Jeffrey Preston Bezos (né Jorgensen) / b. 1964 / New Mexico, USA / Entrepreneur, Founder of Amazon.com
Amazon
What I would really like people to say about Amazon is that we raised the bar on customer experience for every industry all over the world. Some companies have missions that are even bigger than the company; an example of that would be Sony. Sony, coming out of World War II, said that their mission was, “We are going to make Japan known for quality.” They had a mission that was bigger than Sony. It was a mission for Japan. And we have a similar mission.
Reported by Cal Fussman, “Jeff Bezos: What I’ve Learned,” Esquire, January 1, 2002.
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 against a fraction of those people, because very few companies are willing to do that. Just by lengthening the time horizon, you can engage in endeavors that you could never otherwise pursue. At Amazon we like things to work in five to seven years. We’re willing to plant seeds, let them grow—and we’re very stubborn. . . . 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.
Reported by Tren Griffin, “A Dozen Things I have Learned from Jeff Bezos,” 25iq.com, April 26, 2014.
We will make bold rather than timid investment decisions where we see a sufficient probability of gaining market leadership advantages. Some of these investments will pay off, others will not, and we will have learned another valuable lesson in either case.
Reported by Tren Griffin, “A Dozen Things I have Learned from Jeff Bezos,” 25iq.com, April 26, 2014.
Bezos on Bezos
I’m certainly the kind of person that has to grow on a woman. It takes repeated exposure to wear down her defenses.
Reported by Cal Fussman, “Jeff Bezos: What I’ve Learned,” Esquire, January 1, 2002.
I wear the same thing every weekday, and I have for ten years. I don’t like to think about what I want to wear in the morning. You should definitely stay away from asking me fashion questions.
Reported by Cal Fussman, “Jeff Bezos: What I’ve Learned,” Esquire, January 1, 2002.
Sometimes I think the Time Person of the Year is chosen for the man, and I think sometimes they are chosen as a symbol of something, and my selection was clearly that. They weren’t choosing Jeff Bezos so much as they were choosing me as a symbol for the Internet. Yeah, my parents were very proud. I mean, they are parents. They are not objective.
Reported by Cal Fussman, “Jeff Bezos: What I’ve Learned,” Esquire, January 1, 2002.
Business
What characteristics do I look for when hiring somebody? That’s one of the questions I ask when interviewing. I want to know what kind of people they would hire.
Reported by Cal Fussman, “Jeff Bezos: What I’ve Learned,” Esquire, January 1, 2002.
Debt is a useful invention. It’s why people can afford houses before they reach seventy. They can actually have the house while they need it and then work and pay for it. That’s very, very useful.
Reported by Cal Fussman, “Jeff Bezos: What I’ve Learned,” Esquire, January 1, 2002.
Morale comes not from things that you layer on to make people happy. It comes from being able to build. People like to build. The question is, Could it be done? The answer is, Absolutely.
Reported by Cal Fussman, “Jeff Bezos: What I’ve Learned,” Esquire, January 1, 2002.
Percentage margins are not one of the things we are seeking to optimize. . . . 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. . . . When forced to choose between optimizing the appearance of our GAAP accounting and maximizing the present value of future cash flows, we’ll take the cash flows.
Reported by Tren Griffin, “A Dozen Things I have Learned from Jeff Bezos,” 25iq.com, April 26, 2014.
Your margin is my opportunity.
Reported by Tren Griffin, “A Dozen Things I have Learned from Jeff Bezos,” 25iq.com, April 26, 2014.
Market leadership can translate directly to higher revenue, higher profitability, greater capital velocity, and correspondingly stronger returns on invested capital.
Reported by Tren Griffin, “A Dozen Things I have Learned from Jeff Bezos,” 25iq.com, April 26, 2014.
The balance of power is shifting toward consumers and away from companies . . . the individual is empowered. . . . The right way to respond to this if you are a company is to put the vast majority of your energy, attention and dollars into building a great product or service and put a smaller amount into shouting about it, marketing it. . . . Your brand is formed primarily, not by what your company says about itself, but what the company does.
Reported by Tren Griffin, “A Dozen Things I have Learned from Jeff Bezos,” 25iq.com, April 26, 2014.
The great thing about fact-based decisions is that they overrule the hierarchy.
Reported by Tren Griffin, “A Dozen Things I have Learned from Jeff Bezos,” 25iq.com, April 26, 2014.
Freedom
People think of liberty or freedom as being happiness, but it’s not. Those very smart people who wrote “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” had it right.
Reported by Cal Fussman, “Jeff Bezos: What I’ve Learned,” Esquire, January 1, 2002.
Human Nature
It’s impossible to interact with an eighteen-month-old child and not come away with the impression that people are fundamentally good.
Reported by Cal Fussman, “Jeff Bezos: What I’ve Learned,” Esquire, January 1, 2002.
I really think very, very deep in the human psyche there is this need to explore. The pre-Einstein people didn’t know that there were any limits to speed. And one of the things that comes out of Einstein’s theory is that the speed of light is an absolute limit, that you can’t go faster than that. And that seems unfair to me.
Reported by Cal Fussman, “Jeff Bezos: What I’ve Learned,” Esquire, January 1, 2002.
Innovation
There’ll always be serendipity involved in discovery. . . . If you double the number of experiments you do per year you’re going to double your inventiveness.
Reported by Tren Griffin, “A Dozen Things I have Learned from Jeff Bezos,” 25iq.com, April 26, 2014.
I believe you have to be willing to be misunderstood if you’re going to innovate.
Reported by Tren Griffin, “A Dozen Things I have Learned from Jeff Bezos,” 25iq.com, April 26, 2014.
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.
Reported by Tren Griffin, “A Dozen Things I have Learned from Jeff Bezos,” 25iq.com, April 26, 2014.
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. Companies are rarely criticized for the things that they failed to try. But they are, many times, criticized for things they tried and failed at.
Reported by Tren Griffin, “A Dozen Things I have Learned from Jeff Bezos,” 25iq.com, April 26, 2014.
Internet Commerce
On the Internet, companies are scale businesses, characterized by high fixed costs and relatively low variable costs. You can be two sizes: You can be big, or you can be small. It’s very hard to be medium. A lot of medium-sized companies had the financing rug pulled out from under them before they could get big.
Reported by Tren Griffin, “A Dozen Things I have Learned from Jeff Bezos,” 25iq.com, April 26, 2014.
Life Lessons
My grandfather taught me that it is harder to be kind than it is to be clever. That has always stuck with me.
Reported by Cal Fussman, “Jeff Bezos: What I’ve Learned,” Esquire, January 1, 2002.
Go to bed early and wake up early. The morning hours are good.
Reported by Cal Fussman, “Jeff Bezos: What I’ve Learned,” Esquire, January 1, 2002.
Everyone always says that parenting is not a popularity contest. I think that grandparenting is.
Reported by Cal Fussman, “Jeff Bezos: What I’ve Learned,” Esquire, January 1, 2002.
At the end of the day, when you’re eighty years old and looking back on your life, you want to have minimized the number of regrets you have. That’s what should drive people. Not how much money they have. It’s regrets that I think haunt people at the end of their life.
Reported by Cal Fussman, “Jeff Bezos: What I’ve Learned,” Esquire, January 1, 2002.
Love
Love and sex? People will die for love.
Reported by Cal Fussman, “Jeff Bezos: What I’ve Learned,” Esquire, January 1, 2002.
When you’re a little kid, you have no idea how much your parents love you.
Reported by Cal Fussman, “Jeff Bezos: What I’ve Learned,” Esquire, January 1, 2002.
Prediction
The landscape is littered with the corpses of people who have made predictions, so I won’t try to predict what America will look like a hundred years from now. Nobody remembers what you said anyway, unless you’re Nostradamus.
Reported by Cal Fussman, “Jeff Bezos: What I’ve Learned,” Esquire, January 1, 2002.
Virtue
When you’re young, deferring gratification is not a honed skill. As you get older, you get better at the marathon mentality.
Reported by Cal Fussman, “Jeff Bezos: What I’ve Learned,” Esquire, January 1, 2002.
People need to think of themselves as fortunate.
Reported by Cal Fussman, “Jeff Bezos: What I’ve Learned,” Esquire, January 1, 2002.