Jeff Bezos
52 quotes
Biography
Jeffrey Preston Bezos is an American businessman, and the founder, executive chairman, and former president and CEO of Amazon, the world's largest e-commerce and cloud computing company. According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index and Forbes, he was the world's wealthiest person from 2017 to 2021, and in 2026 his net worth was approximately US$284 billion.
"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 ‘reader,’ that approach, that point of view, can be successful at The Post, too.."
"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 dynamic, entrepreneurial explosion into space. … I want thousands of entrepreneurs doing amazing things in space, and to do that we need to dramatically lower the cost of access to space."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"The common question that gets asked in business is, 'why?' That's a good question, but an equally valid question is, 'why not?'"
"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."
"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."
"If you don't understand the details of your business you are going to fail."
"I've always been at the intersection of computers and whatever they can revolutionize."
"If you do build a great experience, customers tell each other about that. Word of mouth is very powerful."
"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 do build a great experience, customers tell each other about that. Word of mouth is very powerful."
"Strip malls are history."
"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 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."
"Market leadership can translate directly to higher revenue, higher profitability, greater capital velocity, and correspondingly stronger returns on invested capital."
"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."
"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."