Jeff Bezos on Hiring

Founder & Former CEO at Amazon

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Founder of Amazon who built the Bar Raiser hiring program and laid out his three-question hiring test in a 1998 shareholder letter. Believes every hire either raises or lowers the average, and that fighting organizational entropy starts with who you let through the door.

“Setting the bar high in our approach to hiring has been, and will continue to be, the single most important element of Amazon.com's success.”
Amazon 1998 Shareholder Letter

Jeff Bezos wrote his three-question hiring test in Amazon's 1998 shareholder letter, and the company has run on it ever since. Will you admire this person? Will they raise the average level of the group? Along what dimension might they be a superstar? Every hire is measured against those questions, and the bar is meant to go up continuously.

"I'd rather interview 50 people and not hire anyone than hire the wrong person."

Bezos calls this "fighting entropy." Left unchecked, growing organizations drift toward mediocrity. Each new hire either lifts the team or drags it down. His standard: five years after joining, every employee should look around and think, "I'm glad I got in when I did, because I wouldn't get hired now." To enforce this, Amazon built the Bar Raiser program. An independent evaluator from a different team sits in on every interview loop, with full veto power over any candidate.

"I'm always trying to figure out one thing: is this person a missionary or a mercenary? The missionaries love their product and their customers. The mercenaries are trying to flip their stock."

His favorite personal interview question is disarmingly simple: "Are you a lucky person?" The answer reveals more than it seems. Candidates who say yes tend to show optimism, humility, and gratitude. Candidates who deny being lucky, or brag that they succeeded on pure intelligence, send the opposite signal. Bezos wants people who acknowledge both hard work and fortune.

"Setting the bar high in our approach to hiring has been, and will continue to be, the single most important element of Amazon's success."

He also looks for rebels. He actively seeks people who are "a little bit radical" and acknowledges they can be annoying. But they question the status quo, and that matters more than being easy to manage. The combination of purpose, humility, and intellectual courage is what Bezos considers the complete package.

Philosophy

Core beliefs about hiring and talent

Bezos has called hiring the single most important element of Amazon's success. He would rather interview 50 people and not hire anyone than hire the wrong person. Every new hire should raise the average, and five years later, that person should think 'I'm glad I got in when I did, because I wouldn't get hired now.'

Setting the bar high in our approach to hiring has been, and will continue to be, the single most important element of Amazon.com's success.

From Bezos's 1998 shareholder letter, where he also introduced his 3-question hiring test.

Amazon 1998 Shareholder Letter

I'd rather interview 50 people and not hire anyone than hire the wrong person.

Bezos treated an empty seat as a feature, not a bug. Filling a role with the wrong person costs more than leaving it open.

We want to fight entropy. The bar has to continuously go up. Five years after an employee is hired, that employee should think, 'I'm glad I got hired when I did because I wouldn't get hired now.'

Entropy here means the tendency for talent pools to degrade as organizations grow. Bezos saw every hire as either raising or lowering the average.

Amazon 1998 Shareholder Letter

Hiring Process

How they structure interviews and evaluations

Amazon's Bar Raiser program is the formalized version of Bezos's hiring philosophy. An independent evaluator from outside the hiring team sits in on every interview loop with the power to veto any candidate. The entire process is built around Amazon's Leadership Principles and structured behavioral questions.

Amazon's Bar Raiser program assigns an independent evaluator from a different team to every interview loop. Bar Raisers have veto power and can reject any candidate the hiring manager wants to proceed with. Over 3,600 trained volunteer employees serve as Bar Raisers across the company.

Andy Jassy has called the Bar Raiser program 'one of Amazon's crown jewels.' Every new hire must have skills better than 50% of their would-be peers in similar roles.

About Amazon

Candidates go through four to six interviews in a 'loop.' Each interviewer is assigned specific Amazon Leadership Principles to evaluate. All interviewers provide written feedback independently before the debrief, to prevent groupthink.

The STAR method (Situation, Task, Action, Result) is the standard framework for behavioral questions at Amazon.

Interview Questions

Questions they ask candidates

Bezos is known for three signature approaches: his 3-question hiring test from the 1998 shareholder letter, the 'Are you a lucky person?' question that reveals optimism and humility, and estimation questions that test how candidates decompose ambiguous problems.

Before making a hire, ask three questions: Will you admire this person? Will this person raise the average level of effectiveness of the group they're entering? Along what dimension might this person be a superstar?

From the 1998 shareholder letter. The third question encourages looking for unique qualities beyond the job description.

CNBC

Are you a lucky person?

Bezos's favorite interview question. People who say yes tend to show optimism, humility, and gratitude. People who deny being lucky, or brag that they didn't need it, reveal arrogance. The ideal answer acknowledges both hard work and fortune.

Inc.

I want you to estimate the number of panes of glass in the city of Seattle.

Asked when Bezos personally interviewed Ann Hiatt, whom he hired on the spot in 2002. He was not looking for the right answer but watching how her mind decomposed a huge, ambiguous problem into manageable steps.

CNBC

What They Look For

Traits and signals that excite them

Bezos looks for missionaries over mercenaries, people who are a little bit radical or rebellious, and candidates willing to challenge their own deeply held beliefs.

I'm always trying to figure out one thing first and foremost: is this person a missionary or a mercenary? The missionaries love their product and their customers and they're trying to build a great service. The mercenaries are trying to flip their stock.

Bezos will always choose the missionary. This framework applies to hiring, evaluating entrepreneurs, and assessing leaders at every level.

CNBC

Bezos actively seeks people who are a little bit radical or a bit of a rebel. He acknowledges they can be annoying and not always the easiest to get along with, but insists you want them at your organization because they are innovative and will question the status quo.

Candidates who seek to disconfirm their most profoundly held convictions. This is very unnatural for humans, and it signals genuine intellectual honesty and critical thinking.

Dealbreakers

Warning signs that concern them

Self-centeredness, victim mentality, and excessive use of 'I' all signal misalignment with Amazon's leadership culture. Bezos is wary of candidates who play it safe and only talk about what they already know.

Excessive use of 'I' in interviews. When candidates focus on individual credit and keeping score of personal wins rather than team outcomes, that's an immediate warning sign.

Self-centeredness and victim mentality. Answers indicating victimhood or an inability to take responsibility signal a lack of humility and emotional intelligence.

Signals to Watch

Subtle cues they pay attention to

How candidates attribute their success reveals everything. People who claim all their success came from their own intelligence, with no acknowledgment of luck, are showing a fixed mindset and arrogance that will not fit Amazon's culture.

How candidates attribute their success. People who claim all their success came from intelligence, with no acknowledgment of luck or circumstance, reveal arrogance and a fixed mindset. The 'lucky person' question is a signal-detection tool for this.

Frameworks

Mental models and structured approaches

Two frameworks dominate Bezos's hiring: the 'raise the average' anti-entropy principle, where every hire must lift the team, and the missionaries-vs-mercenaries lens, where purpose-driven people always beat financially motivated ones.

Every hire either raises or lowers the average quality of the team. Over time, if you don't actively fight the tendency toward mediocrity, the organization will degrade. Never hire someone who will lower the average, even if you desperately need to fill the role.

The anti-entropy framework. Bezos formalized it with the 'five years from now' visualization.

Amazon 1998 Shareholder Letter

Interviewer Tips

Practical advice for running interviews

The Bar Raiser model proves that adding an independent evaluator with veto power is the single most powerful improvement you can make to a hiring process. It counteracts the hiring manager's natural urgency to fill a seat.

Use an independent evaluator who can veto. The most powerful hiring improvement is adding an objective third party from outside the hiring team who has the authority to say no. This counteracts the hiring manager's urgency bias.

The lesson of Amazon's Bar Raiser program, distilled into an actionable practice any company can adopt.

Look for what is unique, not just what is relevant. Ask 'along what dimension might this person be a superstar?' People with distinctive passions and perspectives bring energy that makes the whole team better, even if those traits are unrelated to the role.

Frequently Asked: Jeff Bezos on Hiring

Interview questions Jeff Bezos is known for asking candidates.

From the 1998 shareholder letter. The third question encourages looking for unique qualities beyond the job description.

Are you a lucky person?+

I want you to estimate the number of panes of glass in the city of Seattle.+

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