to take collective action from big companies, small companies, nation states, global organizations, and individuals, and I’m excited to be part of this journey and optimistic that humanity can come together to solve this challenge. Differentiation is Survival and the Universe Wants You to be Typical This is my last annual shareholder letter as the CEO of Amazon, and I have one last thing of utmost importance I feel compelled to teach. I hope all Amazonians take it to heart. Hereis a passage from Richard Dawkins’(extraordinary) book The Blind Watchmaker. It’s about a basic fact of biology. “Staving off death is a thing that you have to work at. Left to itself – and that is what it is when it dies – the body tends to revert to a state of equilibrium with its environment. If you measure some quantity such as the temperature, the acidity, the water content or the electrical potential in a living body, you will typically find that it is markedly different from the corresponding measure in the surroundings. Our bodies, for instance, are usually hotter than our surroundings, and in cold climates they have to work hard to maintain the differential. When we die the work stops, the temperature differential starts to disappear, and we end up the same temperature as our surroundings. Not all animals work so hard to avoid coming into equilibrium with their surrounding temperature, but all animals do some comparable work. For instance, in a dry country, animals and plants work to maintain the fluid content of their cells, work against a natural tendency for water to flow from them into the dry outside world. If they fail they die. More generally, if living things didn’t work actively to prevent it, they would eventually merge into their surroundings, and cease to exist as autonomous beings. That is what happens when they die.” While the passage is not intended as a metaphor, it’s nevertheless a fantastic one, and very relevant to Amazon.Iwouldarguethatit’srelevant to all companies and all institutions and to each of our individual lives too. In what ways does the world pull at you in an attempt to make you normal? How much work does it take to maintain your distinctiveness? To keep alive the thing or things that make you special? I know a happily married couple who have a running joke in their relationship. Not infrequently, the husbandlooksatthewifewithfauxdistress and says to her, “Can’t you just be normal?”They both smile andlaugh,andof coursethedeeptruthisthatherdistinctivenessissomethinghelovesabouther.But,atthe sametime, it’s also true that things would often be easier – take less energy – if we were a little more normal. This phenomenonhappensatallscale levels. Democracies are not normal. Tyranny is the historical norm. If westoppeddoingallof the continuous hard work that is needed to maintain our distinctiveness in that regard, we would quickly come into equilibrium with tyranny. Weallknowthatdistinctiveness – originality – is valuable. We are all taught to “be yourself.”What I’m really asking you to do is to embrace and be realistic about how much energy it takes to maintain that distinctiveness. The world wants you to be typical – in a thousand ways, it pulls at you. Don’t let it happen. Youhavetopayapriceforyourdistinctiveness,andit’sworthit.Thefairytaleversionof “beyourself”isthat all the pain stops as soon as you allow your distinctiveness to shine. That version is misleading. Being yourself is worth it, but don’t expect it to be easy or free. You’ll have to put energy into it continuously. TheworldwillalwaystrytomakeAmazonmoretypical – tobringusintoequilibriumwithourenvironment. It will take continuous effort, but we can and must be better than that. *** Asalways, I attach our 1997 shareholder letter. It concluded with this: “We at Amazon.com are grateful to ourcustomersfortheirbusinessandtrust,toeachotherforourhardwork,andtoourshareholdersfortheir support and encouragement.”That hasn’t changed a bit. I want to especially thank Andy Jassy for agreeing to take on the CEO role. It’s a hard job with a lot of responsibility. Andy is brilliant and has the highest