I believe you have to be willing to be misunderstood if you're going to innovate.

It’s very important for entrepreneurs to be realistic. So if you believe on that first day while you’re writing the business plan that there’s a 70 percent chance that the whole thing will fail, then that kind of relieves the pressure of self-doubt.

I love my life. I love being an inventor.

When you receive criticism from well-meaning people, it pays to ask, ‘Are they right?’ And if they are, you need to adapt what they’re doing. If they’re not right, if you really have conviction that they’re not right, you need to have that long-term willingness to be misunderstood. It’s a key part of invention.

If you look at academic studies, you can see that stock prices are most closely correlated with cash flow. It's such a straightforward number. Cash flow is what will drive shareholder returns.

I don't know about you, but most of my exchanges with cashiers are not that meaningful.

You can work long, hard, or smart, but at Amazon.com you can’t choose two out of three.