Ruthless Editing & What Never Changes

`2:06:33`

— Right. —...it's a way deeper cut. — Yeah. — But his whole point is, like, "A great vocalist with a guitar sounded great 50 years ago." — Always. — It sounds great today. Let's just go back to the essence of what we're actually- — Yeah. —...building, and I think, not many people building products... You just gave the perfect example. — Yeah. — There's no essence there. They're not even using their own products. — No. No. This actually ties into some other advice that Jeff gave us way back, right when we first met him, which was that, he told us to focus on the things in our business that don't change. He goes, "There's going to be plenty of things that do change, but make sure you focus on the things that don't change." And the examples he gave us said something like, "10 years from now, people are not going to wake up and go, 'I wish Amazon's customer service was worse.' They're not going to wake up 10 years from now and go, 'I wish it took longer to get a product from Amazon.'

`2:07:19`

They're not going to say 10 years from now, 'I wish Amazon's prices were higher.'" So, these are the core essence elements that he clearly invested in. Things are coming faster than ever. Another one is, like, "People aren't going to wake up 10 years from now and go, 'I wish I couldn't get this on Amazon.'" Like, more selection, faster delivery, great customer service, fair prices, even competing against other people and offering a lower price, even if Amazon doesn't sell it; these are the things in his business that he knew would never change, and he can still explore a whole bunch of other things, because they do a lot of other things. But don't lose sight of those basics, is something that he really instilled in us, and something we've tried to focus on. So, this is the essence, like, what is the essence or the purity or the core fundamental basics that really matter, and don't lose sight of those.

`2:08:06`

Because it's very easy to lose sight of those, because they can become boring. Like, "I've done that for a while. Let's do something else," and you can kind of lose sight of that. Yeah. — This is why I think people that have run companies for as long as you have are so rare, and it's why... If you look at the first few guests, I bet you, if you took off the average length of time, the person has been working in their business, it's probably, like, 30 years. It's just like... — Yeah. -You said you like old people. — Yeah. People always say I'm obsessed with old people- — Yeah. —...which is funny. But I'm just not obsessed with old people. I'm obsessed with people that do- — Longevity. —...things for a long period of time. This is where me and you will actually have a disagreement, where you're like, "I don't work hard." Yeah, yeah, I do. Hmm. Do you remember talking about this last night? Yeah. And I was like, "Jason... Jason," and I was like, "We add it up." So yeah, this is where I would argue that you work harder than most people that have ever lived. You just have spread it across 27 years. So, I literally pulled out my phone last night.