The Leadership Letter

Real correspondence from the people running real companies — and what it reveals about leadership.

Bezos Built Amazon by Refusing to Define Success in Quarters

The discipline isn't in what Bezos optimized for. It's in what he refused to apologize for not optimizing.

It's all about the long term.

We believe that a fundamental measure of our success will be the shareholder value we create over the long term. This value will be a direct result of our ability to extend and solidify our current market leadership position. The stronger our market leadership, the more powerful our economic model.

Our decisions have consistently reflected this focus. We first measure ourselves in terms of the metrics most indicative of our market leadership: customer and revenue growth, the degree to which our customers continue to purchase from us on a repeat basis, and the strength of our brand. We have invested and will continue to invest aggressively to expand and leverage our customer base, brand, and infrastructure as we move to establish an enduring franchise.

Because of our emphasis on the long term, we may make decisions and weigh tradeoffs differently than some companies.

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Self-Published
Amazon.com 1997 Annual Report (SEC Form 10-K)
Letter to Shareholders, filed with the SEC on 30 March 1998
March 30, 1998
Publicly issued by the author
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