Stubborn on Vision and Flexible on Details

Source: Geekwire Published: June 2011 n = 1,046 Amazon sellers

Source: Geekwire
Published: June 2011
n = 1,046 Amazon sellers

Stubborn on Vision and Flexible on Details

Circulated: February 28, 2020

Question: Amazon seems to be executing well lately — is the company taking enough risks? If it’s still Amazon’s philosophy to make bold bets, I would expect that maybe some of them wouldn’t work out, but I am not seeing that. So, my question is where are all the losers?

Answer by Jeff Bezos: In a way, that is like the nicest compliment I’ve ever gotten. I can guarantee you that everything we do will not work. I am never concerned about that because we are stubborn on vision and flexible on details. We don’t give up on things easily.

Our third-party seller business is an example of that. It took us three tries to get the third-party seller business to work (Amazon Auctions, zShops, Amazon Marketplace). We didn’t give up.