Jeff Bezos on strategy
This interview with Amazon’s founder and CEO Jeff Bezos is one of the most interesting interviews I read all year. Mandatory reading.
On customer being customer centric:
We don’t make money when we sell things; we make money when we help customers make purchase decisions.
We can’t be thinking about how Barnes & Noble has so much more in the way of resources than we do.� I told everyone, “Yes, you should wake up every morning terrified with your sheets drenched in sweat, but not because you’re afraid of our competitors. Be afraid of our customers, because those are the folks who have the money. Our competitors are never going to send us money.�
When I’m talking with people outside the company, there’s a question that comes up very commonly: “What’s going to change in the next five to ten years?� But I very rarely get asked “What’s not going to change in the next five to ten years?� At Amazon we’re always trying to figure that out, because you can really spin up flywheels around those things. All the energy you invest in them today will still be paying you dividends ten years from now.
I can’t imagine that ten years from now they are going to say, “I love Amazon, but if only they could deliver my products a little more slowly.� And they’re not going to, ten years from now, say, “I really love Amazon, but I wish their prices were a little higher.� So we know that when we put energy into defect reduction, which reduces our cost structure and thereby allows lower prices, that will be paying us dividends ten years from now.
On company culture:
Intensity is important. I always tell people that our culture is friendly and intense, but if push comes to shove, we’ll settle for intense. But there is no contradiction between being intense and having fun.
[tags]business, amazon, jeff bezos, strategy[/tags]
amazon.com, e-handel, strategi, intervju
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