15 of the Top Quotes from Jeff Bezos About Business

It may be hard to believe but Amazon has been in business for 25 years. From an idea in Jeff Bezos’ mind about the power of the internet to a company that has revolutionized retail, Bezos has learned a lot along the way about what it takes to be successful. Here are 15 of the top quotes from Bezos, that while simple pack a powerful dose of advice that you can use to take your business and or career to the next level.

1. "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."

2. "If you're competitor-focused, you have to wait until there is a competitor doing something. Being customer-focused allows you to be more pioneering."

3. "Take risk. You have to be willing to take risk. If you have a business idea with no risk, it's probably already being done." "You've got to have something that might not work. It will be, in many ways, an experiment."

4. “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.”

5. “We all know that if you swing for the fences, you’re going to strike out a lot, but you’re also going to hit some home runs.” “The difference between baseball and business, however, is that baseball has a truncated outcome distribution. When you swing, no matter how well you connect with the ball, the most runs you can get is four. In business, every once in a while, when you step up to the plate, you can score 1,000 runs.”

6. "If you're not stubborn, you'll give up on experiments too soon. And if you're not flexible, you'll pound your head against the wall and you won't see a different solution to a problem you're trying to solve."

7. "If you never want to be criticized, for goodness' sake don't do anything new."

8. "You can have the best technology, you can have the best business model, but if the storytelling isn't amazing, it won't matter. Nobody will watch."

10. “If you have a business idea with no risk, it’s probably already being done. You’ve got to have something that might not work. It will be, in many ways, an experiment. We take risks all the time, we talk about failure.”

11. “People who are right a lot listen a lot, and they change their mind a lot. People who are right a lot change their mind without a lot of new data. They wake up and reanalyze things and change their mind. If you don’t change your mind frequently, you’re going to be wrong a lot. People who are right a lot want to disconfirm their fundamental biases. “

12. "Market research doesn't help. If you had gone to a customer in 2013 and said, 'Would you like a black, always-on cylinder in your kitchen about the size of a Pringles can that you can talk to and ask questions, that also turns on your lights and plays music?' I guarantee you they'd have looked at you strangely and said, 'No, thank you.'"

13. “I do get asked, quite frequently ‘What’s gonna change in the next 10 years?’ I’m rarely get asked, and it’s probably more important — and I encourage you to think about this — is the question what’s not going to change? The answer to that question can allow you to organize your activities. You can work on those things with the confidence to know that all the energy you put into them today is still going to pay dividends in the years to come.”

14. “When you think about the things that you will regret when you’re 80, they’re almost always the things that you did not do. They’re acts of omission. Very rarely are you going to regret something that you did that failed and didn’t work or whatever,”

15. “You can have a job, or you can have a career, or you can have a calling.” “And if you can somehow figure out how to have a calling, you have hit the jackpot, cause that’s the big deal.”

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