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.

If you're long-term oriented, customer interests and shareholder interests are aligned.

A company shouldn't get addicted to being shiny, because shiny doesn't last.

Our vision is every book ever printed in any language [fetched and viewable on our eBook Kindle device] in under 60 seconds.

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

If we can keep our competitors focused on us while we stay focused on the customer, ultimately we'll turn out all right.

I don't think that you can invent on behalf of customers unless you're willing to think long-term, because a lot of invention doesn't work. If you're going to invent, it means you're going to experiment, and if you're going to experiment, you're going to fail, and if you're going to fail, you have to think long term.