Jeff Bezos Quotes

One thing I've learned about his business is this whole 'plan thing' - it doesn't work.

I never had a plan. I have to say, I'm very shocked when people start a company and say, 'In five years I want to launch a perfume, or in 10 years I want to have this.' How can you know?

If there's one thing that's certain in business, it's uncertainty.

One cannot plan for the unexpected.

I spent 26 years in the business without ever knowing what I was doing a month from now.

Business is all about risk taking and managing uncertainties and turbulence.

Founders go wrong when they start to believe their business plan will materialize as written. I advise entrepreneurs to burn their business plan - it's simply too dangerous to the health of your business.

In this business it's difficult to make plans. I think the plans follow you and find you.

The essence of good business is knowing when to step on a train and when to step off.

What separates sports from entrepreneurism, however, is that in business we constantly have to overcome undefined and unpredictable challenges. Athletes train for specific events and conditions, whereas entrepreneurs generally have little idea what they will encounter along the way.

You have to be very fast-thinking, creative, and mobile. It is key to making a business move.

It's as important to sell yourselves as much as the service. The business model's going to change 50 times, and the market's going to change, but you need to convince that investor that you are smart enough and excited enough about the opportunity that you'll figure it out.

There's one thing I've learned about entrepreneurs' business plans. Every one is wrong.

The truth of the matter is that chess is not the game of life because life does not ever happen the way you strategize and plan.

Anything can happen, and you have to be able to understand the reality of the world that we live in.

In this business, you can't make any plans.

...." I was rather discouraged when I discovered that Paul and Hotch had no marketing survey, no business plan, no budget, no organized strategy for the introduction of the sauce. When asked about this lack of preparation, the haphazard nature of their business, Paul said, 'Me in this business is just part of life's great folly. Stay loose, men, keep 'em off balance.'"

Just like any business is a living, breathing thing, an entrepreneur has to be able to adapt over time.

I think a good entrepreneur has a very clear grasp of what the goal is, an unwavering sense of the goal, an utterly agile approach of getting there.

I'm not somebody who plans. There were times I planned a lot in my life, and it never turns out how you plan it. So I think it's important not to. I'm a very spontaneous person.

You can't get married to any one particular plan. That is the biggest lesson I learned at PayPal.

Nine-tenths of tactics are certain, and taught in books: but the irrational tenth is like the kingfisher flashing across the pool, and that is the test of generals.

There's always something happening in the world that creates an opportunity to try to fix a business and build a business.

In this business, you never say no to anything.

Some projects go as you hope or imagine, and some change or reveal themselves in a different way; it depends.