It's harder to be kind than clever

Feel free to cover Amazon any way you want. Feel free to cover Jeff Bezos any way you want.

If there’s one reason we have done better than of our peers in the Internet space over the last six years, it is because we have focused like a laser on customer experience.

What I want to talk to you about today is the difference between gifts and choices. Cleverness is a gift, kindness is a choice. Gifts are easy - they’re given after all. Choices can be hard. You can seduce yourself with your gifts if you’re not careful, and if you do, it’ll probably be to the detriment of your choices.

Percentage margins are not one of the things we are seeking to optimize. It’s the absolute dollar free cash flow per share that you want to maximize, and if you can do that by lowering margins, we would do that. So if you could take the free cash flow, that’s something that investors can spend. Investors can’t spend percentage margins.

The three most important things in retail are location, location, location. The three most important things for our consumer business are technology, technology, technology.

To get something new done you have to be stubborn and focused, to the point that others might find unreasonable.