Jeff Bezos shares his favorite interview question

“When I interview people, I ask them to give me an example of something they've invented. And I always point out, it doesn't have to be something that you actually took to the patent office. It could be a metric that you invented and followed carefully. It could be a business process that you invented. You want to select people who like to invent their way out of boxes.”

A lot of people will immediately jump to what Jeff calls an “either or” solution (e.g. “We can do A or B.”). But as Jeff explains:

“The right question is how can we do A and B? What invention do we need to be able to do both?”

Full video: Utah Technology Council “UTC 2012 Hall of Fame - Jeff Bezos Keynote“ (Nov 2012)

P.S. We’ve put together a YouTube playlist with every Jeff Bezos insight we’ve ever shared. You can watch it here: "Best startup advice from Jeff Bezos"