In 1994, Jeff Bezos left a promising career in finance to found Amazona company that began as an online bookstore and transformed into one of the most influential technology giants in the world. What was surprising about this decision was not only his subsequent success, but the mental framework he used to justify such a risky move. As recently explained in the New York Times DealBook Summithis approach to facing the fear of failure is based on intuition and relies on theories backed by science.
Bezos faced a common dilemma: abandon a stable career with a high salary in the financial sector or pursue an idea that, in 1994, sounded crazy: selling books online. What led him to act was what he himself calls the “regret minimization framework”.
The tycoon explained that he projected himself to the 80 yearsimagining himself looking back on his life. He wondered which decision would make him feel more regretful: staying in his comfortable career or trying to start a business, even if it failed. The fear of regret outweighed the fear of failure. “I realized that I wouldn’t regret trying to build something important, even if I failed. But I knew I would regret not trying.”
However, its approach is not limited to a personal motivational technique. According to Bezos, humans are biologically conditioned to overestimate risks and underestimate opportunitieswhich leads them to make safer and more conservative decisions than necessary. For him, Amazon’s success is not due to innate bravery, but to a conscious effort to neutralize this natural bias.
The businessman’s statement finds support in scientific research, particularly in the field of behavioral economics. An innovative study carried out by Steve Levitteconomist of the University of Chicago and co-author of “Freakonomics”, demonstrated how humans tend to be too cautious.
Levitt and his team created an experiment in which more than 20.000 personas who were facing important decisions in their lives, such as moving to another city, changing jobs or starting a business, allowed a virtually tossed coin decided for them. If it came up “heads”, they had to make the change; if it was “cross”, they had to maintain the status quo.
The results, published in a scientific journal, were surprising. Those who made important changes declared themselves much happier than those who remained in the same situation. Levitt concluded: “People are too cautious when it comes to making changes”.
This finding reinforces Bezos’ claim: what we consider risk may be distorted by our human perception. Science suggests that the fear of change is irrational in many cases and that the benefits of acting are usually much greater than we anticipate.
Human risk aversion has deep roots in evolution. For millions of years, our ancestors survived thanks to a Constant alert to possible threatssuch as predators and scarcity of resources. In that environment, minimizing risk was crucial to staying alive.
However, modern conditions are different. Today, most of the risks we face are emotional, financial or socialand do not imply a direct threat to our survival. However, our brains still process the risk as if we were facing lethal dangers in the African savanna.
This dissociation between current reality and our mental programming leads many people to become paralyzed when faced with important decisionsfearing disproportionate consequences. Recognizing this mechanism can help us make bolder and better-informed decisions.
Jeff Bezos believes that anyone can learn to manage fear of risk through the awareness and practice. For him, being an entrepreneur does not imply acting impulsively or recklessly, but rather understand human biases and counter them strategically.
According to this, what looks like external bravery It is, in fact, a analytical mindset: identify when our decisions are being influenced by fear y correct course. Bezos advises entrepreneurs and dreamers to “inclined towards risk”aware that their minds are predisposed to make any uncertain decision seem more dangerous than it really is.
