Dave Clark: Lessons from Leading 1M Employees w/ Jeff Bezos at Amazon to CEO of Flexport | E1036

You know, when you're in the shit, you often don't realize that you're in the shit. You know, if you're just, you know, if you work until 11:00 at night, you don't, you kinda don't even recognize that you're doing it to a degree, or that you don't recognize that you're not engaging, you know. You don't, because you're in the shit. (instrumental music)

Dave, I am so excited for this. I heard so many great things from many different people, from Ryan Peterson to your friend Oli beforehand. So thank you so much for joining me today.

Glad to be here. Thanks for having me.

Not at all. Listen, I was first struck when I saw that you spent 23 years at Amazon. Now this is loyalty that we don't see today. And I just thought that there were so many incredible learnings to unpack. So when we start there, what are one to two of the biggest lessons, that are maybe non-obvious, that you took from your time at Amazon and how they've impacted you as a leader?

Yeah. It was 23 years. Uh, you know, I came straight out of grad school, and then worked up from that to be CEO of the consumer business. Was a hell of a ride. In Amazon years, it's like, uh, 150 years or something. So it's like a normal, a normal time, you know. (laughs) So, uh, it was a fun ride. And I did, I learned a lot. And, uh, you know, when I think about the things that, you know ... A lot of it has been published about Amazon and about, um, the way Amazon operates and runs its business. Uh, but I think, you know, some of the things that I think have been really important to me over time is this idea of, you know, giving people an opportunity to stretch beyond what they think is possible. You know, I, I mean, when I think about the, the career I had, um, much of why I had it is because people, you know, let me do things that I had no business doing, and had a high probability of failing at. But then, I ended up finding a way to be successful. And, you know, I think people too often, uh, put limits on what they think their people are capable of, out of fear of overstretching them in some way.

So my question to you is, how do you determine what to give them where when they don't achieve it, it won't mess up the business? Like, a lot of things actually, if not done right, will be problematic, and that is why people don't give them to them in the first place. How do you determine what you can give and mess up on, versus not give?

Well, some of it's a, you know, is this a everyday ... You know, is this a fulfillment center, and we're picking and packing boxes, and there's a very clear, defined process on how to do it? It needs to be done the same way every time, and in order to be safe for the employee and high quality for the customer. Um, and you, you really don't want to like, you know, be going crazy experimentation on that every day, and throwing big risk at that. The other is a big new project. You know, it's a thing that you want to try, it's a thing you want to build. It's a, uh, it, it's not existential to the today, it's uh, uh, optimistic for the future. And those are great places to invest in people, right? Because, you know, that's a place where somebody can ... You know, you just set a big audacious goal for what's possible, and let them go off and run.