yang .
"Competition" and its derivatives appear 28 times over 23 letters, and many of them are not really referring to competitors; they are a bit of "Amazon's competitive advantage is … "
It is not entirely true to say that takeaway is that you should not be aware on competitors. In fact, Bezos threw cold water on this idea, but it's not really what he says:
As ordinary readers of this letter will know, our energy comes at Amazon from the desire to impress customers rather than eager to best competitors. We do not see which of these approaches is more likely to maximize business success.
There are advantages and disadvantages to both and many examples of highly successful competitor-focused companies. We are working on taking into account competitors and being inspired by them, but it is a fact that the customer-centric way at this point is a crucial element of our culture.
But the word tells an interesting story: 443 to 28.
Prime, AWS, Kindle and Alexa
These are not great surprises as they are giant products for Amazon.
But their frequency – "prime" appears 131 times, "AWS" appears 81 times, "Kindle" appears 66 times, and Alexa and Echo for a combined 34 rimes – are interesting.
It is particularly interesting given that Prime was first introduced in 2005, AWS rolled out in 2006, Kindle was introduced in 2007, and we first heard about Alexa and Echo in late 2014.
So, these are four of The most commonly used words found in the 23 shareholder letters, but they refer to products that did not even exist for the first half or more of the company.
People
Here we combine cases of words like:
- team (62)
- people (54)
- employees (39)
- hiring (10)
- employees (9)
It goes to 176 cases. Almost every company I've ever written about has a sort of line about how "our people are our real assets."
Shareholders
I mean, these are investor letters, right? Shareholders and shareholders receive a total of 53 reviews. Add investor and investors, and that's another eight. I'm not quite sure what to do with this, except that the letters always have this underflow of selling investors while being very self-aware that Amazon doesn't really need to sell investors.
Antitrust
] This last is my favorite, as I am in tears about this lately: antitrust.
I think Amazon recognizes antitrust as number 1 existential threat to the company now. It's not that one day Amazon may decline. Half a century ago, it would have been silly to believe that Sears would ever go anywhere; A quarter of a century ago this summer, the idea of Amazon itself seemed unlikely.
Nevertheless, how many times does antitrust come up in the shareholder letters? Zero. Not even.
I can't predict the future. But I'm pretty sure Amazon would like to continue to strike.
Every year around this time, Jeff Bezos drops his annual letter to Amazon shareholders. Thousands or even millions are trying to separate their wisdom.
This year has marked letter number 23. Now has & nbsp; written 44,000 words.
That & amp; s enough for a short book, so I took the whole text of all 23 letters over the years, combined them into a single document and drove the file through a wordpress generator (which also revealed word frequency).
Takeaways is amazing. Right off the top, here are some of the most important things I found. (I think I like the first, second and last item most.)
n
Customers, Customers, Customers
n
If there is a truism I expected to find In these letters, it is Bezos & # 39; repeated admonition that successful companies – or at least Amazon – should be obsessed with their customers, not their competition. The figures supported this to a degree that was quite astonishing.
n
"Customer" (or "customers") appears 443 times, making it the most common word in all 23 letters far but uninteresting words such as "and" or "the" for example). By comparison, the word "Amazon" appears 340 times.
Statistically, you can literally choose a word as random In this document there is about 1 percent chance that the word you choose will be "customer".
"From the beginning, our focus has been to offer our customers convincing value," wrote Bezos in 1997. "Obsess over customers : our commitment continues, "he wrote in 2002. From 2008:" In this turbulent global economy, our basic approach is the same. Stay down, long-term focused and obsessed with customers [1 9459010] 2013: "We are fortunate in a large, inventive team and a patient, groundbreaking customer occupation culture …"
In these shareholder letters, "customer" to "competition" as ying is to yang yang
"Competition" and its derivatives are shown only 28 times over 23 letters, and many of them are not really referred to competitors; el variation of "Amazon's competitive advantage is …"
n
It is not entirely true to say that takeaway is that you should not be aware of competitors. & nbsp; In fact, Bezos threw cold water on this idea, but it's not really what he says:
As ordinary readers of this letter will know, our energy comes in Amazon from the desire to impress customers rather than eagerly best competitors. We do not see which of these approaches are more likely to maximize business success.
There are advantages and disadvantages for both and many examples of highly successful competitor-focused companies. We work to be aware of competitors and be inspired by them, but it is a fact that the customer-centric way is at this point a crucial element of our culture.
But still the word tells an interesting story: 443 to 28.
Prime, AWS, Kindle and Alexa
These are not big surprises, as they are giant products for Amazon.
n
But their frequency – "prime" appears 131 times, "AWS" appears 81 times, "Kindle" appears 66 times, and Alexa and Echo for a combined 34 rimes – is interesting.
n
It is particularly interesting, given that Prime was first introduced in 2005, and AWS rolled out in 2006, Kindle was introduced in 2007, and we first heard about Alexa and Echo late in 2014.
So, there are four of the most commonly used words found in the 23 shareholder letters, but they refer to products that did not exist for the first half or more of c
People
Here we combine instances of words like:
n
- ]
- hires (10)
- employees (39)
Everything works in 176 copies. Almost every company I've written about has some sort of line about how "our people are our real assets."
Shareholders
n
I believe these are investor letters, right? Shareholders and shareholders receive a total of 53 reviews. Add investor and investors, and that's another eight. I'm not quite sure what to do with this, except that the letters always have this downstream to sell investors while being very self-aware that Amazon doesn't have to sell investors.
Antitrust
n
This latter is my favorite, as I am in a tear about this lately: antitrust.
I believe that Amazon recognizes antitrust as the number one existential threat to the company now. It's not that one day Amazon may decline. Half a century ago, it would have been silly to believe that Sears would ever go anywhere; A quarter of a century since this summer, the idea of Amazon itself seemed unlikely.
Nevertheless, how many times does antitrust arise in shareholder letters? Zero. Not even.
I can't predict the future. But I'm pretty sure Amazon would like to continue to strike.
n
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