You need to be stubborn on your vision, but very flexible on the details.Keynote Address, Utah Technology Council, 2012
Author · 17 quotes
Jeff Bezos is an American entrepreneur known for founding Amazon, the world's largest online retailer, in 1994. He served as the CEO of Amazon until 2021 and is recognized for transforming e-commerce and revolutionizing the way consumers shop online. Bezos is also a billionaire philanthropist and the founder of Blue Origin, a space exploration company.
b. 1964
You need to be stubborn on your vision, but very flexible on the details.Keynote Address, Utah Technology Council, 2012
We didn’t ascend from our hunter-gatherer days by being satisfied. People have a voracious appetite for a better way.Annual Letter to Shareholders, Amazon, 2017
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.
All of my best decisions in life and business have been made with heart, intuition and guts…not analysis.2010 Baccalaureate Remarks, Princeton University, 2010
Failure and invention are inseparable twins. To invent you have to experiment, and if you know in advance that it's going to work, it's not an experiment.2015 Letter to Shareholders, Amazon, 2015
People who are right a lot listen a lot and change their minds a lot.Amazon leadership principle that 'surprises people', CNBC, 2019
It’s generally human nature to overestimate risk and underestimate opportunity.Remarks at the New York Times DealBook Summit, 2024
If we ran Amazon the way New York City runs their school system, the packages would take 6 weeks to arrive, we would charge you a $100 delivery fee and when the package did finally arrive, it would have the wrong item in it anyway.Interview on CNBC's Squawk Box, May 20, 2023
I started Amazon when I was 30, not when I was 20, and I think that that extra 10 years of experience actually improved the odds that Amazon would succeed.Statement by Jeff Bezos to the U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary, July 29, 2020
When the data and the anecdotes disagree, the anecdotes are usually right.
Above all else, align with customers. Win when they win. Win only when they win.
If you do build a great experience, customers tell each other about that. Word of mouth is very powerful.Commencement Address, Princeton University, 2010
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.The Everything Store, p. 157, 2013
The human brain is an incredible pattern-matching machine.
What's dangerous is not to evolve.
A brand for a company is like a reputation for a person. You earn reputation by trying to do hard things well.Jeff Bezos on what founders need to understand about brands, Startup Archive, 2026
Stress primarily comes from not taking action over something that you can have some control over.Interview at the Academy of Achievement Summit, 2001
That’s all 17 quotes by Jeff Bezos.