Jeff Bezos on Building Enduring Business Strategies

Jeff Bezos recommends building your company’s strategy around elements that will remain stable over time. “You can build a business strategy around the things that are stable in time,” he explains.

At Amazon, Bezos identified that customers would always value low prices, fast delivery, and vast selection. The company then focused relentlessly on being the absolute best in those areas, rallying efforts around these enduring priorities.

Bezos points out that while people often ask, “What’s going to change in the next 10 years?” fewer ask the more valuable question: “What’s not going to change?” He stresses the importance of this way of thinking: “I very frequently get the question: ‘What’s going to change in the next 10 years?’ That’s a very interesting question. I almost never get the question: ‘What’s not going to change in the next 10 years?’ And I submit to you that that second question is actually the more important of the two. You can build a business strategy around the things that are stable in time.”

Bezos underscores that no customer will ever ask for higher prices or slower delivery. “So we know the energy we put into these things today will still be paying off dividends for our customers 10 years from now. When you have something that you know is true, even over the long term, you can afford to put a lot of energy into it.”