Quotes from Jeff Bezos

We humans co-evolve with our tools. We change the tools, and the tools change us.

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.

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.

The great thing about fact-based decisions is that they overrule the hierarchy.

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.

We approach our recruiting in unapologetically elitist fashion.

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.

If there's a problem, there's a solution.

The Net is pretty cool, but the physical world is the best medium ever.

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.

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.

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.

You can explain things to people, but you can't understand things to people.

I think the great thing about humans in general is we're always improving things.

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.

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.

Every new thing creates two new questions and two new opportunities.

In Seattle you haven't had enough coffee until you can thread a sewing machine while it's running.

Market leadership can translate directly to higher revenue, higher profitability, greater capital velocity, and correspondingly stronger returns on invested capital.

Strip malls are history.

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.

If you do build a great experience, customers tell each other about that. Word of mouth is very powerful.

If you don't understand the details of your business you are going to fail.

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.