Jeff Bezos always kept one empty chair at Amazon meetings. Here's why

The empty seat, Jeff Bezos explained, represented the most important entity in the room: the customer.

Edited by : Stella Dey

September 20, 2024 / 11:00 IST

Jeff Bezos is the founder of Amazon.

Jeff Bezos, one of the richest men in the world and the mind behind Amazon, is known for his unconventional management tactics. One such strategy involved placing an empty chair in every meeting—a peculiar practice that has a powerful rationale.

The empty seat, Bezos explained, represented the most important entity in the room: the customer.

This symbolic gesture served as a constant reminder to Amazon’s team to keep customer satisfaction at the forefront of every decision, Unilad reported.

While Bezos’ habit of leaving a chair vacant might seem odd to outsiders, the impact of such a gesture is undeniable. According to the Amazon founder, “If you make customers unhappy in the physical world, they might each tell six friends. If you make customers unhappy on the internet, they can each tell 6,000 friends.”

Bezos reduced his ownership stake in Amazon from 41 per cent in 1998 to just under 10 per cent in 2023 has not diminished his influence over the company.