Source: The Bush Center
Published: April 2018

Be willing to be misunderstood

“If you’re going to do anything new or innovative, you have to be willing to be misunderstood. If you can’t tolerate that, don’t do anything new or innovative. 

Example:

23 years ago we built customer reviews. Customers could come in and rate a book among five stars and write a text-based review. Back then, we only sold books.

The book publishers did not like this because of the negative reviews. I got a letter from one publisher: why don’t you just publish the positive reviews? Your sales will go up!

I don’t believe that. I don’t think we make money when we sell something. We make money when we help someone make a purchasing decision. If you think about it this way, you want negative reviews.”

-Jeff Bezos

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