If everything you do needs to work on a three-year time horizon, then you’re competing against a lot of people, But if you’re willing to invest on a seven-year time horizon, you’re now competing against a fraction of those people, because very few companies are willing to do that. Just by lengthening the time horizon, you can engage in endeavours that you could never otherwise pursue. At Amazon we like things to work in five to seven years. We’re willing to plant seeds, let them grow—and we’re very stubborn. We say we’re stubborn on vision and flexible on details.

Cleverness is a gift, kindness is a choice. Gifts are easy-they're given after all. Choices can be hard.

In the old world, you devoted 30% of your time to building a great service and 70% of your time to shouting about it. In the new world, that inverts

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

If you invent frequently and are willing to fail, then you never get to that point where you really need to bet the whole company.

We change our tools and then our tools change us.

My own view is that every company requires a long-term view.