Jeff Bezos Long Quotations

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.

If you are going to do large-scale invention, you have to be willing to do three things: You must be willing to fail; you have to be willing to think long term; and you have to be willing to be misunderstood for long periods of time.

Entrepreneurs must be willing to be misunderstood for long periods of time.

Invention requires a long-term willingness to be misunderstood.

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.

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

If we think long term, we can accomplish things that we couldn't otherwise accomplish.

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

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

We've done price elasticity studies, and the answer is always that we should raise prices. We don't do that, because we believe -- and we have to take this as an article of faith -- that by keeping our prices very, very low, we earn trust with customers over time, and that that actually does maximize free cash flow over the long term.

If you're going to invest in an Internet stock, you must be a long-term investor.