“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.

There’ll always be serendipity involved in discovery.

Cleverness is a gift, kindness is a choice.

Focusing on the customer makes a company more resilient.

It’s harder to be kind than clever.

What we need to do is always lean into the future; when the world changes around you and when it changes against you – what used to be a tail wind is now a head wind – you have to lean into that and figure out what to do because complaining isn’t a strategy.

Wheels of justice gind slow but grind fine.

Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success.

Working hard for something we don’t care about is called stress: Working hard for something we love is called passion.

If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that.

If you’re looking to become an entrepreneur then don’t waste your time going to university or business school – just get on and do it.

Successful Investing takes time, discipline and patience.

If you double the number of experiments you do per year you’re going to double your inventiveness.

Failure is so important. We speak about success all the time. It is the ability to resist failure or use failure that often leads to greater success. I’ve met people who don’t want to try for fear of failing.