We are our choices. Build yourself a great story.
Jeff BezosRead
A company shouldn't get addicted to being shiny, because shiny doesn't last.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Companies should focus on substance over superficial appeal, as trends do not hold long-term value.
This quote by Jeff Bezos emphasizes the importance of sustainability and genuine quality in a business rather than chasing fleeting trends or shallow appearances. By cautioning against an obsession with being 'shiny', Bezos encourages companies to prioritize lasting value and real innovation that withstands the test of time, rather than simply striving for surface-level attractiveness that may soon fade.
Themes
CompanyQualitySustainabilityTrendsValue
In practice
Example use cases
During a business presentation, to stress the importance of focusing on core values over superficial branding.
More from Jeff Bezos
All quotes βWork hard, have fun and make history.
Jeff BezosRead
If you're not stubborn, you'll give up on experiments too soon. And if you're not flexible, you'll pound your head against the wall and you won't see a different solution to a problem you're trying to solve.
Jeff BezosRead
But there's so much kludge, so much terrible stuff, we are at the 1908 Hurley washing machine stage with the Internet. That's where we are. We don't get our hair caught in it, but that's the level of primitiveness of where we are. We're in 1908.
Jeff BezosRead
Because, you know, resilience - if you think of it in terms of the Gold Rush, then you'd be pretty depressed right now because the last nugget of gold would be gone. But the good thing is, with innovation, there isn't a last nugget. Every new thing creates two new questions and two new opportunities.
Jeff BezosRead
When you are eighty years old, and in a quiet moment of reflection narrating for only yourself the most personal version of your life story, the telling that will be most compact and meaningful will be the series of choices you have made. In the end, we are our choices.
Jeff BezosRead
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Screw the competition - focus on good customer service.
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In a marketplace where it's so easy to produce products, where your competitors can essentially match you on the product itself, you need to have something else. You need to have an added value, and that added value is the identity, the idea behind your brand.
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Big companies have trouble with innovation. Innovation is about bad ideas, or ideas that look like bad ideas. That's the fundamental thing.
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I don't look at business as a zero-sum game. I don't. I've never seen it play out that way in our industry, and I think you innovate and you add value, deliver value back to customers, and you get value back from the world.
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The market and the consumer and idea trump the system.
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