Jeff Bezos Quotes, Status, and Thoughts

The most important single thing is to focus obsessively on the customer. Our goal is to be earth's most customer-centric company.

If we think long term, we can accomplish things that we couldn't otherwise accomplish.

If you're competitor-focused, you have to wait until there is a competitor doing something. Being customer-focused allows you to be more pioneering.

Our biggest cost is not power, or servers, or people. It's lack of utilization. It dominates all other costs.

The Net is pretty cool, but the physical world is the best medium ever.

The thing about inventing is you have to be both stubborn and flexible. The hard part is figuring out when to be which.

The three most important things in retail are location, location, location. The three most important things for our consumer business are technology, technology, technology.

The best customer service is if the customer doesn't need to call you, doesn't need to talk to you. It just works.

Your brand is what people say about you when you're not in the room

Percentage margins don't matter. What matters always is dollar margins: the actual dollar amount. Companies are valued not on their percentage margins, but on how many dollars they actually make, and a multiple of that.

What we need to do is always lean into the future; when the world changes around you and when it changes against you - what used to be a tail wind is now a head wind - you have to lean into that and figure out what to do because complaining isn't a strategy.

We also have no incentive compensation of any kind. And the reason we don’t is because it is detrimental to teamwork.

The smartest people are constantly revising their understanding, reconsidering a problem they thought they’d already solved. They’re open to new points of view, new information, new ideas, contradictions, and challenges to their own way of thinking.

If you invent frequently and are willing to fail, then you never get to that point where you really need to bet the whole company.

Work hard, have fun and make history.

Focusing on the customer makes a company more resilient.

If you are going to do large-scale invention, you have to be willing to do three things: You must be willing to fail; you have to be willing to think long term; and you have to be willing to be misunderstood for long periods of time.

If you never want to be criticized, for goodness sake don't do anything new.

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

I told all of our original investors that they would lose their money for sure.

One of the huge mistakes people make is that they try to force an interest on themselves. You don't choose your passions; your passions choose you.

We can't be in survival mode. We have to be in growth mode.

You can work long, hard, or smart, but at Amazon.com you can’t choose two out of three.

Everything you are comes from your choices.

In the end, we are our choices. Build yourself a great story.

Companies are rarely criticized for the things that they failed to try. But they are, many times, criticized for things they tried and failed at.

I like treating things as if they’re small, you know Amazon even though it is a large company, I want it to have the heart and spirit of a small one.

I’d rather interview 50 people and not hire anyone than hire the wrong person.

In business, what’s dangerous is not to evolve.

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

A company shouldn’t get addicted to being shiny because shiny doesn’t last.

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.

I strongly believe that missionaries make better products. They care more. For a missionary, it’s not just about the business.

What we want to be is something completely new. There is no physical analog for what Amazon.com is becoming.

Sometimes we measure things and see that in the short term they actually hurt sales, and we do it anyway.

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.

It’s hard to find things that won’t sell online.

Amazon is not too big to fail… If we start to focus on ourselves, instead of focusing on our customers, that will be the beginning of the end… We have to try and delay that day for as long as possible.

If you never want to be criticized, for goodness’ sake don’t do anything new.

If you’re watching your competitors, you’re unlikely to invent a bunch of stuff on your own.

We all know that if you swing for the fences, you’re going to strike out a lot, but you’re also going to hit some home runs.

To get something new done you have to be stubborn and focused, to the point that others might find unreasonable.

Keep our competitors focused on us, while we stay focused on the customer.

If you’re long-term oriented, customer interests and shareholder interests are aligned.

If you make customers unhappy in the physical world, they might each tell 6 friends. If you make customers unhappy on the internet, they can each tell 6,000 friends.

We expect all our businesses to have a positive impact on our top and bottom lines. Profitability is very important to us or we wouldn’t be in this business.

All businesses need to be young forever. If your customer base ages with you, you’re Woolworth’s.

If you only do things where you know the answer in advance, your company goes away.

The people who are right a lot, often change their minds.

The best customer service is if the customer doesn’t need to call you, doesn’t need to talk to you, it just works.

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.

We’ve had three big ideas at Amazon that we’ve stuck with for 18 years, and they’re the reason we’re successful: Put the customer first. Invent. And be patient.

Where you are going to spend your time and your energy is one of the most important decisions you get to make in life.

If you’re competitor-focused, you have to wait until there is a competitor doing something. Being customer-focused allows you to be more pioneering.

We innovate by starting with the customer and working backwards. That becomes the touchstone for how we invent.

We see our customers as invited guests to a party, and we are the hosts. It’s our job every day to make every important aspect of the customer experience a little bit better.

You can have a job, or you can have a career, or you can have a calling.

Failure and invention are inseparable twins. To invent you have to experiment, and if you know in advance that it’s going to work, it’s not an experiment.

We are comfortable planting seeds and waiting for them to grow into trees.

We are stubborn on vision. We are flexible on details.

I knew that if I failed I wouldn’t regret that, but I knew the one thing I might regret is not trying.

What we need to do is always look into the future.

If you never want to be criticized, for goodness sake don’t do anything new.

f you want to be inventive, you have to be willing to fail.

All of my best decisions in business and in life have been made with heart, intuition, guts… not analysis.

The keys to success are patience, persistence, and obsessive attention to detail.

My view is there’s no bad time to innovate.

We are stubborn on vision. We are flexible on details…

If you don’t understand the details of your business you are going to fail.

If you’re very clear to the outside world that you’re taking a long-term approach, then people can self-select in.

Work hard, have fun, make history.

Put the customer first. Invent. And be patient.

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

If you can’t tolerate critics, don’t do anything new or interesting.

There’ll always be serendipity involved in discovery.

Humans are unbelievably data efficient. You don’t have to drive 1 million miles to drive a car, but the way we teach a self-driving car is have it drive a million miles.

Be stubborn on vision, but flexible on details.

We can’t be in survival mode. We have to be in growth mode.

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.

You have to be willing to be misunderstood if you’re going to innovate.

It’s not an experiment if you know it’s going to work.

Obsess about customers, not competitors.

What’s dangerous is not to evolve.

Your brand is what other people say about you when you’re not in the room.

The best customer service is if the customer doesn’t need to call you, doesn’t need to talk to you. It just works.

You don’t want to negotiate the price of simple things you buy every day.

If you do build a great experience, customers tell each other about that. Word of mouth is very powerful.

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

A company shouldn’t get addicted to being shiny, because shiny doesn’t last.

Cleverness is a gift, kindness is a choice.

One of the huge mistakes people make is that they try to force an interest on themselves. You don’t choose your passion; your passion chooses you.

The thing that motivates me is a very common form of motivation. And that is, with other folks counting on me, it’s so easy to be motivated.

People who are right most of the time are people who change their minds often.

If you decide that you’re going to do only the things you know are going to work, you’re going to leave a lot of opportunity on the table.

Your margin is my opportunity.

What we need to do is always lean into the future; when the world changes around you and when it changes against you – what used to be a tail wind is now a head wind – you have to lean into that and figure out what to do because complaining isn’t a strategy.

One of the only ways to get out of a tight box is to invent your way out.

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

A brand for a company is like a reputation for a person. You earn reputation by trying to do hard things well.

If you double the number of experiments you do per year you’re going to double your inventiveness.