With economic uncertainty, AI anxiety, and a brutal job market weighing on workers everywhere, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has a counterintuitive theory on coping with stress—and thinks most people get it completely wrong.
Back in 2001, the then-new tech billionaire, fresh off Amazon’s 1997 IPO, took to the stage at the Academy of Achievement Summit in San Antonio to lay out a take on what actually causes stress. And in his eyes, it has nothing to do with workload, grueling hours, or needing a holiday.
“You can be working incredibly hard and loving it,” Bezos said. “And likewise, you can be out of work and incredibly stressed.”
The culprit, Bezos argued, isn’t your workload. It’s inaction.
“People get stress wrong all the time, in my opinion,” he added. “Stress comes from ignoring things that you shouldn’t be ignoring.”
