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From the interview ...
Bezos on strategy:
Our strategy with the ebookstore is 'buy once, read everywhere.' If you want to read on your iPhone, if you want to read on your BlackBerry. We want people to be able to read their books anywhere they want to read them. That's the PC, that's the Macintosh. It's the iPad, it's the iPhone. It's the Kindle. So you have this whole multitude of devices and whatever's most convenient for you at the moment.
Bezos as missionary:
We think of it as a mission. 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.
Bezos in the shower (and thinking about innovation):
When I wake up every morning, during my shower time, what I'm thinking about is new things that we can do.
We've got Amazon Prime. Customers love that. How can we make that program even better? What kind of inventions can we do to reduce our cost structures and our fulfillment centers so we can afford to sell products for even less? Those kinds of things are incredibly motivating for me, and I like the rate of change, I like the opportunity, the "canvas" upon which we can invent new things. And I am not alone in Amazon in that regard. We have a big team of people who are genetically predisposed to have fun while inventing new things. It's sort of in our DNA.
Bezos on why Amazon is different than almost every other consumer products company:
I would hope people would say that Amazon is earth's most customer-centric company, and that we work backwards from customers. Many companies sort of look at what their skills are and they work forward from their skills. They say this is what we're good at, and this is what we'll do. It's a very different approach from saying here is what our customers need, and we will learn whatever skills we need.
It was a pretty interesting interview, all in all.
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