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《貝佐斯致股東的信1997-2020》
全系列之
2020
2021年4月15日，亞馬遜創(chuàng)始人貝佐斯在他CEO任期內(nèi)的最后一封（2020財年）致股東信中表示，亞馬遜將繼續(xù)為股東、員工創(chuàng)造價值，并且公司將在照顧員工方面做得更好。貝佐斯2021年2月宣布將于第三季度辭去CEO職務(wù)，轉(zhuǎn)任執(zhí)行董事長。 在亞馬遜“1997年的第一封致股東信”中，我談到希望建立“持久特許經(jīng)營權(quán)”一事，也就是通過釋放互聯(lián)網(wǎng)的力量來重新定義“服務(wù)客戶”的意義。我當(dāng)時提到，亞馬遜已經(jīng)從158名員工發(fā)展至614名員工，我們的用戶賬戶也超過了150萬。我們剛剛上市，經(jīng)拆股調(diào)整后的股價為每股1.5美元。我寫道：那是第一天。自那時以來，我們走過了一段很長的路，我們也比以往任何時候都更加努力地服務(wù)用戶。去年，我們雇傭了50萬名員工，現(xiàn)在全球范圍內(nèi)的員工總數(shù)達到130萬。我們在全球擁有超過2億的Prime會員。超過190萬中小企業(yè)在亞馬遜上進行銷售，占我們銷售總額的近60%。用戶已經(jīng)將超過1億臺智能家居設(shè)備與Alexa相連接。云服務(wù)（Amazon Web Services, AWS）為數(shù)百萬客戶服務(wù)，截至2020年，年營收運轉(zhuǎn)率達到500億美元。在1997年，我們還沒有發(fā)明Prime、Marketplace、Alexa或是AWS。根本沒人想過這些，它們的誕生也并非命中注定之事。為了每一件產(chǎn)品，我們都冒了很大的風(fēng)險，也付出了很多智慧與汗水。一路走來，我們?yōu)楣蓶|創(chuàng)造了1.6萬億美元的財富。他們是誰？當(dāng)然，我所持有的亞馬遜股份使我變得富有。但超過7/8的股份，也就相當(dāng)于1.4萬億美元的財富，為他人所有。他們是誰？是養(yǎng)老基金、大學(xué)、401（K）退休福利計劃，也是Mary和拉里，他們在我坐下來寫這封股東信的時候，意外地給我發(fā)來了以下這封信：
我一直都能聽到類似的故事。我知道有些股東用通過投資亞馬遜獲得的資金來上大學(xué)，也有的用于緊急情況、付房租、度假、創(chuàng)業(yè)或是做慈善等等。我為我們給股東創(chuàng)造的財富而感到驕傲。這很重要，這筆財富改善了他們的生活。但我也清楚一點：這還不是我們所創(chuàng)造的價值當(dāng)中最大的一個部分。如果你想在事業(yè)上（實際上是生活中）獲得成功，你所創(chuàng)造的必須比你所消費的更多。你的目標(biāo)應(yīng)該是，為你所接觸的每一個人創(chuàng)造價值。任何一個不能為其所接觸到的人創(chuàng)造價值的企業(yè)，即使表面上看起來很成功，未來也不會長久，這樣的企業(yè)會很快被淘汰。記住，股價與過去無關(guān),它們是對“未來現(xiàn)金流折回到現(xiàn)在”的預(yù)測。股市代表預(yù)期。我要稍微轉(zhuǎn)換一下話題，聊一聊過去的事。2020年，我們?yōu)楣蓶|創(chuàng)造了多少價值？這是一個相對容易回答的問題，因為會計系統(tǒng)就是為了回答這個問題而設(shè)立的。2020年，亞馬遜凈收入213億美元。如果亞馬遜不是一家擁有數(shù)千股東的上市公司，反而是為一個人所獨有的獨資企業(yè)，這就是單一所有者在2020年所能賺到的錢。那員工呢？因為我們可以關(guān)注薪酬支出，所以這也是一個容易回答的價值創(chuàng)造問題。公司的支出就是員工的收入。2020年，亞馬遜員工收入800億美元，再加上包括福利和各種工資稅在內(nèi)的110億美元，合計為910億美元。第三方賣家呢？我們的內(nèi)部團隊（銷售伙伴合作服務(wù)團隊）就是用來回答這個問題的。他們預(yù)計，2020年第三方賣家在亞馬遜上進行銷售所獲得的利潤大概在250億美元至390億美元之間。保守來看，我就按250億美元算了。先說消費者客戶。我們提供低廉的價格、豐富的選擇以及快速的送貨服務(wù)，假設(shè)我們把上述這些都忽略了，只關(guān)注一件事：那就是我們節(jié)省了客戶的時間。在亞馬遜上，28%的購買是在3分鐘或者更短的時間就完成的，有一半的購買在15分鐘之內(nèi)完成。而去實體店買東西需要經(jīng)過開車、停車、在貨架上找東西、排隊結(jié)賬、找到自己的車再開車回家這一系列流程。研究表明，去實體店購物通常需要一小時左右。假設(shè)一次典型的亞馬遜購物只需要15分鐘，并且還節(jié)省了客戶每周去幾次實體店購物的時間，一年下來就可以節(jié)省超過75小時。這是很重要的。現(xiàn)在是二十一世紀(jì)初期，大家都很忙。
由此，我們可以得到一個數(shù)字。首先按照保守估計，把節(jié)省的時間價值定23為每小時10美元。75小時乘以10美元/時，再減去Prime的成本，那么就是為每位Prime會員創(chuàng)造了630美元的價值。我們擁有2億Prime會員，相當(dāng)于在2020年創(chuàng)造了1260億美元的價值。對AWS客戶進行評估比較難，因為每位客戶的工作量都大不相同。不過我們還是來算一下，但誤差可能會比較大。在云中運營與現(xiàn)場運營帶來的直接成本改善各不相同，但合理的估計是30%。在AWS 2020年全年450億美元的營收中，這30%意味著所創(chuàng)造的客戶價值為190億美元。這項評估工作的困難之處在于，直接降低成本是遷移到云端為客戶帶來的好處中最小的一部分。更大的好處是，提高了軟件開發(fā)的速度，這可以顯著提高客戶的競爭力和營收。我們沒有合理的方法來估計客戶價值的這一部分，只能說它幾乎肯定大于直接節(jié)省的成本。保守地說，我會說這是相同的，并將AWS去年的客戶價值創(chuàng)造計為380億美元。將AWS和消費者加在一起，2020年的客戶總價值將達到1640億美元。總結(jié)一下：
股東210億美元 員工910億美元 第三方賣家250億美元 客戶1640億美元=3010億美元如果每個小組都有一份損益表，代表他們與亞馬遜的互動，那么上面的數(shù)字就是這些損益表的“底線”（最下面一行，指凈利潤）。這些數(shù)字可以說明，員工為什么為我們工作、賣家為什么通過我們銷售商品，以及客戶為什么從我們這里購買商品。因此我們?yōu)樗麄儎?chuàng)造價值。這種價值創(chuàng)造不是“零和游戲（零和博弈）”。這不僅僅是把錢從一個口袋轉(zhuǎn)到另一個口袋。圍繞著整個社會來看，發(fā)明和創(chuàng)造是所有真正價值創(chuàng)造的根源，而所創(chuàng)造的價值，就是創(chuàng)新的衡量標(biāo)準(zhǔn)。當(dāng)然，我們與這些全體的關(guān)系，和我們創(chuàng)造的價值，不僅僅是金錢。金錢并不能說明問題的全部。例如，我們與股東的關(guān)系相對簡單。他們在自己選擇的期限內(nèi)投資和持有股票。我們也會就年度會議和正確的投票程序等事項向股東提供指導(dǎo)。即便如此，他們也可以無視這些指示，直接放棄投票。我們與員工的關(guān)系是一個非常不同的例子。我們有他們需要遵循的流程，以及需要滿足的標(biāo)準(zhǔn)。我們需要培訓(xùn)和各種認證。員工必須在約定的時間上班。我們與員工的互動很多。這不僅僅是工資和福利的問題，還涉及到雙方關(guān)系的所有其他細節(jié)方面。關(guān)于這次的工會選舉，我認為我們還需要為員工做得更好。雖然投票傾向于我們，我們與員工的直接關(guān)系也很密切，但我很清楚，我們需要一個更好的愿景來為員工創(chuàng)造價值，一個為員工成功創(chuàng)造價值的愿景。如果你看了一些新聞報道，你可能會認為我們不關(guān)心員工。在這些報道中，我們的員工有時被指責(zé)為絕望的靈魂，被當(dāng)作機器人對待。這不準(zhǔn)確。他們是成熟而有思想的人，可以選擇在哪里工作。當(dāng)我們調(diào)查履約中心員工時，94%的人表示，他們會推薦好友來亞馬遜工作。我們的員工可以在輪班期間，利用非正式休息時間伸展身體、取水、使用洗手間或與經(jīng)理交談，所有這些都不會影響他們的表現(xiàn)。這些非正式休息時間是對他們正常作息時間，即30分鐘午餐和30分鐘休息時間的補充。我們沒有設(shè)定不合理的績效目標(biāo)。相反，我們設(shè)定了可實現(xiàn)的績效目標(biāo)，將任職期限和實際員工績效數(shù)據(jù)考慮在內(nèi)?？冃窃诤荛L一段時間內(nèi)進行評估的，因為我們知道，在任何給定的一周、一天或一小時內(nèi)，各種因素都會影響績效表現(xiàn)。如果員工在一段時間內(nèi)未能達到績效目標(biāo)，他們的經(jīng)理會與他們交談并提供指導(dǎo)。培訓(xùn)也擴展到那些表現(xiàn)出色并能承擔(dān)更多責(zé)任的員工。事實上，82%的輔導(dǎo)是積極的，提供給達到或超過預(yù)期績效標(biāo)準(zhǔn)的員工。我們解雇了不到2.6%的員工，因為他們無法履行自己的職責(zé)（2020年，由于新冠肺炎疫情的影響，這一比例甚至更低）。事實是，領(lǐng)導(dǎo)亞馬遜運營的數(shù)千人的龐大團隊，一直非常關(guān)心我們的小時工，我們?yōu)樽约簞?chuàng)造的工作環(huán)境感到自豪。我們還感到自豪的是，亞馬遜不僅僅為計算機科學(xué)家和擁有高級學(xué)位的人創(chuàng)造就業(yè)機會，還為那些從未獲得這種優(yōu)勢的人創(chuàng)造就業(yè)機會。盡管我們已經(jīng)取得了成就，但我很清楚，我們需要一個更好的愿景，才能讓我們的員工取得成功。我們一直希望成為世界上“最以客戶為中心”的公司，我們不會改變這一目標(biāo)，這就是我們走到這一步的原因。但我承諾，我們還要增加一項，我們將成為世界上最好的雇主和最安全的工作場所。在我即將出任的執(zhí)行主席的職位上，我將把重點放在新的舉措上。我是個發(fā)明家，這是我最喜歡的，也是我最擅長的，這也是我創(chuàng)造最大價值的地方。我很高興能與我們運營部門充滿激情的龐大團隊一起工作，在這個“世界上最好的雇主和最安全的工作場所”的競技場上幫助發(fā)明。在細節(jié)方面，我們亞馬遜總是靈活的，但在愿景問題上，我們是固執(zhí)和無情的。當(dāng)我們下定決心做某事時，我們從來沒有失敗過，在這一點上我們也不會失敗。讓我們深入探討一下安全問題。例如，亞馬遜約40%的工傷與肌肉骨骼疾?。∕SD）有關(guān)，即反復(fù)運動可能導(dǎo)致的扭傷或拉傷等疾病。MSD在我們從事的這類工作中很常見，而且更有可能發(fā)生在員工入職的最初六個月。我們需要為新員工發(fā)明減少MSD的解決方案，他們中的許多人可能是第一次從事體力工作。Working Well就是一個這樣的項目，我們于2020年在北美和歐洲的350個地點向85.9萬名員工推出了這個項目。我們在那里培訓(xùn)一小群員工有關(guān)身體力學(xué)、積極主動的健康和安全方面的知識。除了減少工傷，這些概念對日常工作以外的活動也有積極影響。我們還正在開發(fā)新的自動化人員配備時間表，它使用復(fù)雜的算法在使用不同肌腱組的工作之間輪換員工，以減少重復(fù)運動，幫助保護員工免受MSD風(fēng)險。這項新技術(shù)是我們將在2021年推出的工作輪換計劃的核心。我們對MSD早期預(yù)防的更多關(guān)注已經(jīng)取得了成效。從2019年到2020年，總體MSD減少了32%，工作時間之外導(dǎo)致的MSD減少了一半以上。我們在亞馬遜聘請了6200名安全專業(yè)人員。他們使用安全科學(xué)來解決復(fù)雜的問題，并建立新的行業(yè)最佳實踐。2021年，我們將在安全項目上投資超過3億美元，其中包括最初的6600萬美元，用于創(chuàng)造有助于防止叉車和其他類型工業(yè)車輛相撞的技術(shù)。當(dāng)我們帶頭的時候，其他人就會跟隨。兩年半前，當(dāng)我們?yōu)樾r工設(shè)定15美元的最低工資時，我們這樣做是因為我們想在工資方面領(lǐng)先，而不是隨大流，因為我們認為這樣做是正確的。加州大學(xué)伯克利分校和布蘭迪斯大學(xué)的經(jīng)濟學(xué)家最近發(fā)表的一篇論文，分析了我們決定將最低起薪提高到每小時15美元的影響。他們的評估，與我們從員工、他們的家人和他們所居住的社區(qū)那里聽到的情況相一致。我們提高了起薪，不僅使我們自己的員工受益，也使同一社區(qū)的其他工人受益，從而提振了全美各地的地方經(jīng)濟。研究表明，在同一勞動力市場中，我們的加薪導(dǎo)致其他雇主的平均時薪增加了4.7%。我們的領(lǐng)導(dǎo)工作并不限于此。如果我們想成為世界上最好的雇主，我們不應(yīng)該滿足于94%的員工說，他們會推薦朋友來亞馬遜做工作，我們必須以100%為目標(biāo)。我們將通過繼續(xù)在工資、福利、提升技能機會和其他方面領(lǐng)先，隨著時間的推移，我們將做到這一點。如果任何股東擔(dān)心，世界上最好的雇主和最安全的工作場所，可能會沖淡我們對世界上“最以客戶為中心”的公司的關(guān)注，那么請放心。這樣想吧，如果我們能夠運營消費者電子商務(wù)和AWS這兩項不同的業(yè)務(wù)，并以最高標(biāo)準(zhǔn)來運營，我們肯定可以同時做到上述兩個目標(biāo)。事實上，我相信他們還會互相加強。在這封信的早期草稿中，對于氣候這一部分，我先是擺明了觀點，并給出了一些例子。這些論點和例子旨在證明，人類導(dǎo)致的氣候變化是真實存在的。但是，坦率地說，我認為我們現(xiàn)在沒必要這么說了。因為，你不必說光合作用是真實存在的，或者說重力是真實存在的，或者海平面上的水是在100攝氏度沸騰的。這些事情完全是真實的，氣候變化的現(xiàn)實也是如此。不久前，大多數(shù)人認為應(yīng)對氣候變化是好事；但他們也認為這會付出高昂的代價，并會威脅到就業(yè)、競爭力和經(jīng)濟增長。我們現(xiàn)在知道得更清楚了，應(yīng)對氣候變化的明智行動不僅將阻止壞事發(fā)生，還將提高我們的經(jīng)濟效率，有助于推動技術(shù)變革，降低風(fēng)險。總而言之，這些可以帶來更多更好的工作，更健康快樂的孩子，更有生產(chǎn)力的工人，以及更繁榮的未來。當(dāng)然，這并不意味著這將是一件容易的事，一定不會。未來十年將是決定性的十年，2030年的經(jīng)濟將需要與今天有很大的不同，亞馬遜計劃成為這一變化的核心。我們在2019年9月與Global Optimism共同發(fā)起了氣候承諾，因為我們希望幫助推動這場積極的革命。我們需要成為一個不斷壯大的企業(yè)團隊的一員，他們了解21世紀(jì)的緊迫性和機遇。如今，不到兩年后，代表幾乎所有經(jīng)濟領(lǐng)域的53家公司簽署了《氣候承諾》。百思買、IBM、Infosys、梅賽德斯-奔馳、微軟、西門子和Verizon等均簽署承諾，到2040年，其全球業(yè)務(wù)將實現(xiàn)凈零碳，比《巴黎協(xié)議》提前10年。承諾還要求它們定期測量和報告溫室氣體排放；通過真正的商業(yè)變革和創(chuàng)新實施脫碳戰(zhàn)略；并通過額外的、可量化的、真實的、永久的和對社會有益的補償，來中和任何剩余的排放?？尚诺?、高質(zhì)量的補償是寶貴的，我們應(yīng)該保留它們，以補償那些不存在低碳替代品的經(jīng)濟活動。《氣候承諾》簽署國正在做出有意義的、切實的和雄心勃勃的承諾。Uber的目標(biāo)是到2030年在加拿大、歐洲和美國成為零排放平臺，漢高（Henkel）計劃100%使用可再生能源生產(chǎn)電力。亞馬遜正在朝著我們自己的目標(biāo)取得進展，即到2025年100%使用可再生能源，比我們最初的2030年目標(biāo)提前了五年。亞馬遜是全球最大的可再生能源企業(yè)買家。我們在全球有62個公用事業(yè)規(guī)模的風(fēng)能和太陽能項目，以及125個太陽能屋頂和分類中心。這些項目的發(fā)電能力超過6.9千兆瓦，每年提供超過2000萬兆瓦時的能源。運輸是亞馬遜商業(yè)運營的重要組成部分，也是我們到2040年實現(xiàn)凈零碳計劃中最艱難的部分。為了幫助推動電動汽車技術(shù)市場的快速發(fā)展，并幫助所有公司過渡到更環(huán)保的技術(shù)，我們向Rivian投資了超過10億美元，訂購了10萬輛電動送貨車。我們還與印度的馬欣德拉（Mahindra）和歐洲的梅賽德斯-奔馳建立了合作伙伴關(guān)系。這些來自Rivian的定制電動送貨車輛已經(jīng)投入運營，并于今年2月首次在洛杉磯上路。1萬輛新車最早將于明年上路，到2030年，所有10萬輛車將全部上路，可減排數(shù)百萬噸碳。我們希望企業(yè)加入《氣候承諾》的一個重要原因是，向市場發(fā)出信號，企業(yè)應(yīng)該開始發(fā)明和開發(fā)有利于改善氣候變化的新技術(shù)。我們購買10萬輛Rivian電動面包車就是一個很好的例子。為了進一步加快對建設(shè)零碳經(jīng)濟所需新技術(shù)的投資，我們于去年6月推出了“氣候承諾基金”（Climate Pledge Fund）。該投資計劃從20億美元開始，投資于有遠見的公司，旨在促進向低碳經(jīng)濟的過渡。我們已經(jīng)投資了CarbonCure Technologies、Pachama、Redwood Materials、Rivian、Turntide Technologies、ZeroAvia和Infinium等創(chuàng)新技術(shù)公司。另外，我個人還撥款100億美元，幫助推動我們在未來十年所需的系統(tǒng)性變革。我們將支持頂尖的科學(xué)家、活動家、非政府組織、環(huán)境正義組織和其他致力于抗擊氣候變化和保護自然世界的人。去年年底，我向16個致力于創(chuàng)新和移動解決方案的組織提供了我的第一輪贈款。它將采取來自大公司、小公司、全球組織和個人的集體行動，我很高興能成為這一旅程的一部分，并樂觀地認為，人類可以團結(jié)起來解決這一挑戰(zhàn)。這是我作為亞馬遜CEO的最后一封年度股東信，我覺得有最后一件極其重要的事情必須告知大家，我希望所有亞馬遜人都把這件事放在心上。以下是理查-德道金斯Richard Dawkins出版的《盲眼鐘表匠》（The Blind Watch Maker）一書中的一段話，這是關(guān)于生物學(xué)的一個基本事實。任何動物都要為自己的生存而努力奮斗。生物體的溫度、體內(nèi)酸堿平衡和電荷往往與周遭自然環(huán)境是“不平衡”的。例如，我們的身體通常比我們周圍的環(huán)境更熱，在寒冷的氣候下，他們必須努力保持這種差異。而當(dāng)生物體的這些指標(biāo)與周遭環(huán)境達到了一致平衡的時候，往往也意味著生命走到了盡頭。當(dāng)我們死后，身體停止運轉(zhuǎn)，溫差開始消失，最終我們的溫度與周圍環(huán)境相同。 并不是所有的動物都如此努力地避免與周圍的溫度達到平衡，但所有的動物都做了一些類似的工作。例如，在干旱的地方，動植物努力保持細胞中的液體含量，這與水從細胞流向干燥的外部世界的自然趨勢背道而馳。如果它們失敗了，它們就會死。更廣泛地說，如果生物不積極地阻止水分流失，它們最終會融入周圍環(huán)境，不再作為生物存在。這就是它們死后會發(fā)生的事情。 雖然這段話不是一個比喻，但它仍然是一段非常棒的話，與亞馬遜非常相關(guān)。我甚至認為，它與所有公司、所有機構(gòu)，以及我們每個人的生活都相關(guān)。為了讓你變得看起來所謂的“正?！?，這個世界在以什么方式吸引你？如何才能保持你的獨特性？我們都知道獨特性（原創(chuàng)性）是有價值的。我們都被教導(dǎo)要“做你自己”。我真正要求你們做的是，擁抱并現(xiàn)實地認識到，保持這種獨特性需要多大的努力。。千萬別讓它成為現(xiàn)實。你必須為你的與眾不同付出代價，這是值得的。
童話版的“做你自己”是，一旦你讓自己的獨特性閃耀光芒，所有的痛苦就會消失。這種說法具有誤導(dǎo)性。做你自己是值得的，但不要指望這很輕松，或者不用付出代價。你必須不斷地付出努力、付出熱情。這個世界總是試圖讓亞馬遜融入它，讓我們“更和諧”地與周圍環(huán)境保持平衡。盡管這仍然需要持續(xù)的努力，但相信我們可以而且必須做得更好。我一如既往地附上1997年致股東的信，信中最后寫道：
“我們亞馬遜感謝客戶的業(yè)務(wù)和信任，感謝彼此的辛勤工作，感謝股東的支持和鼓勵?！边@一點絲毫沒有改變。
我要特別感謝Andy Jassy同意擔(dān)任CEO。這是一項艱巨的工作，責(zé)任重大。
亞馬遜云計算負責(zé)人Andy Jassy將接任公司CEOAndy才華橫溢，標(biāo)準(zhǔn)也是最高的。我向你們保證，Andy不會允許世界把我們變成普通人。他將聚集我們所需的能量，讓我們保持內(nèi)在活力，讓我們與眾不同。這并不容易，但這是至關(guān)重要的。我還認為，這將是令人滿意的，而且經(jīng)常是有趣的。謝謝你，Andy。致你們所有人：保持善良，保持獨特性，創(chuàng)造的東西要比消費的多，永遠不要讓世界吸引你融入周圍的環(huán)境?，F(xiàn)在仍然是Day 1。
亞馬遜創(chuàng)始人、CEO
貝佐斯致股東的信2020英文版： In Amazon’s 1997 letter to shareholders, our first, I talked about our hope to create an “enduring franchise,”
one that would reinvent what it means to serve customers by unlocking the internet’s power. I noted that
Amazon had grown from having 158 employees to 614, and that we had surpassed 1.5 million customer
accounts. We had just gone public at a split-adjusted stock price of $1.50 per share. I wrote that it was Day 1. We’ve come a long way since then, and we are working harder than ever to serve and delight customers.
Last year, we hired 500,000 employees and now directly employ 1.3 million people around the world. We have
more than 200 million Prime members worldwide. More than 1.9 million small and medium-sized businesses
sell in our store, and they make up close to 60% of our retail sales. Customers have connected more than
100 million smart home devices to Alexa. Amazon Web Services serves millions of customers and ended 2020
with a $50 billion annualized run rate. In 1997, we hadn’t invented Prime, Marketplace, Alexa, or AWS.
They weren’t even ideas then, and none was preordained. We took great risk with each one and put sweat
and ingenuity into each one. Along the way, we’ve created $1.6 trillion of wealth for shareowners. Who are they? Your Chair is one, and
my Amazon shares have made me wealthy. But more than 7/8ths of the shares, representing $1.4 trillion of
wealth creation, are owned by others. Who are they? They’re pension funds, universities, and 401(k)s, and
they’re Mary and Larry, who sent me this note out of the blue just as I was sitting down to write this
shareholder letter: 
I am approached with similar stories all the time. I know people who’ve used their Amazon money for
college, for emergencies, for houses, for vacations, to start their own business, for charity – and the list goes
on. I’m proud of the wealth we’ve created for shareowners. It’s significant, and it improves their lives. But I
also know something else: it’s not the largest part of the value we’ve created. Create More Than You Consume If you want to be successful in business (in life, actually), you have to create more than you consume. Your
goal should be to create value for everyone you interact with. Any business that doesn’t create value for those
it touches, even if it appears successful on the surface, isn’t long for this world. It’s on the way out. Remember that stock prices are not about the past. They are a prediction of future cash flows discounted
back to the present. The stock market anticipates. I’m going to switch gears for a moment and talk about the
past. How much value did we create for shareowners in 2020? This is a relatively easy question to answer
because accounting systems are set up to answer it. Our net income in 2020 was $21.3 billion. If, instead of
being a publicly traded company with thousands of owners, Amazon were a sole proprietorship with a single
owner, that’s how much the owner would have earned in 2020. How about employees? This is also a reasonably easy value creation question to answer because we can look
at compensation expense. What is an expense for a company is income for employees. In 2020, employees
earned $80 billion, plus another $11 billion to include benefits and various payroll taxes, for a total of
$91 billion. How about third-party sellers? We have an internal team (the Selling Partner Services team) that works to
answer that question. They estimate that, in 2020, third-party seller profits from selling on Amazon were
between $25 billion and $39 billion, and to be conservative here I’ll go with $25 billion. For customers, we have to break it down into consumer customers and AWS customers. We’ll do consumers first. We offer low prices, vast selection, and fast delivery, but imagine we ignore all of
that for the purpose of this estimate and value only one thing: we save customers time. Customers complete 28% of purchases on Amazon in three minutes or less, and half of all purchases are
finished in less than 15 minutes. Compare that to the typical shopping trip to a physical store – driving,
parking, searching store aisles, waiting in the checkout line, finding your car, and driving home. Research
suggests the typical physical store trip takes about an hour. If you assume that a typical Amazon purchase
takes 15 minutes and that it saves you a couple of trips to a physical store a week, that’s more than 75
hours a year saved. That’s important. We’re all busy in the early 21st century. So that we can get a dollar figure, let’s value the time savings at $10 per hour, which is conservative. Seventyfive hours multiplied by $10 an hour and subtracting the cost of Prime gives you value creation for each
Prime member of about $630. We have 200 million Prime members, for a total in 2020 of $126 billion of value
creation. AWS is challenging to estimate because each customer’s workload is so different, but we’ll do it anyway,
acknowledging up front that the error bars are high. Direct cost improvements from operating in the cloud
versus on premises vary, but a reasonable estimate is 30%. Across AWS’s entire 2020 revenue of $45 billion,
that 30% would imply customer value creation of $19 billion (what would have cost them $64 billion on
their own cost $45 billion from AWS). The difficult part of this estimation exercise is that the direct cost
reduction is the smallest portion of the customer benefit of moving to the cloud. The bigger benefit is the
increased speed of software development – something that can significantly improve the customer’s
competitiveness and top line. We have no reasonable way of estimating that portion of customer value
except to say that it’s almost certainly larger than the direct cost savings. To be conservative here (and
remembering we’re really only trying to get ballpark estimates), I’ll say it’s the same and call AWS customer
value creation $38 billion in 2020. Adding AWS and consumer together gives us total customer value creation in 2020 of $164 billion.
Summarizing: If each group had an income statement representing their interactions with Amazon, the numbers above
would be the “bottom lines” from those income statements. These numbers are part of the reason why people
work for us, why sellers sell through us, and why customers buy from us. We create value for them. And
this value creation is not a zero-sum game. It is not just moving money from one pocket to another. Draw
the box big around all of society, and you’ll find that invention is the root of all real value creation. And value
created is best thought of as a metric for innovation. Of course, our relationship with these constituencies and the value we create isn’t exclusively dollars and
cents. Money doesn’t tell the whole story. Our relationship with shareholders, for example, is relatively simple.
They invest and hold shares for a duration of their choosing. We provide direction to shareowners
infrequently on matters such as annual meetings and the right process to vote their shares. And even then
they can ignore those directions and just skip voting. Our relationship with employees is a very different example. We have processes they follow and standards
they meet. We require training and various certifications. Employees have to show up at appointed times. Our
interactions with employees are many, and they’re fine-grained. It’s not just about the pay and the benefits.
It’s about all the other detailed aspects of the relationship too. Does your Chair take comfort in the outcome of the recent union vote in Bessemer? No, he doesn’t. I think
we need to do a better job for our employees. While the voting results were lopsided and our direct
relationship with employees is strong, it’s clear to me that we need a better vision for how we create value for
employees – a vision for their success. If you read some of the news reports, you might think we have no care for employees. In those reports, our
employees are sometimes accused of being desperate souls and treated as robots. That’s not accurate. They’re
sophisticated and thoughtful people who have options for where to work. When we survey fulfillment
center employees, 94% say they would recommend Amazon to a friend as a place to work. Employees are able to take informal breaks throughout their shifts to stretch, get water, use the rest room,
or talk to a manager, all without impacting their performance. These informal work breaks are in addition to
the 30-minute lunch and 30-minute break built into their normal schedule. We don’t set unreasonable performance goals. We set achievable performance goals that take into account
tenure and actual employee performance data. Performance is evaluated over a long period of time as we
know that a variety of things can impact performance in any given week, day, or hour. If employees are on
track to miss a performance target over a period of time, their manager talks with them and provides
coaching. Coaching is also extended to employees who are excelling and in line for increased responsibilities. In fact,
82% of coaching is positive, provided to employees who are meeting or exceeding expectations. We terminate
the employment of less than 2.6% of employees due to their inability to perform their jobs (and that
number was even lower in 2020 because of operational impacts of COVID-19). Earth’s Best Employer and Earth’s Safest Place to Work The fact is, the large team of thousands of people who lead operations at Amazon have always cared deeply
for our hourly employees, and we’re proud of the work environment we’ve created. We’re also proud of the
fact that Amazon is a company that does more than just create jobs for computer scientists and people with
advanced degrees. We create jobs for people who never got that advantage. Despite what we’ve accomplished, it’s clear to me that we need a better vision for our employees’ success.
We have always wanted to be Earth’s Most Customer-Centric Company. We won’t change that. It’s what got
us here. But I am committing us to an addition. We are going to be Earth’s Best Employer and Earth’s
Safest Place to Work. In my upcoming role as Executive Chair, I’m going to focus on new initiatives. I’m an inventor. It’s what I
enjoy the most and what I do best. It’s where I create the most value. I’m excited to work alongside the large
team of passionate people we have in Ops and help invent in this arena of Earth’s Best Employer and
Earth’s Safest Place to Work. On the details, we at Amazon are always flexible, but on matters of vision we
are stubborn and relentless. We have never failed when we set our minds to something, and we’re not going to
fail at this either. We dive deep into safety issues. For example, about 40% of work-related injuries at Amazon are related to
musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs), things like sprains or strains that can be caused by repetitive motions.
MSDs are common in the type of work that we do and are more likely to occur during an employee’s first
six months. We need to invent solutions to reduce MSDs for new employees, many of whom might be
working in a physical role for the first time. One such program is WorkingWell – which we launched to 859,000 employees at 350 sites across North
America and Europe in 2020 – where we coach small groups of employees on body mechanics, proactive
wellness, and safety. In addition to reducing workplace injuries, these concepts have a positive impact on
regular day-to-day activities outside work. We’re developing new automated staffing schedules that use sophisticated algorithms to rotate employees
among jobs that use different muscle-tendon groups to decrease repetitive motion and help protect employees
from MSD risks. This new technology is central to a job rotation program that we’re rolling out throughout
2021.Our increased attention to early MSD prevention is already achieving results. From 2019 to 2020, overall
MSDs decreased by 32%, and MSDs resulting in time away from work decreased by more than half. We employ 6,200 safety professionals at Amazon. They use the science of safety to solve complex problems
and establish new industry best practices. In 2021, we’ll invest more than $300 million into safety projects,
including an initial $66 million to create technology that will help prevent collisions of forklifts and other
types of industrial vehicles. When we lead, others follow. Two and a half years ago, when we set a $15 minimum wage for our hourly
employees, we did so because we wanted to lead on wages – not just run with the pack – and because we
believed it was the right thing to do. A recent paper by economists at the University of California-Berkeley
and Brandeis University analyzed the impact of our decision to raise our minimum starting pay to $15 per
hour. Their assessment reflects what we’ve heard from employees, their families, and the communities they
live in. Our increase in starting wage boosted local economies across the country by benefiting not only our own
employees but also other workers in the same community. The study showed that our pay raise resulted in a
4.7% increase in the average hourly wage among other employers in the same labor market. And we’re not done leading. If we want to be Earth’s Best Employer, we shouldn’t settle for 94% of
employees saying they would recommend Amazon to a friend as a place to work. We have to aim for 100%.
And we’ll do that by continuing to lead on wages, on benefits, on upskilling opportunities, and in other
ways that we will figure out over time. If any shareowners are concerned that Earth’s Best Employer and Earth’s Safest Place to Work might dilute
our focus on Earth’s Most Customer-Centric Company, let me set your mind at ease. Think of it this way.
If we can operate two businesses as different as consumer ecommerce and AWS, and do both at the highest
level, we can certainly do the same with these two vision statements. In fact, I’m confident they will
reinforce each other. In an earlier draft of this letter, I started this section with arguments and examples designed to demonstrate
that human-induced climate change is real. But, bluntly, I think we can stop saying that now. You don’t
have to say that photosynthesis is real, or make the case that gravity is real, or that water boils at 100 degrees
Celsius at sea level. These things are simply true, as is the reality of climate change.Not long ago, most people believed that it would be good to address climate change, but they also thought
it would cost a lot and would threaten jobs, competitiveness, and economic growth. We now know better.
Smart action on climate change will not only stop bad things from happening, it will also make our
economy more efficient, help drive technological change, and reduce risks. Combined, these can lead to
more and better jobs, healthier and happier children, more productive workers, and a more prosperous future.
This doesn’t mean it will be easy. It won’t be. The coming decade will be decisive. The economy in 2030 will
need to be vastly different from what it is today, and Amazon plans to be at the heart of the change. We
launched The Climate Pledge together with Global Optimism in September 2019 because we wanted to
help drive this positive revolution. We need to be part of a growing team of corporations that understand
the imperatives and the opportunities of the 21st century.Now, less than two years later, 53 companies representing almost every sector of the economy have signed
The Climate Pledge. Signatories such as Best Buy, IBM, Infosys, Mercedes-Benz, Microsoft, Siemens, and
Verizon have committed to achieve net-zero carbon in their worldwide businesses by 2040, 10 years ahead of
the Paris Agreement. The Pledge also requires them to measure and report greenhouse gas emissions on a
regular basis; implement decarbonization strategies through real business changes and innovations; and
neutralize any remaining emissions with additional, quantifiable, real, permanent, and socially beneficial
offsets. Credible, quality offsets are precious, and we should reserve them to compensate for economic
activities where low-carbon alternatives don’t exist. The Climate Pledge signatories are making meaningful, tangible, and ambitious commitments. Uber has a
goal of operating as a zero-emission platform in Canada, Europe, and the U.S. by 2030, and Henkel plans to
source 100% of the electricity it uses for production from renewable sources. Amazon is making progress
toward our own goal of 100% renewable energy by 2025, five years ahead of our initial 2030 target. Amazon
is the largest corporate buyer of renewable energy in the world. We have 62 utility-scale wind and solar
projects and 125 solar rooftops on fulfillment and sort centers around the globe. These projects have the
capacity to generate over 6.9 gigawatts and deliver more than 20 million megawatt-hours of energy annually. Transportation is a major component of Amazon’s business operations and the toughest part of our plan
to meet net-zero carbon by 2040. To help rapidly accelerate the market for electric vehicle technology, and to
help all companies transition to greener technologies, we invested more than $1 billion in Rivian – and
ordered 100,000 electric delivery vans from the company. We’ve also partnered with Mahindra in India and
Mercedes-Benz in Europe. These custom electric delivery vehicles from Rivian are already operational, and
they first hit the road in Los Angeles this past February. Ten thousand new vehicles will be on the road as
early as next year, and all 100,000 vehicles will be on the road by 2030 – saving millions of metric tons of
carbon. A big reason we want companies to join The Climate Pledge is to signal to the marketplace that
businesses should start inventing and developing new technologies that signatories need to make good on
the Pledge. Our purchase of 100,000 Rivian electric vans is a perfect example. To further accelerate investment in new technologies needed to build a zero-carbon economy, we introduced
the Climate Pledge Fund last June. The investment program started with $2 billion to invest in visionary
companies that aim to facilitate the transition to a low-carbon economy. Amazon has already announced
investments in CarbonCure Technologies, Pachama, Redwood Materials, Rivian, Turntide Technologies,
ZeroAvia, and Infinium – and these are just some of the innovative companies we hope will build the zerocarbon economy of the future. I have also personally allocated $10 billion to provide grants to help catalyze the systemic change we will
need in the coming decade. We’ll be supporting leading scientists, activists, NGOs, environmental justice
organizations, and others working to fight climate change and protect the natural world. Late last year, I made
my first round of grants to 16 organizations working on innovative and needle-moving solutions. It’s going
to take collective action from big companies, small companies, nation states, global organizations, and
individuals, and I’m excited to be part of this journey and optimistic that humanity can come together to
solve this challenge. Differentiation is Survival and the Universe Wants You to be Typical This is my last annual shareholder letter as the CEO of Amazon, and I have one last thing of utmost
importance I feel compelled to teach. I hope all Amazonians take it to heart.Here is a passage from Richard Dawkins’ (extraordinary) book The Blind Watchmaker. It’s about a basic
fact of biology. “Staving off death is a thing that you have to work at. Left to itself – and that is what it is when it
dies – the body tends to revert to a state of equilibrium with its environment. If you measure some
quantity such as the temperature, the acidity, the water content or the electrical potential in a living
body, you will typically find that it is markedly different from the corresponding measure in the
surroundings. Our bodies, for instance, are usually hotter than our surroundings, and in cold climates
they have to work hard to maintain the differential. When we die the work stops, the temperature
differential starts to disappear, and we end up the same temperature as our surroundings. Not all
animals work so hard to avoid coming into equilibrium with their surrounding temperature, but all
animals do some comparable work. For instance, in a dry country, animals and plants work to
maintain the fluid content of their cells, work against a natural tendency for water to flow from them
into the dry outside world. If they fail they die. More generally, if living things didn’t work actively to
prevent it, they would eventually merge into their surroundings, and cease to exist as autonomous
beings. That is what happens when they die.”While the passage is not intended as a metaphor, it’s nevertheless a fantastic one, and very relevant to
Amazon. I would argue that it’s relevant to all companies and all institutions and to each of our individual
lives too. In what ways does the world pull at you in an attempt to make you normal? How much work does it
take to maintain your distinctiveness? To keep alive the thing or things that make you special? I know a happily married couple who have a running joke in their relationship. Not infrequently, the
husband looks at the wife with faux distress and says to her, “Can’t you just be normal?” They both smile
and laugh, and of course the deep truth is that her distinctiveness is something he loves about her. But, at the
same time, it’s also true that things would often be easier – take less energy – if we were a little more
normal. This phenomenon happens at all scale levels. Democracies are not normal. Tyranny is the historical norm. If
we stopped doing all of the continuous hard work that is needed to maintain our distinctiveness in that
regard, we would quickly come into equilibrium with tyranny.
We all know that distinctiveness – originality – is valuable. We are all taught to “be yourself.” What I’m
really asking you to do is to embrace and be realistic about how much energy it takes to maintain that
distinctiveness. The world wants you to be typical – in a thousand ways, it pulls at you. Don’t let it happen. You have to pay a price for your distinctiveness, and it’s worth it. The fairy tale version of “be yourself ” is that
all the pain stops as soon as you allow your distinctiveness to shine. That version is misleading. Being
yourself is worth it, but don’t expect it to be easy or free. You’ll have to put energy into it continuously. The world will always try to make Amazon more typical – to bring us into equilibrium with our environment.
It will take continuous effort, but we can and must be better than that.As always, I attach our 1997 shareholder letter. It concluded with this: “We at Amazon.com are grateful to
our customers for their business and trust, to each other for our hard work, and to our shareholders for their
support and encouragement.” That hasn’t changed a bit. I want to especially thank Andy Jassy for agreeing
to take on the CEO role. It’s a hard job with a lot of responsibility. Andy is brilliant and has the highest
of high standards. I guarantee you that Andy won’t let the universe make us typical. He will muster the
energy needed to keep alive in us what makes us special. That won’t be easy, but it is critical. I also predict it
will be satisfying and oftentimes fun. Thank you, Andy. To all of you: be kind, be original, create more than you consume, and never, never, never let the universe
smooth you into your surroundings. It remains Day 1.Jeffrey P. Bezos
Founder and Chief Executive Officer Amazon.com, Inc.
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