- Amazon founder Jeff Bezos thinks “work-life balance” is a “debilitating phrase.”
- The billionaire and former Amazon CEO instead taught employees that work and life form a circle.
- Bezos said that while he was happy at work, he was energized at home, and vice versa.
Jeff Bezos doesn’t like the phrase “work-life balance” and has said in the past that he views work and life as a circle.
The Amazon founder said in 2018 at an event hosted by Business Insider’s parent company that he tried to teach employees “work-life harmony” rather than balance.
“I get asked about work-life balance all the time,” Bezos told Mathias Döpfner, CEO of Axel Springer. “And in my opinion, that’s a debilitating phrase because it implies that there’s a strict compromise.”
Bezos added: “It’s actually a circle. It’s not a balance.”
In a separate interview at Vox’s Code Conference in 2016, Bezos said, “I find that when I’m happy at work, I come home more energized.” I’m a better husband, a better father, and when I’m happy at home. , I come with a better boss, a better colleague.” (Bezos was then married to MacKenzie Scott.)
Bezos also said that many people “have very high standards for how they want their professional lives to be.”
“If you can bring your professional life to half enjoying it, that’s amazing. Very few people achieve that,” he said in a 2020 interview in Mumbai, India, with actor Shah Rukh Khan and filmmaker Zoya Akhtar. .
“The truth is, everything comes with overhead. That’s the reality. Everything comes with elements that you don’t like,” he added at the time.
Bezos’ so-called work-life circle has changed since he made those remarks. The billionaire left his post as CEO of the e-commerce giant in July 2021. Bezos was replaced by Andy Jassy, his former head of Amazon Web Services, and focused on other projects, like the space exploration with his company Blue Origin. , philanthropy and a jet-setting social life with his fiancée, Lauren Sánchez.
Bezos, the world’s second-richest person, has taken a nontraditional approach to work: He said he takes time to eat breakfast each morning with his family, that he doesn’t wake up until to bed, that he scheduled surprisingly few meetings and set aside a few minutes each day to do his own dishes.
Katie Canales and Zoë Bernard have previously contributed to this article.
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