Claims

Factual · Their own work or organisation

“I disagree and commit all the time.”

Jeff Bezos, Amazon CEO, shareholder letter · 17 April 2017 · Jeff Bezos' 2016 Letter to Amazon Shareholders (About Amazon)

Jeff Bezos frequently uses "disagree and commit" on decisions himself.

Mostly false False in substance, right in a detail.

Said for an organisation they lead or work for; it counts on both records.

What would count as true or false

Bezos's own statement is not enough on its own. TRUE: documented instances beyond the statement, or consistent accounts from colleagues, show Bezos repeatedly voicing disagreement and then backing team decisions he opposed. MOSTLY TRUE: there are documented instances, but too few to establish that he did this frequently. MIXED: the accounts are split, with some instances of him doing so and other accounts of him routinely overriding teams. MOSTLY FALSE: there is only an isolated example, and most accounts describe him imposing his own view. FALSE: credible accounts show that he rarely or never deferred to decisions he disagreed with.

Evidence

1. Former Amazon employee who survived Bezos tirade: New book captures 'fierce competition' and 'demanding environment' GeekWire · 30 October 2013

   ““Bezos abhors what he calls “social cohesion,” the natural impulse to seek consensus,” Stone writes. “He’d rather his minions battled it out in arguments backed by numbers and passion, and he has codified this approach in one of Amazon’s fourteen leadership principles”

2. Former Amazon employee who survived Bezos tirade: New book captures 'fierce competition' and 'demanding environment' GeekWire · 30 October 2013

   “Have a backbone; disagree and commit. Be obsessive about the customer. Own decisions.”

3. Excerpt from "Amazon Unbound" by Brad Stone Scribd (third-party upload of a book excerpt by Brad Stone)

   “Bezos was opposed to it but agreed to ship remotes with the first”

4. Excerpt from "Amazon Unbound" by Brad Stone Scribd (third-party upload of a book excerpt by Brad Stone)

   “When engineers tried to quietly drop the feature, he noticed and told the team they were not launching without it.”

5. Jeff Bezos biography portrays the Amazon CEO as a tempestuous genius The Verge · 10 October 2013

   “Do I need to go down and get the certificate that says I’m CEO of the company to get you to stop challenging me on this?”

6. Inside Amazon: ‘Nearly every person I worked with, I saw cry’ The Seattle Times · 15 August 2015

   “As the company has grown, Bezos has become more committed to his original ideas, viewing them in almost moral terms, those who have worked closely with him say.”

Reasoning

In the evidence reviewed, the only documented case of Bezos opposing something and then going along with it is a Brad Stone excerpt saying he was opposed but agreed to ship remotes with the first units [E3]. Other independent accounts point the other way: the same excerpt says that when engineers tried to quietly drop a feature, he told the team they were not launching without it [E4], and a Stone biography excerpt quotes him invoking his CEO title to stop a challenge [E5]; people who worked closely with him also told the Seattle Times he had become more committed to his original ideas [E6], though that account does not cite specific decisions. E1 and E2 only show that "disagree and commit" is a codified Amazon principle; they do not show how often Bezos himself practised it. With one isolated example and most accounts describing him imposing his view, the criteria point to mostly false.

Cite this claim

Jeff Bezos, “Jeff Bezos frequently uses "disagree and commit" on decisions himself.” (said 17 April 2017). Verdict: mostly false. Reliability API, claim c_56b5d27b24ff, method 0.1.0+c876030c. https://epistacklabs.com/claims/c_56b5d27b24ff