Micky Thompson
5 HN recommenders · recommended in 14 months, 2010–2024
2:39 · 553K views · Dec 20, 2008
A three-minute clip of Jeff Bezos describing his Regret Minimization Framework: imagining yourself at 80 to decide whether to leave a Wall Street job to start Amazon.
HN commenters cite it whenever someone asks whether to quit a job or start a company, as a simple decision heuristic.
14 comments from Hacker News
Jeff Bezos has a great interview where he talks about his decision to leave his cushy Wall Street job and start a website selling books. He talks about how he used a "regret minimization framework" where he projects himself into the future and imagines which decision he would regret the least. I have used this technique multiple times myself to help with otherwise fraught or overwhelming decisions, and I think it's a great way to shift your frame of reference. Interview where he describes it here: this video
Use Jeff Bezos 'Regret Minimization Framework' to decide [1]. Basically, when you are 80, will you regret having tried and possibly failed or regret having not tried at all? Granted you aren't going to be Amazon probabilistically but it will definitely make your life more interesting and put you in control of it and fully responsible for it. Personally I'd rather try and succeed or fail on my own than just be a cog in the machine and possibly be on a ship that sinks out of my control or merely latching onto success. I'd rather be the captain whether she sinks or sails smoothly, hopefully the latter. I went fully independent six years ago, originally just planning on a year, and there have been times of awesome and times of rough waters, but she is still sailing and it has been an adventure I know I won't regret having embarked on. Three of my six years are the highest revenues/income I have had annually in my career but one was the lowest ever, prepare for more volatility if you do. If you do, my recommendation is make good habits early, cut your costs, be disciplined, aim for revenues as early as possible, work hard but work smart, be sure to take time off, and especially enjoy your successes and learn from your failures. Ship on the regular, and if you aren't, kick it in gear to go all in. [1] this video
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." -- Mark Twain "So I wanted to project myself forward to age 80 and say, 'Okay, now I’m looking back on my life. I want to have minimized the number of regrets I have.' I knew that when I was 80 I was not going to regret having tried this. I was not going to regret trying to participate in this thing called the Internet that I thought was going to be a really big deal. I knew that if I failed I wouldn’t regret that, but I knew the one thing I might regret is not ever having tried. I knew that that would haunt me every day, and so when I thought about it that way it was an incredibly easy decision. And I think that’s very good." -- Jeff Bezos, Regret Minimization Framework ( this video )
This question is eerily similar to my current situation: hoping to go on a 6 month sabbatical starting in 2017. My goal is to, basically, work on things that I've always dreamed of doing but haven't pursued because of the demands of everyday life. See Jeff Bezos' regret minimization framework for inspiration: this video . Imagine yourself at 80. What would you regret not doing?
Hearing Bezos's regret minimization framework was one of the things that helped to make an easier decision to leave my job to start a company (I left Amazon, ironically). Here is the original video which this quote is taken from: this video