We are our choices. Build yourself a great story.
Jeff BezosRead
You want to look at what other companies are doing. It's very important not to be hermetically sealed. But you don't want to look at it as if, 'OK, we're going to copy that.' You want to look at it and say, 'That's very interesting. What can we be inspired to do as a result of that?' And then put your own unique twist on it.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Learn from others without imitation, adding your own creativity.
In this quote, Jeff Bezos emphasizes the importance of observing the strategies and practices of other companies to gain insights, but he cautions against outright copying their ideas. Instead, he advocates for an approach that encourages inspiration and innovation, where one takes elements from others' successes and tailors them with a unique perspective or twist to drive one's own creativity and progress.
Themes
InnovationInspirationCreativityLearningBusiness
In practice
Example use cases
In a business conference discussing the importance of inspiration over imitation.
More from Jeff Bezos
All quotes →Work hard, have fun and make history.
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If you're not stubborn, you'll give up on experiments too soon. And if you're not flexible, you'll pound your head against the wall and you won't see a different solution to a problem you're trying to solve.
Jeff BezosRead
But there's so much kludge, so much terrible stuff, we are at the 1908 Hurley washing machine stage with the Internet. That's where we are. We don't get our hair caught in it, but that's the level of primitiveness of where we are. We're in 1908.
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Because, you know, resilience - if you think of it in terms of the Gold Rush, then you'd be pretty depressed right now because the last nugget of gold would be gone. But the good thing is, with innovation, there isn't a last nugget. Every new thing creates two new questions and two new opportunities.
Jeff BezosRead
When you are eighty years old, and in a quiet moment of reflection narrating for only yourself the most personal version of your life story, the telling that will be most compact and meaningful will be the series of choices you have made. In the end, we are our choices.
Jeff BezosRead
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