Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) founder Jeff Bezos may own superyachts and mansions, but at work he’s still parked behind a desk made from a cheap wooden door, as a symbol and a matter of principle.
Frugal origins of Jeff Bezos’ door desk
Bezos still works from a desk at the door, a practice that dates back to 1995, when Amazon was an online bookseller. If recorded in an early 2024 Fox News report, talk of the old agency resurfaced when his then-girlfriend and now wife, Lauren Sanchezposted a photo showing him at the same type of makeshift work station.
The original design was cost effective. “We happened to be across the street from a Home Depot… [Bezos] He looked at desks for sale and looked at doors for sale, and the doors were a lot cheaper, so he decided to buy a door and put some legs on it,” early employee Nico Lovejoy recalled in a company blog post.
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Symbol of customer-oriented spending and ruthless frugality
In 1999, Amazon was a publicly traded company and Bezos was a billionaire, owning about $10 billion in Amazon stock. according to to The New York Times. Yet the company still used door desks. In a “60 Minutes” profile that year, he told CBSs Bob Simon the bare setup had a message. “It’s a symbol of spending money on things that matter to customers and not spending money on things that don’t,” he said.
According to a 2018 CNBC, upgraded door desks are still in place at Amazon’s corporate offices and fulfillment centers report and Amazon’s own history of furniture. Frugality is anchored in Amazon’s Leadership Principles, which say: “Constraint breeds ingenuity, self-sufficiency, and ingenuity.”
Door agency becomes cultural trophy at Amazon
The door has also become a trophy. At all-hands meetings, Bezos has handed out miniature autographed replicas, the “Door Desk Award,” to teams that find cost-saving ideas.
The symbolism fits into a broader Bezos playbook, which mentions his “Day 1” mantra and advice on resisting conformity in Amazon.com’s garage-to-giant origin story. Even as his net worth has climbed into the hundreds of billions of dollars, the door counter remains in sight, reminding employees that thrift is meant to start with the customer.
Photo: Shutterstock/Photo Agency
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