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| - The comment stems from a letter to Amazon shareholders in 1999, discussing the company's philosophical approach to its customer relationships and the importance of employee productivity.
Claims that Amazon founder and billionaire Jeff Bezos once said that he tells his employees to "wake up terrified every morning" circulated online in late 2024.
One video shared on TikTok (archived) featured an excerpt from an interview with Martha Beck, a self-described "bestselling author, coach and speaker," from an episode of the podcast "The Diary of a CEO." In the clip, Beck said:
I was amazed to find that Jeff Bezos, one of the richest men in the world, says in his quarterly reports and loves to say, in many settings, that he tells all of the thousands of Amazon employees who work under him... he wants them all to wake up terrified every morning. And that's the word he uses: terrified. And to stay terrified all day, because that makes them productive. But most of these people are just getting by financially. He wants them to be afraid all the time so that he and the stockholders can get more stuff. And they already have so much stuff!
The TikTok user sharing the clip added a caption that read, "No one deserves this, you are worth so much and don't need to live in fear." As of this writing, this specific TikTok has been shared nearly 10,000 times. Other users chimed in on the claim across social media platforms, including Instagram (archived), X (archived) and Threads (archived).
Bezos did indeed once say that he tells employees to "wake up terrified every morning," but the available evidence suggests a different context than Beck intimates.
In an interview with CNET from 1999, available to watch on YouTube, interviewer Wendy Walsh asked Bezos around the 1-minute and sixteen-second mark, "I heard you once say that you told your staff members to be afraid of your customers. What does that mean?"
Bezos' response is:
Well, I ask everybody around here to wake up terrified every morning through sheets drenched in sweat. But to be very precise about what it is they're afraid of. And they shouldn't be afraid of our competitors. They should be afraid of our customers. Because those are the folks we have a relationship with. Those are the folks who send us money. And I believe that our customers are loyal to us right up until the second that somebody else offers them better service.
Further, it appears in the CNET interview that Bezos was paraphrasing himself from a 1999 letter to Amazon shareholders recapping the prior year, which was later published in the 2020 book, "Invent and Wander: The Collected Writings of Jeff Bezos," by Bezos and Walter Isaacson.
The relevant section appears on Page 102 of the book under a heading that reads "Our Customers":
But there is no rest for the weary. I constantly remind our employees to be afraid, to wake up every morning terrified. Not of our competition, but of our customers. Our customers have made our business what it is, they are the ones with whom we have a relationship, and they are the ones to whom we owe a great obligation. And we consider them to be loyal to us—right up until the second that someone else offers them a better service.
("Invent and Wander: The Collected Writings of Jeff Bezos" by Walter Isaacson and Jeff Bezos)
Though Bezos' statements at the time appeared to be meant as an exaggerated commitment to the Amazon customer, revelations about the company's working conditions in the decades since were likely responsible for the online reaction to this comment as it resurfaced.
Snopes recently investigated claims that Amazon initially denied leave to an employee injured in the attack in New Orleans on Jan. 1, 2025, in addition to prior claims of workers urinating in water bottles due to strict time demands and claims that Amazon workers earn so little that they qualify for food stamps.
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