What won’t change in the next ten years?
Jeff Bezos says he is asked all the time what will change in the next ten years. He is almost never asked what won’t. And he says the second question is the more important one.
“I very frequently get the question: ‘What’s going to change in the next 10 years?’ And that is a very interesting question; it’s a very common one. I almost never get the question: ‘What’s not going to change in the next 10 years?’ And I submit to you that that second question is actually the more important of the two — because you can build a business strategy around the things that are stable in time.”
“In our retail business, we know that customers want low prices, and I know that’s going to be true 10 years from now. They want fast delivery; they want vast selection.”
“When you have something that you know is true, even over the long term, you can afford to put a lot of energy into it.”
— Jeff Bezos, AWS re:Invent, 2012
The best long-term thinkers each ask a version of the same question.
Warren Buffett asks: what compounds?
“Time is the friend of the wonderful business, the enemy of the mediocre.”
“If you aren’t willing to own a stock for ten years, don’t even think about owning it for ten minutes.”
“Our favorite holding period is forever.”
— Warren Buffett, letters to the shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway, 1988, 1989 and 1996
Jeff Bezos asks: what stays true?
Bill Gates asks: what are we underestimating?
“We always overestimate the change that will occur in the next two years and underestimate the change that will occur in the next ten.”
— Bill Gates, The Road Ahead, 1996
In two years, the hype is too high. In ten, our imagination is too small.
Peter Drucker asks: what future are today’s decisions making?
“Long-range planning does not deal with future decisions. It deals with the futurity of present decisions.”
— Peter Drucker, Management Science, 1959
You don’t manage 2036 in 2036. You manage it today.
Alan Kay asks: what can we invent instead of predict?
“The best way to predict the future is to invent it.”
— Alan Kay, Xerox PARC, 1971
And Charlie Munger asks the question under all the others. Can you wait?
“…make a few great investments and just sit back and wait.”
— Charlie Munger, USC Business School, 1994
Compound. Find what stays true. Respect the decade. Decide today. Invent. Wait.
Now ask it of a life.
What will still be true about you in ten years?
You will still be short of time. You will still need a calendar. The books that formed the world will still be worth your time. They have outlasted every prediction made about them. And you will still want to be understood, by people who do not speak your language yet.
So that is what we built on.
One portion a day for ten years is 3,650 portions. Nobody reads the Republic in a day. Almost anybody can read it a few pages at a time.
That is compounding. It asks only what Munger asked.
Can you wait?