“Entrepreneurs must be willing to be misunderstood for long periods of time.”

If you have a business model that relies on customers being misinformed, you better start working on changing your business model.

We are stubborn on vision. We are flexible on details.

It is very difficult to get people to focus on the most important things when you’re in boom times.

One of the huge mistakes people make is that they try to force an interest on themselves. You don’t choose your passions; your passions choose you.

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.

Invention is by its very nature disruptive. If you want to be understood at all times, then don’t do anything new.

It’s hard to find things that won’t sell online.

Our success at Amazon is a function of how many experiments we do per year, per month, per week, per day.

Complaining is not a strategy.You have to work with the world as you find it, not as you would have it be.

I’m going to go do this crazy thing. I’m going to start this company selling books online.

I think if people read more, that is a better world.

Do something you’re very passionate about, and don’t try to chase what is kind of the “hot passion” of the day.

Your brand is what other people say about you when you’re not in the room.

If you think about the long term then you can really make good life decisions that you won’t regret later.

Failure comes part and parcel with invention. It’s not optional.

We innovate by starting with the customer and working backwards. That becomes the touchstone for how we invent.

Excellence at everything you can do can be achieved on if it is a habit.

Start wide, expand further, and never look back.

Only a fool never changes his mind.

The superior man understands what is right; the inferior man understands what will sell.

Always think, ‘what’s the worst that can happen’ and have some kind of strategy to deal with it.

The mark of an innovative company is not only that it comes up with new ideas first, but also that it knows how to leapfrog when it finds itself behind.

You have competition every day because you set such high standards for yourself that you have to go out every day and live up to that.

There are basically no companies that have good slow decisions. There are only companies that have good fast decisions.