Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images for WIRED25
- Jeff Bezos touted innovating, creating value, and standing out in his final annual letter.
- The Amazon chief will focus on improving working conditions after he steps down as CEO.
- Bezos highlighted a couple who made a fortune by investing in Amazon in 1997.
- See more stories on Insider's business page.
Amazon chief Jeff Bezos underscored the importance of innovation, value creation, and individuality in his last annual letter to shareholders as CEO.
Bezos also shared the story of Mary and Larry, a couple who bought two Amazon shares shortly after the online retailer went public in 1997. Their son will soon use some of their massive profits from that investment to buy a house, they told Bezos in a note.
Moreover, Bezos said that he will focus on making Amazon a better, safer place to work when he steps down as CEO and becomes executive chair later this year.
Here are Bezos' 10 best quotes from his final letter, lightly edited and condensed for clarity:
1. "We've created $1.6 trillion of wealth for shareowners. Who are they? Your chair is one, but more than 7/8ths of the shares, representing $1.4 trillion of wealth creation, are owned by others including pension funds, universities, 401(k)s, and Mary and Larry.
2. "If you want to be successful in business (in life, actually), you have to create more than you consume. Your goal should be to create value for everyone you interact with. Any business that doesn't create value for those it touches, even if it appears successful on the surface, isn't long for this world. It's on the way out."
3. "Value creation is not a zero-sum game. It is not just moving money from one pocket to another. Draw the box big around all of society, and you'll find that invention is the root of all real value creation. And value created is best thought of as a metric for innovation."
4. "We save customers time." - highlighting that Amazon customers complete 28% of their purchases within three minutes, and half of them in under 15 minutes, compared to a typical shopping trip that takes an hour.
5. "Despite what we've accomplished, it's clear to me that we need a better vision for our employees' success. We have always wanted to be Earth's Most Customer-Centric Company. We won't change that. It's what got us here. But I am committing us to an addition. We are going to be Earth's Best Employer and Earth's Safest Place to Work."
6. "I'm an inventor. It's what I enjoy the most and what I do best. It's where I create the most value. We at Amazon are always flexible, but on matters of vision we are stubborn and relentless. We have never failed when we set our minds to something, and we're not going to fail at this either." - on his plan to focus on new initiatives as Amazon's executive chair.
7. "You don't have to say that photosynthesis is real, or make the case that gravity is real, or that water boils at 100 degrees Celsius at sea level. These things are simply true, as is the reality of climate change."
8. "We are all taught to 'be yourself.' What I'm really asking you to do is to embrace and be realistic about how much energy it takes to maintain that distinctiveness. The world wants you to be typical - in a thousand ways, it pulls at you. Don't let it happen."
9. "You have to pay a price for your distinctiveness, and it's worth it. The fairy-tale version of "be yourself " is that all the pain stops as soon as you allow your distinctiveness to shine. That version is misleading. Being yourself is worth it, but don't expect it to be easy or free. You'll have to put energy into it continuously."
10. "Be kind, be original, create more than you consume, and never, never, never let the universe smooth you into your surroundings. It remains Day 1."