Jeff Bezos quotes

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

#Success #Entrepreneur #Imperfection

I'm skeptical that the novel will be "re­invented." If you start thinking about a medical textbook or something, then, yes, I think that's ripe for reinvention. You can imagine animations of a beating heart. But I think the novel will thrive in its current form. That doesn't mean that there won't be new narrative inventions as well. But I don't think they'll displace the novel.
-- Jeff Bezos

#Heart #Mean #Thinking

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

#Growth #Survival

There are a whole bunch of people who don't like to shop. But there are also people, maybe, who even do like to shop but are very time pressured. And so shopping online can save people time.
-- Jeff Bezos

#Shopping #People #Online

I knew that if I failed I wouldn't regret that, but I knew the one thing I might regret is not trying.
-- Jeff Bezos

#Regret #Business #Trying

If you look at academic studies, you can see that stock prices are most closely correlated with cash flow. It's such a straightforward number. Cash flow is what will drive shareholder returns.
-- Jeff Bezos

#Numbers #Looks #Cash

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.
-- Jeff Bezos

#Mistake #Passion #People

If you're not doing something that people will remark on, then it's going to be hard to generate word of mouth.
-- Jeff Bezos

#People #Mouths #Word Of Mouth

Cleverness is a gift, kindness is a choice. Gifts are easy-they're given after all. Choices can be hard.
-- Jeff Bezos

#Kindness #Choices #Easy

I definitely believe people should pay for copyrighted works. And the laws are sufficient: They already require you to pay for copyright work. There's no confusion. The problem is...it's a heck of a lot easier to steal MP3s than to buy them.
-- Jeff Bezos

#Believe #Mp3 #Law

What I want to talk to you about today is the difference between gifts and choices. Cleverness is a gift, kindness is a choice. Gifts are easy-they're given after all. Choices can be hard. You can seduce yourself with your gifts if you're not careful, and if you do, it'll probably be to the detriment of your choices.
-- Jeff Bezos

#Graduation #Kindness #Differences

Lowering prices is easy. Being able to afford to lower prices is hard.
-- Jeff Bezos

#Able #Easy

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.
-- Jeff Bezos

#Business #Unhappy #World

If you're going to invest in an Internet stock, you must be a long-term investor.
-- Jeff Bezos

#Long #Internet #Term

If you think about the long term then you can really make good life decisions that you won’t regret later.
-- Jeff Bezos

#Regret #Good Life #Thinking

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

#Technology #Important #Retail

It's hard to find things that won't sell online.
-- Jeff Bezos

#Business #Online

I think if people read more, that is a better world.
-- Jeff Bezos

#Thinking #People #World

All businesses need to be young forever. If your customer base ages with you, you're Woolworth's.
-- Jeff Bezos

#Motivation #Forever #Age

One of the things that gets me up in the morning is knowing that customer expectations are always rising, and I find that very exciting.
-- Jeff Bezos

#Morning #Knowing #Expectations

In Seattle you haven't had enough coffee until you can thread a sewing machine while it's running.
-- Jeff Bezos

#Running #Coffee #Machines

It's not an experiment if you know it's going to work
-- Jeff Bezos

#Inspirational #Going To Work #Experiments

The Internet is disrupting every media industry...people can complain about that, but complaining is not a strategy. And Amazon is not happening to book selling, the future is happening to book selling.
-- Jeff Bezos

#Leadership #Book #Technology

Good ideas will always get funded, so that's not going to be a problem. But you will see that it will be harder and harder for bad ideas to get funded.
-- Jeff Bezos

#Ideas #Problem #Harder

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

#Inspiration #Want #Sake

I think frugality drives innovation, just like other constraints do. One of the only ways to get out of a tight box is to invent your way out.
-- Jeff Bezos

#Thinking #Innovation #Way

Everything you are comes from your choices.
-- Jeff Bezos

#Life #Choices

Millions of people were inspired by the Apollo Program. I was five years old when I watched Apollo 11 unfold on television, and without any doubt it was a big contributor to my passions for science, engineering, and exploration.
-- Jeff Bezos

#Passion #Engineering #Years

If you don't understand the details of your business you are going to fail.
-- Jeff Bezos

#Entrepreneur #Details #Failing

In the end, we are our choices
-- Jeff Bezos

#Choices #Ends

I think technology advanced faster than anticipated. In that whirlwind, a lot of companies didn't survive. The reason we have done well is because, even in that whirlwind, we kept heads-down focused on the customers. All the metrics that we can track about customers have improved every year.
-- Jeff Bezos

#Thinking #Technology #Years

If you want to be inventive, you have to be willing to fail.
-- Jeff Bezos

#Want #Failing #Willing

Any business plan won't survive its first encounter with reality. The reality will always be different. It will never be the plan.
-- Jeff Bezos

#Reality #Encounters #Different

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.
-- Jeff Bezos

#Motivation #Common #Easy

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.
-- Jeff Bezos

#Success #Jobs #Business

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

#Inspirational #Motivation #People

What consumerism really is, at its worst is getting people to buy things that don't actually improve their lives.
-- Jeff Bezos

#People #Consumerism #Worst

The great thing about fact-based decisions is that they overrule the hierarchy.
-- Jeff Bezos

#Decision #Hierarchy #Facts

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

#Educational #Persistence #Needs

Because, you know, resilience - if you think of it in terms of the Gold Rush, then you'd be pretty depressed right now because the last nugget of gold would be gone. But the good thing is, with innovation, there isn't a last nugget. Every new thing creates two new questions and two new opportunities.
-- Jeff Bezos

#Business #Opportunity #Thinking

Real estate is the key cost of physical retailers. That's why there's the old saw: location, location, location.
-- Jeff Bezos

#Real #Keys #Cost

We are our choices. Build yourself a great story.
-- Jeff Bezos

#Choices #Stories

Your brand is formed primarily, not by what your company says about itself, but what the company does.
-- Jeff Bezos

#Doe #Company #Brands

The book is not really the container for the book. The book itself is the narrative. It's the thing that people create.
-- Jeff Bezos

#Book #People #Narrative

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.
-- Jeff Bezos

#Inspirational #Educational #Waiting

Work hard, have fun and make history.
-- Jeff Bezos

#Fun #Hard Work #Having Fun

Failure comes part and parcel with invention. It’s not optional.
-- Jeff Bezos

#Invention #Parcel

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.
-- Jeff Bezos

#Crazy #Opportunity #Tables

We are stubborn on vision. We are flexible on details.
-- Jeff Bezos

#Vision #Details #Stubborn

Invention is by its very nature disruptive. If you want to be understood at all times, then don't do anything new.
-- Jeff Bezos

#Want #Invention #All Time

If you can't feed a team with two pizzas, it's too large.
-- Jeff Bezos

#Life #Success #Business

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

#Giving Up #Wall #Successful

If we can keep our competitors focused on us while we stay focused on the customer, ultimately we'll turn out all right.
-- Jeff Bezos

#Educational #Stay Focused #Turns

Your margin is my opportunity.
-- Jeff Bezos

#Opportunity

If you double the number of experiments you do per year you're going to double your inventiveness.
-- Jeff Bezos

#Technology #Years #Numbers

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

#Business #People #Rooms

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

#Inspirational #Motivational #Inspiring

Invention requires a long-term willingness to be misunderstood.
-- Jeff Bezos

#Long #Misunderstood #Invention

What's dangerous is not to evolve.
-- Jeff Bezos

#Dangerous #Evolve

A company shouldn't get addicted to being shiny, because shiny doesn't last.
-- Jeff Bezos

#Entrepreneur #Lasts #Company

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

#Inspirational #Success #Business

There'll always be serendipity involved in discovery.
-- Jeff Bezos

#Discovery #Serendipity

You don't choose your passions; your passions choose you.
-- Jeff Bezos

#Passion