Jeff Bezos Quotes

The top principle for disruptive and sustaining innovation is that it has to have a laser focus on customers. Innovation begins with their needs and expectations.

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.

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 think I've done a good job in the industry from the standpoint of employee morale and customer satisfaction, and as an innovative thinker in tech.

I think there's a need for somewhat of a mindset change. We need to have a consistent external focus. We've always had the research labs. We've always had the resources to be innovative, and we've been innovative in a number of businesses. But, in any big company, you have to constantly push people to look at markets and customers, rather than look internally at themselves.

Every day were saying, 'How can we keep this customer happy?' How can we get ahead in innovation by doing this, because if we don't, somebody else will.

Even in the face of massive competition, don't think about the competition. Literally don't think about them. Every time you're in a meeting and you're tempted to talk about a competitor, replace that thought with one about user feedback or surveys. Just think about the customer.

So I think instead of focusing on the competition, focus on the customer.

Any corporate policy and plan which is typical of the industry is doomed to mediocrity. Where this is not so, it should be possible to demonstrate that all other competitors are at a distinct disadvantage.

I think if companies start reinventing themselves and focus on the customer experience more, they will win out in the end.

There are two ways to extend a business. Take inventory of what you're good at and extend out from your skills. Or determine what your customers need and work backward, even if it requires learning new skills. Kindle is an example of working backward.

You don't want to be first, right? You want to be second or third. You don't want to be - Facebook is not the first in social media. They're the third, right? Similarly, you know, if you look at Steve Jobs' history, he's never been first.

I think like a Silicon Valley entrepreneur. Failure is a great teacher. At the same time, you must remember, success will never last... Whether it's tech or fashion, it must be for the customer.

The ability of a successful company to add functionality to its product has long been upheld.

The customer doing something innovative is not interested in the size of your company but in whether you understand what he does.

If Dell's going to be a fast follower, then we'll continue to innovate.

To gain the competitive edge, companies must master the ability to innovate.

Proper business planning demands that you focus on the self-interest of the customer at all times.

If you don't listen to your customers, someone else will.

Market leaders inevitably slip into decline when they tell the people what they want instead of giving the people what they want.

Having a good idea is one thing, but persuading other people to buy it is quite another. Good inventors are polymaths: they think with their hands and their brains. They're experts in design, engineering and business.

I think there are lots of opportunities to improve the product. When you read the press, people say, "Oh, the product needs improvement." I look at that and say, "Hey, that's an exciting thing to get behind!" Because they can improve that product. That leaves more upside from an innovation and revenue potential than you're gonna find in a lot of places. So you could say that's a downside, I see that as an opportunity.

There isn't a plant or a business on earth that couldn't stand a few improvements-and be better for them. Someone is going to think of them. Why not beat the other fellow to it?

What characteristics are most important in creative workers? One quality you need is inventiveness. You need to be able to take whatever product or service you are providing and figure out ways of making it better, faster, cheaper. The other quality is empathy and insight into what people might want, even though they don't even know their wants, probably because there's no product or service to test their wants.

Best way to succeed is to do things for the customer, not to the competition. Very few people buy a product in order to help you hurt the competition. To think otherwise is lunacy.