Jeff Bezos says he always works ‘two or three years into the future’

Amazon’s Jeff BezosPhoto by Drew Angerer/Getty Images

• Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said he is always working two or three years into the future, and “very rarely” has to focus on the short-term, daily operations of the company.
• He’s a big fan of brainstorming sessions, and he’ll complain to his staff if he goes more than a week without one. 
• Bezos said most of his leadership team is focused years ahead as well. 

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos says he “very rarely” focuses on the short-term, daily operations of Amazon, and instead is looking and working years ahead. 

In a new Forbes profile, Bezos discussed his management style, and explained how he and his leadership prefer to focus on the long-term goals at Amazon. He said he pretty much only works on Amazon’s roadmap, and leaves daily tasks to other Amazon employees. 

“Friends congratulate me after a quarterly-earnings announcement and say, ‘Good job, great quarter,'” Bezos said to Forbes. “And I’ll say, ‘Thank you, but that quarter was baked three years ago.’ I’m working on a quarter that’ll happen in 2021 right now.”

Bezos also said he needs at least a weekly brainstorm meeting to unload ideas in, and said he’ll complain to his office if he goes a week without one. 

The Forbes interview provided some insight into how Bezos, the richest man in the world, runs Amazon, which briefly reached a valuation of $1 trillion this week — making it the second US company to do so. Read the full profile here.