JEFF BEZOS QUOTES III

American industrialist & Amazon founder (1964- )

Wandering is an essential counterbalance to efficiency.

JEFF BEZOS

The Atlantic, November 2019


When we talk about earth's most customer-centric company ... we want other companies to look at Amazon and see us as the standard bearer for obsessive focus on the customer as opposed to obsessive focus on the competitor.

JEFF BEZOS

Charlie Rose interview, Jul. 28, 2010


I would never say no to something the team wanted to do, but I might say yes to something the team didn't want to do. You want there to be multiple ways to get to 'yes' because you want to encourage risk-taking.

JEFF BEZOS

Business Insider, July 16, 2015


Seek revenge and you shall dig two graves, one for yourself.

JEFF BEZOS

bOinGbOinG, June 1, 2016

Tags: revenge


Part of company culture is path-dependent--it's the lessons you learn along the way.

JEFF BEZOS

Business Insider, July 16, 2015

Tags: learning


The long term approach is rare enough that it means you're not competing against very many companies. 'Cause most companies wanna see a return on investment in, you know, one, two, three years.

JEFF BEZOS

60 Minutes, December 1, 2013


You can have the best technology, you can have the best business model, but if the storytelling isn't amazing, it won't matter. Nobody will watch.

JEFF BEZOS

Business Insider, July 16, 2015


I was one of those people who every time I looked at something it looks like it could be improved -- there's something wrong with it. So I'd go through, like, how could this restaurant be better? So I've always had that kind of idea.

JEFF BEZOS

interview, Business Insider, April 28, 2018


The secret is we're on, like, our seventh generation of fulfillment centers. And we have gotten better every time. When I was driving the packages myself, one of my visualizations of success is that we might one day be big enough that we could afford a forklift.

JEFF BEZOS

60 Minutes, December 1, 2013


If you're not stubborn, you'll give up on experiments too soon. And if you're not flexible, you'll pound your head against the wall and you won't see a different solution to a problem you're trying to solve.

JEFF BEZOS

Business Insider, July 16, 2015


One thing that I tell people is ... if you're going to do anything new or innovative, you have to be willing to be misunderstood. If you cannot afford to be misunderstood, then for goodness' sake, don't do anything new or innovative.

JEFF BEZOS

Business Insider, April 28, 2018


Life's too short to hang out with people who aren't resourceful.

JEFF BEZOS

Business Insider, July 16, 2015


There are two kinds of companies: those that try to charge more and those that work to charge less. We will be the second.

JEFF BEZOS

Forbes, April 23, 2012


If you have a customer-centric culture, that cures a lot of ills. Let's say you're the leader in a particular arena, if you're competitor-focused and you're already the leader, then where does your energy come from? Whereas, if you're customer focused, and you're already the leader, customers are never satisfied.

JEFF BEZOS

GeekWire, September 17, 2013


We're building what's called a private cloud for them [the C.I.A.] ... because they don't want to be on the public cloud.

JEFF BEZOS

60 Minutes, December 1, 2013


As companies get bigger, they have something to lose. When they do, the natural tendency is to get risk-aversive. They lose their boldness. They lose the spirit to innovate. They lose their pioneering qualities. I am bound and determined not to let that happen to Amazon.com.

JEFF BEZOS

Playboy, Feb. 2000


I strongly believe that missionaries make better products. They care more. For a missionary, it's not just about the business. There has to be a business, and the business has to make sense, but that's not why you do it. You do it because you have something meaningful that motivates you.

JEFF BEZOS

Business Insider, July 16, 2015


In the old world, you devoted 30% of your time to building a great service and 70% of your time to shouting about it. In the new world, that inverts.

JEFF BEZOS

Forbes, April 23, 2012


The common question that gets asked in business is, why? That's a good question, but an equally valid question is, why not?

JEFF BEZOS

Wired, November 13, 2011

Tags: questions


I think of the internet like this big, new, powerful technology.... We haven't learned as a civilization and a human species how to operate that yet. We as a civilization are still figuring all of that out. It gives us fantastic capabilities. The fact that I can look up almost anything on Wikipedia in five seconds is an unbelievable capability that just simply didn't exist 20 years ago. And so on and so on. But we're also finding out that these powerful tools enable some very bad things, too, like letting authoritarian governments interfere in free democratic elections in the world. This is an incredibly scary thing.

JEFF BEZOS

Business Insider, April 28, 2018

Tags: Internet