Utkarsh Amitabh explains Gradatim Ferociter, Jeff Bezos' philosophy for Blue Origin: step by step, ferociously. He shows how Bezos used patient, compounding progress to compete with Musk, then built Network Capital the same way, reaching 100,000 community members and thousands of paying subscribers.
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Hi, everyone, my name is Utkarsh and I'm the founder and CEO of Network Capital. I write for the Harvard Business Review and I'm a Shivani Fellow at the University of Oxford. Today I'm going to tell you about Gradatum Ferocitum, which roughly translates to step by step, ferociously. So back in 2000, when Amazon was established as a company, it had established its category of one. Jeff Bezos was undoubtedly one of the most respected and revered figures in business and technology. He started moving towards setting up his own passion project. And that passion project at the time was Blue Origin, a rocket company. And it was the space race was on. Elon Musk, another prominent entrepreneur and techie, was also building SpaceX. And there was a healthy rivalry emerging between Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos about their shared passion for creating an alternate new landscape beyond the planet Earth. And Elon Musk clearly had a lead there. But Jeff Bezos, known to be the relentless entrepreneur he is, he wrote down a letter that captured the strategy and the vision of Blue Origin. And in a sentence, it can be summarized as step by step, ferociously, or Gradatum Ferocita. This is incredible as a career strategy, as a life strategy, to build anything meaningful, anything that truly lasts. Whether you're thinking about writing a novel, whether you're trying to break into tech investing or do something meaningful, something challenging, don't expect things to change instantly. The way I've been building network capital, it has been one conversation at a time. It's one newsletter at a time, one master class, one cohort based course at a time. What I have done over the past five years, nothing too dramatic, is that whether I've been having a good day or a bad day, whether I'm happy or sad, I do try to take one step forward and march towards my vision, something that I hold dear to my heart. I don't compare myself to anyone. I don't want to be the next Jeff Bezos or next X or Y. I'm very happy to build my own category of 1. As I explained in my HBR article, the first one, and I think you should too. But this vision, step by step, ferociously, is here to inspire you. Because life changes, often in slow and steady and compounding steps. We, as people, we overestimate what we can do in one year, but often underestimate in what we can do in 10. When I started Network Captain, it was a small platform to help, you know, people who would reach out to me for advice. You know, it was small mentoring initiative. Some of the early friends of mine referred to us as a passion project. But I took this passion project very seriously. In whatever I did, every micro task that I picked up at Network Capital, I did it as the most important job that there was and it paid off. Today we have hundred thousand plus verified ambitious community members. We run a chain of online schools for kids and young professionals. We have thousands of monthly paying subscribers. We've been featured on Harvard Business Review, Harvard Business School, TED, World Economic Forum, Mint, etc. And all of this has been possible because we've proceeded with this adventure step by step, ferociously, despite the successes and failures that are inevitable in the short term and the long term. That's going to be our motto. That's how it's going to be building forward. So if there's one thing that you did determine to do today, it is that you will not try and expect dramatic life changes and big things in news media. You know, nonsense. Try and focus on the simple things that you can actually control. Learn to distinguish between things that are within your realm of control and things that are beyond it, and things that are within your realm of control. As stoic philosophy tells us, focus on them with relentlessness, step by step, ferociously, and you will experience the magic. Kiss you and bless you with all the lovely things. I hope you enjoyed this and I hope you apply this philosophy in your work life and personal life. Let me know what you think of it in the comment section and do subscribe to Network Capital tv. My mission is to help you build your category of one. Come, let's do this together. Take care and have a wonderful weekend.
