How to Lead: Wisdom from the World's Greatest CEOs, Founders, and Game Changers
updated 3h ago
updated 3h ago
When I talk to student or young adult leaders, I often say that life generally can be divided into thirds. The first third is getting an education or training for a future career; the second third is focusing on building your career, perfecting skills, and rising to a senior position or a position of responsibility and leadership; and the final thi
... See moreZach Kirshner added 8mo ago
A fair question might be: Why should anyone really want to be a leader? First, a leader can create the type of change or results that will improve the lives of others. Second, a leader can motivate others to become leaders, and in turn improve others’ lives. And third, a leader can feel a sense of accomplishment and achievement that provides human
... See moreZach Kirshner added 8mo ago
“When you can make a decision with analysis, you should do so. But it turns out in life that your most important decisions are always made with instinct, intuition, taste, heart.”
Zach Kirshner added 8mo ago
It is a huge advantage to any company if you can stay focused on your customer instead of your competitor.
Zach Kirshner added 8mo ago
With Prime, there were a couple of things. One of our board members, Bing Gordon, always wanted us to have a loyalty program. We were always wondering, “What could a loyalty program be?” A junior software engineer came up with this idea that we could offer people kind of an all-you-can-eat buffet of fast, free shipping. The finance team went and mo
... See moreZach Kirshner added 8mo ago
And think about it—as a senior executive, what do you really get paid to do? You get paid to make a small number of high-quality decisions. Your job is not to make thousands of decisions every day. If I make three good decisions a day, that’s enough. Warren Buffett says he’s good if he makes three good decisions a year. I really believe that.
Zach Kirshner added 8mo ago
But this is what I learned sitting in that chair for twenty-five years. At the end of the day, whether you are interviewing me or I get to interview you, whatever your profession is, wherever you are in your life, in your relationships, every person that you encounter, after every experience, wants to know, “Was that okay?” What people are really s
... See moreZach Kirshner added 8mo ago
I never thought it was better than anybody else’s. What I do think I have that is really uniquely my own is my ability to connect to the audience. My skill comes not from my interviewing ability. My skill comes from my listening ability. And my skill comes from me knowing fundamentally inside myself that I am no different than the audience. What ga
... See moreZach Kirshner added 8mo ago
The F-35A, which is your conventional variant of aircraft, was priced at $94.3 million. We’re on a path to drive that down to $80 million by 2020. Think about that. Maybe you fly a Gulfstream.
Zach Kirshner added 8mo ago