Invisible Asymptotes

Jobs' gift is so rare that it's likely even Apple hasn't been able to replace it. It's not a coincidence that the Apple products that frustrate me the most right now are all the ones with "Pro" in the name. The MacBook Pro, with its flawed keyboard and bizarre Touch Bar (I'm still using the old 13" MacBook Pro with the old keyboard, hoping beyond h... See more

Fortunately for Amazon, and perhaps critical to much of its growth over the years, perhaps the single most important asymptote was one we identified very early on... You don't even need to rewind to that time to remember what that factor is because I suspect it's the same asymptote governing e-commerce and many other related businesses today.

A last possible asymptote relates to my general sense that massive networks like Facebook and Instagram will, at some point, require more structured interactions and content units (for example, a list is a structured content unit, as is a check-in) to continue scaling.

in time customer expectations inflate. Per Jeff's latest annual letter to shareholders:

One thing I love about customers is that they are divinely discontent. Their expectations are never static – they go up. It’s human nature. We didn’t ascend from our hunter-gatherer days by being satisfied. People have a voracious appetite for a better way, and y

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The stronger the initial product market fit, the more vociferously your early adopters will protest when you make any changes.

Shipping fees... It may sound banal, even self-evident, but understanding that was, I'm convinced, so critical to much of how we unlocked growth at Amazon over the years. People don't just hate paying for shipping, they hate it to literally an irrational degree.

I've written before about selfies as a second language. At the root of that phenomenon is the idea that a generation of kids raised with smartphones with a camera front and back have found the most efficient way to communicate is with the camera, not the keyboard. That's not the case for an older cohort of users who almost never send selfies as a f... See more

Another asymptote may be that while Amazon is great at being the site of first resort to fulfill customer demands for products, it is less capable when it comes to generating desire ex nihilo, the kind of persuasion typically associated more with a tech company like Apple or any number of luxury retailers.

A common symptom of this mistake is not seeing the shoulder in the S-curve coming at all, not understanding the nature of your product-market unfit.