Jeff Bezos Quotes

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

“Be stubborn on vision but flexible on details.”

“E-mail has some magical ability to turn off the politeness gene in a human being.”

“Frugality drives innovation.”

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

“I wanted a woman who could get me out of a Third World prison. Life's too short to hang out with people who aren't resourceful.”

“If you can’t feed a team with two pizzas, it’s too large.”

“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.”

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

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

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

“Kindness is a choice.”

“Obsess about customers, not competitors.”

“Outsized returns often come from betting against conventional wisdom, and conventional wisdom is usually right. Given a 10 percent chance of a 100 times payoff, you should take that bet every time. But you're still going to be wrong nine times out of ten. 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. The difference between baseball and business, however, is that baseball has a truncated outcome distribution. When you swing, no matter how well you connect with the ball, the most runs you can get is four. In business, every once in a while, when you step up to the plate, you can score 1,000 runs. This long-tailed distribution of returns is why it's important to be bold. Big winners pay for so many experiments.”

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

“Position yourself with something that captures your curiosity, something that you're missionary about.”

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

“The death knell for any enterprise is to glorify the past - no matter how good it was.”

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

“We all get to choose our life stories. It’s our choices that define us, not our gifts. You can only be proud of your choices. You either choose a life of ease and comfort, or of service and adventure, and when you’re 80, you’ll be more proud of the latter.”

“We want to make money when people use our devices, not when they buy our devices.”

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

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

“Your margin is my opportunity.”