Quotes by Jeff Bezos

“There are two ways to extend a business. Take inventory of what you're good at and extend out from your skills. Or determine what your customers need and work backward, even if it requires learning...”

“If you don't understand the details of your business you are going to fail.”

“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.”

“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 everything you do needs to work on a three-year time horizon, then you’re competing against a lot of people. But if you’re willing to invest on a seven-year time horizon, you’re now competing ag...”

“Cultures aren’t so much planned as they evolve from that early set of people.”

“What’s dangerous is not to evolve.”

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

“I wanted to project myself forward to age 80 and say, ‘OK, I’m looking back on my life. I want to minimise the number of regrets I have.’ And I knew that when I was 80, I was not going to regret ha...”

“When you receive criticism from well-meaning people, it pays to ask, ‘Are they right?’ And if they are, you need to adapt what they’re doing. If they’re not right, if you really have conviction tha...”

“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. If you replace ‘customer’ with ‘read...”

“That kind of divine discontent comes from observing customers and noticing that things can always be better.”

“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.”

“You gotta earn your keep in this world. When you invent something new, if customers come to the party, it’s disruptive to the old way.”

“If you absolutely can't tolerate critics, then don't do anything new or interesting.”

“Communication is a sign of dysfunction. It means people aren’t working together in a close, organic way. We should be trying to figure out ways for teams to communicate less with each other, not more.”

“Your margin is my opportunity.”

“When it comes to space, I see it as my job to build infrastructure the hard way — I'm using my resources to put in place heavy-lifting infrastructure so the next generation of people can have a dyn...”

“The thing I have noticed is when the anecdotes and the data disagree, the anecdotes are usually right. There's something wrong with the way you are measuring it.”

“If you have a really good idea, stick to it, but be flexible on how you get there. Be stubborn on your vision but flexible on the details... People who are right a lot change their mind... They hav...”