Jeff Bezos' Day 1 philosophy, Novak Djokovic on the discipline required to be the best, and Apple's first logo

Welcome back to the Z Fellows newsletter! Every Monday we share 3 ideas - to help you build companies, ship products, and create your life's work.

1: Jeff Bezos’ Day 1 philosophy

In his 2016 letter to shareholders, Jeff Bezos articulated a mental model of organizational decay, and a philosophy for preserving the urgency, curiosity, and vitality of a Day 1 company.

“Jeff, what does Day 2 look like?

That’s a question I just got at our most recent all-hands meeting. I’ve been reminding people that it’s Day 1 for a couple of decades. I work in an Amazon building named Day 1, and when I moved buildings, I took the name with me. I spend time thinking about this topic.

“Day 2 is stasis. Followed by irrelevance. Followed by excruciating, painful decline. Followed by death. And that is why it is always Day 1.”

To be sure, this kind of decline would happen in extreme slow motion. An established company might harvest Day 2 for decades, but the final result would still come.

I’m interested in the question, how do you fend off Day 2? What are the techniques and tactics? How do you keep the vitality of Day 1, even inside a large organization?

Such a question can’t have a simple answer. There will be many elements, multiple paths, and many traps. I don’t know the whole answer, but I may know bits of it. Here’s a starter pack of essentials for Day 1 defense:

• customer obsession

• a skeptical view of proxies

• the eager adoption of external trends

• and high-velocity decision making.”

Source: Jeff Bezos’ 2016 Letter to Amazon Shareholders

2: Novak Djokovic on the discipline required to be the best

Novak Djokovic is a Serbian professional tennis player, widely regarded as one of the greatest athletes in history, known for holding the record for the most Grand Slam singles titles and a record 428 weeks as the world’s No. 1 in men's singles.

“Every moment of every day of my life is dedicated to staying in that number one position. It can only be discipline; there is no room for anything else.

How much discipline? In January 2012, I beat Nadal in the finals of the Australian Open. The match lasted five hours and fifty-three minutes—the longest match in Australian Open history, and the longest Grand Slam singles final in the Open Era. Many commentators have called that match the single greatest tennis match of all time.

After I won, I sat in the locker room in Melbourne. I wanted one thing: to taste chocolate. I hadn’t tasted it since the summer of 2010.

Miljan brought me a candy bar. I broke off one square—one tiny square—and popped it into my mouth, let it melt on my tongue. That was all I would allow myself. That is what it has taken to get to number one.”

Source: Serve to Win by Novak Djokovic

3: Apple’s first logo

Best of The Week

See you next Monday,

- The Z Fellows Team

New here?

Subscribe here to get our email every Monday.