Taking the long view
Jeff Bezos, the founder and chief executive of Amazon, owes much of his success to his ability to look beyond the short-term view of things
INSIDE a remote mountain in Texas, a gargantuan clock is being pieced together, capable of telling the time for the next 10,000 years. Once the clock is finished, people willing to make the difficult trek will be able to visit the vast chamber housing it, along with displays marking various anniversaries of its operation. On a website set up to track the progress of this “10,000-year clock”, Jeff Bezos, who has invested $42m of his own money in the project, describes this impressive feat of engineering as “an icon for long-term thinking”.
That description applies just as much to Mr Bezos himself. The founder and chief executive of Amazon has often ruffled investors’ feathers by sacrificing short-term profits to make big bets on new technologies that, he insists, will produce richer returns for the company’s shareholders in future. He laid out this philosophy in his first letter to shareholders, penned in 1997, which was entitled “It’s all about the long term”.
………………..
Related previous posts:
Jeff Bezos Owns the Web in More Ways Than You Think - By Steven Levy
Jeff Bezos on innovation
Jeff Bezos on Charlie Rose
"We are What We Choose"
Upfront and Unscripted with Jeff Bezos (Audio)
Amazon.com's Jeff Bezos – Interviews
- The Secrets Of Bezos: How Amazon Became The Everything Store
Amazon.com rivals Wal-Mart as a store, Apple as a device maker, and IBM as a data services provider. It will rake in about $75 billion this year. For his book, Bloomberg Businessweek’s Brad Stone spoke to hundreds of current and former friends...
- Jeff Bezos Pays $250 Million For The Washington Post
In an ironic twist for a tycoon whose company has always kept its distance from the press, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has agreed to pay $250 million cash for The Washington Post. The purchase takes the newspaper out of the hands of the Graham family,...
- Jeff Bezos On Charlie Rose
Link to: Jeff Bezos on Charlie Rose ……………… Related article: Amazon's Jeff Bezos: The ultimate disrupter ...
- Upfront And Unscripted With Jeff Bezos (audio)
I think Jeff Bezos and Chris Anderson are two of the best people from which to learn. I don't know how I missed this podcast the first time, but it is really great (in my opinion). I also think the iPod-like comparison is a valid one for The Kindle....
- Put Buyers First? What A Concept
When I spoke to analysts and investors, they had all kinds of reasons for Amazon’s performance last year. “They finally reached a point where their R&D spending was not expanding as fast as their revenues,” said Citigroup’s Mark S. Mahaney....