Jeff Bezos Quotes

The Post is famous for its investigative journalism. It pours energy and investment and sweat and dollars into uncovering important stories. And then a bunch of websites summarize that [work] in about four minutes and readers can access that news for free. One question is, how do you make a living in that kind of environment? If you can't, it's difficult to put the right resources behind it. ... Even behind a paywall, websites can summarize your work and make it available for free. From a reader point of view, the reader has to ask, 'Why should I pay you for all that journalistic effort when I can get it for free from another site?'
Jeff Bezos
The death knell for any enterprise is to glorify the past -- no matter how good it was.
Jeff Bezos
In the old world, you devoted 30% of your time to building a great service and 70% of your time to shouting about it. In the new world, that inverts.
Jeff Bezos
A brand for a company is like a reputation for a person. You earn reputation by trying to do hard things well.
Jeff Bezos
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 that they’re not right, you need to have that long-term willingness to be misunderstood. It’s a key part of invention.
Jeff Bezos
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 having tried this. I was not going to regret trying to participate in this thing called the Internet that I thought was going to be a really big deal. I knew that if I failed, I wouldn’t regret that. But I knew the one thing I might regret is not ever having tried. I knew that that would haunt me every day.
Jeff Bezos
Entrepreneurs must be willing to be misunderstood for long periods of time.
Jeff Bezos
We are stubborn on vision. We are flexible on details….
Jeff Bezos
E-mail has some magical ability to turn off the politeness gene in a human being.
Jeff Bezos
We can't be in survival mode. We have to be in growth mode.
Jeff Bezos
What’s dangerous is not to evolve.
Jeff Bezos
Cultures aren’t so much planned as they evolve from that early set of people.
Jeff Bezos
No business can continue to shrink. That can only go on for so long before irrelevancy sets in.
Jeff Bezos
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… Just by lengthening the time horizon, you can engage in endeavors that you could never otherwise pursue
Jeff Bezos
Position yourself with something that captures your curiosity, something that you're missionary about.
Jeff Bezos
The missionary is building the product and building the service because they love the customer, because they love the product, because they love the service. The mercenary is building the product or service so that they can flip the company and make money.
Jeff Bezos
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.
Jeff Bezos