Jeff Bezos

It is very difficult to get people to focus on the most important things when you're in boom times.

What's dangerous is not to evolve.

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.

I don't know about you, but most of my exchanges with cashiers are not that meaningful.

I believe you have to be willing to be misunderstood if you're going to innovate.

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

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

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

The one thing that offends me the most is when I walk by a bank and see ads trying to convince people to take out second mortgages on their home so they can go on vacation. That's approaching evil.

If we can keep our competitors focused on us while we stay focused on the customer ultimately well turn out all right.

The human brain is an incredible pattern matching machine.

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.

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

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.

No matter what your mission is, have some notion in your head. Forget the model, whether it's government or nonprofit or profit. Ask yourself the more important question: Is my mission improving the world? Are you sure about it? Seek to disconfirm that all the time. And if you can, change your mission.

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.

Part of company culture is path-dependent - it's the lessons you learn along the way.

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

I know Elon, we're very like minded in many ways. We're not conceptual twins. One thing I want us to do is go to Mars, but for me it's one thing. He's singularly focused on that. I think motivation wise, for me I don't find that Plan B idea motivating. I don't want a plan B for Earth, I want Plan B to make sure Plan A works.

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

I knew that if I failed I wouldnt regret that but I knew the one thing I might regret is not trying.

But there's so much kludge, so much terrible stuff, we are at the 1908 Hurley washing machine stage with the Internet. That's where we are. We don't get our hair caught in it, but that's the level of primitiveness of where we are. We're in 1908.

When it comes to space, I see it as my job, I'm building 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 dynamic, entrepreneurial explosion into space.

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

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 double the number of experiments you do per year youre going to double your inventiveness.

We like to pioneer, we like to explore, we like to go down dark alleys and see what's on the other side.

One of the things it was obvious you could do with an online store is have a much more complete selection.

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

We see our customers as invited guests to a party and we are the hosts. Its our job to make the customer experience a little bit better.

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

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.

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.

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

I'm a big fan of all-you-can-eat plans, because they're simpler for customers.

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.

There'll always be serendipity involved in discovery.

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.

The killer app that got the world ready for appliances was the light bulb. So the light bulb is what wired the world. And they weren't thinking about appliances when they wired the world. They were really thinking about - they weren't putting electricity into the home. They were putting lighting into the home.

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.

For people who are readers, reading is important to them.

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

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.

Beautiful speech doesn't need protection, it's ugly speech that needs protection. We have these cultural norms that allow people to say really ugly things. You don't have to invite them to your dinner party, but you should let them say it.

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

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

Invention requires a long-term willingness to be misunderstood.

I don't think that you can invent on behalf of customers unless you're willing to think long-term, because a lot of invention doesn't work. If you're going to invent, it means you're going to experiment, and if you're going to experiment, you're going to fail, and if you're going to fail, you have to think long term.

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

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

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.

When it’s tough, will you give up or will you be relentless?

I'm skeptical of any mission that has advertisers at its centerpiece.

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

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?

I think the definition of a book is changing.

I don't want to use my creative energy on somebody else's user interface.

You know, we love stories and we love narrative; we love to get lost in an author's world.

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

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

We are pioneers and the history of pioneers is not that good.

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

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

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 new skills. Kindle is an example of working backward.

The human brain is an incredible pattern-matching machine.

My own view is that every company requires a long-term view.

People will visit Mars, they will settle mars, and we should because it's cool.

Strip malls are history.

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

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

Amazon.com strives to be the e-commerce destination where consumers can find and discover anything they want to buy online.