Differentiation is Survival and the Universe Wants You to be Typical. One last thing of utmost importance Jeff felt compelled to teach all Amazonians in his final shareholder letter as Amazon’s CEO.

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?

This excerpt is from the 2020 Amazon shareholder letter. You can read the full letter on their website.

There is nothing more to add.

Take it easy until next time.

Blogging is something I enjoy, and I share my thoughts on my blog most weekends. Explore all my blogs at https://lnkd.in/ejq7CWaQ.

Views are my own.

Blogging is something I enjoy, and I share my thoughts on my blog most weekends.

Read all my “Notes to Self” at view all blogs.