Put the customer first. Invent. Be patient.
We've had three big ideas at Amazon that we've stuck with for 18 years, and they're the reason we're successful: put the customer first. Invent. And be patient...
In my experience, the way invention, innovation and change happen is [through] team effort. There's no lone genius who figures it all out and sends down the magic formula. You study, you debate, you brainstorm and the answers start to emerge. It takes time. Nothing happens quickly in this mode. You develop theories and hypotheses, but you don't know if readers will respond. You do as many experiments as rapidly as possible. 'Quickly' in my mind would be years.
Jeff Bezos talks about some of the ideas behind Amazon's success. In this short paragraph, there are at least three things I've been thinking about for a while now: collaboration, ideas emerging over time and customer focus. Not surprisingly, these also seem to be some of the themes that are emerging on this blog.