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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.