American industrialist & Amazon founder (1964- )
I picked books because there were more items in the book category than in any other category. And so you could build universal selection. There were 3 million in 1994 when I was pulling this idea together -- 3 million different books active in print at any given time. The largest physical bookstores only had about 150,000 different titles. And so I could see how you could make a bookstore online with universal selection. Every book ever printed, even the out-of-print ones was the original vision for the company. So that's why books.
JEFF BEZOS
Business Insider, April 28, 2018
We humans co-evolve with our tools. We change the tools, and the tools change us.
JEFF BEZOS
Newsweek, Dec. 20, 2009
That blank sheet of paper stage is one of the hardest stages, and one of the reasons it's hard is because at that stage there's nobody counting on you but yourself ... it's really just you, and you can quit any time. Nobody is going to care.
JEFF BEZOS
Academy of Achievement interview, May 4, 2001
If you can't feed a team with two large pizzas, it's too large.
JEFF BEZOS
attributed, The Biteback Dictionary of Humorous Business Quotations
Online, word of mouth changes. In the old world, someone might tell five people, but in the new world, you can tell 5000. But be careful, because it works both ways. If you make a customer happy, he can tell 5000 people, too.
JEFF BEZOS
Playboy, Feb. 2000
The great thing about fact-based decisions is that they overrule the hierarchy.
JEFF BEZOS
Inc., May 7, 2014
Strip malls are a symbol for marginal, low-experience stores that nobody really wants to go to. Over time, say within 10 years, maybe 15 percent of commerce will move online. Will that have a big impact on the physical world? Absolutely. What will that effect be? It will force stores to get better. The ones that don't get better will go by the wayside.
JEFF BEZOS
Playboy, Feb. 2000
There's a tendency, I think, for executives to think that the right course of action is to stick to the knitting--stick with what you're good at. That may be a generally good rule, but the problem is the world changes out from under you if you're not constantly adding to your skill set.
JEFF BEZOS
Newsweek, Dec. 20, 2009
We start with the customer and we work backward. We learn whatever skills we need to service the customer. We build whatever technology we need to service the customer.
JEFF BEZOS
Newsweek, Dec. 20, 2009
The Net is pretty cool, but the physical world is the best medium ever.
JEFF BEZOS
Playboy, Feb. 2000
My approach to criticism and what I teach and preach inside Amazon -- is when you're criticized, first look in a mirror and decide, are your critics right? If they're right, change. Don't resist.
JEFF BEZOS
Business Insider, April 28, 2018
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.
JEFF BEZOS
The Washington Post, September 2, 2013
You can explain things to people, but you can't understand things to people.
JEFF BEZOS
Business Insider, April 28, 2018
We approach our recruiting in unapologetically elitist fashion.
JEFF BEZOS
The Atlantic, November 2019
I think the great thing about humans in general is we're always improving things.
JEFF BEZOS
interview, Business Insider, April 28, 2018
The physical book really has had a 500-year run. It's probably the most successful technology ever. It's hard to come up with things that have had a longer run. If Gutenberg were alive today, he would recognize the physical book and know how to operate it immediately. Given how much change there has been everywhere else, what's remarkable is how stable the book has been for so long. But no technology, not even one as elegant as the book, lasts forever.
JEFF BEZOS
Newsweek, Dec. 20, 2009
If there's a problem, there's a solution.
JEFF BEZOS
Business Insider, April 28, 2018
Every new thing creates two new questions and two new opportunities.
JEFF BEZOS
TED Talk, 2007
I am not the kind of person women fall in love with. I sort of grow on them, like a fungus. I need to either work alongside somebody or take a series of classes with her -- you know, get to know her over a period of time to let her see that my goofiness is actually an attribute, not a fatal flaw.
JEFF BEZOS
Playboy, Feb. 2000
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.
JEFF BEZOS
Business Insider, July 16, 2015