“Above all else, align with customers. Win when they win. Win only when they win.”

I knew that if I failed I wouldn’t regret that, but I knew the one thing I might regret is not trying.

My view is there’s no bad time to innovate.

One of the things that gets me up in the morning is knowing that customer expectations are always rising, and I find that very exciting.

One of the things that gets me up in the morning is knowing that customer expectations are always rising, and I find that very exciting.

Percentage margins don’t matter. What matters always is dollar margins: the actual dollar amount. Companies are valued not on their percentage margins, but on how many dollars they actually make, and a multiple of that.

We can’t be in survival mode. We have to be in growth mode.

Our biggest cost is not power, or servers, or people. It’s lack of utilization. It dominates all other costs.

To get something new done you have to be stubborn and focused, to the point that others might find unreasonable.

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

We’ve had three big ideas at Amazon that we’ve stuck with for 18 years, and thy’re the reason we’re successful: Put the customer first. Invent. And be patient.

Will you be clever at the expense of others, or will you be kind?

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.

If you want to be inventive, you have to be willing to fail.

I think frugality drives innovation, just like other constraints do. One of the only ways to get out of a tight box is to invent your way out.

You know, we love stories and we love narrative; we love to get lost in an author’s world.

You know, we love stories and we love narrative; we love to get lost in an author’s world.

When a really great dream shows up, grab it!

Ten years from now you’ll laugh at whatever’s stressing you out today. So why not laugh now?

Try to be creatively lead rather than market lead.

You can make money doing evil.

A mistake is only an error, it becomes a mistake when you fail to correct it.

Adopt and change before any major trends or changes.

I do think there is an important artistic component in what we do. As a technology company I’ve tried to really stress that.

An annuity is a very serious business.