Jeff Bezos

If you don’t understand the details of your business you are going to fail.

We expect all our businesses to have a positive impact on our top and bottom lines. Profitability is very important to us or we wouldn’t be in this business.

There are two ways to extend a business. Take inventory of what you’re good at and extend out from your skills. Or determine what your customers need and work backward, even if it requires learning new skills. Kindle is an example of working backward.

The common question that gets asked in business is, ‘why?’ That’s a good question, but an equally valid question is, ‘why not?’

I strongly believe that missionaries make better products. They care more. For a missionary, it’s not just about the business. There has to be a business, and the business has to make sense, but that’s not why you do it. You do it because you have something meaningful that motivates you.

There are two kinds of companies, those that work to try to charge more and those that work to charge less. We will be the second.