Jeff Bezos explains why he sends bizarre ‘?’ email that leaves employees ‘panicking’

Pretty much anyone with a boss will dread the direct messages or emails you receive from them, but at least most of us can avoid hearing from the company's billionaire founder, unless we've done something very good or bad.

However, in the case of some Amazon employees, they'd receive a particularly threatening email from Jeff Bezos when the entrepreneur was keen for something to be done as soon as possible.

Bezos might well have stepped down from his position as Amazon CEO, having earned billions from his stake in the e-commerce company over the years, despite not paying himself a particularly big wage, but during his time working there, he ensured that things got done.

The 61-year-old billionaire kept an email open for customers or employees to contact him, and while he might not always reply, he's suggested that something was nearly always done about any concerns that were raised.

One way he achieved this was through perhaps the passive-aggressive method of forwarding on concerns with nothing but a question mark, presumably to those high up within the company who could do something about it.

The simple question mark was perhaps utilised best when one employee raised a complaint about missing wages directly to Bezos, something that was seemingly happening across the company for those working in the warehouses, and that issue was quickly solved once the founder got involved.

Bezos is more focused on his role as a husband these days (Marco BERTORELLO / AFP)

Explaining the method during a 2018 interview at the George W. Bush Presidential Centre, Bezos stated: "I still have an email address customers can write to. I see most of those emails.

"I see them and I forward them to the executives in charge of the area with a question mark. It's shorthand [for], 'Can you look into this?' 'Why is this happening?'"

While it might prove effective in getting things done, some former Amazon employees have opened up about the anxiety it caused them in Brad Stone's book: The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon.

It's certainly easy to imagine the panic of any employee who was copied into a complaint email by one of the world's richest men, and someone who could probably fire you at the drop of a hat.

The email is the last thing you'd probably want to receive (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)

But Bezos clearly agreed that the customer is king, and for such a busy man, a question mark was clearly the quickest way to ensure that something was sorted.

He added: "We talk about it, customer obsession, as opposed to competitor obsession.

"If your whole culture is competitor-obsessed, it's hard to stay motivated if you are out in front. Whereas customers are also unsatisfied, always discontent, and always want more. So, no matter how far in front you get in front of competitors, you are still behind your customers. They are always pulling you along."