For People Who Are Readers,

I'm Not Prepared To Make Any Multi-decade Commitments.

People Who Were Right A Lot Of The Time Were People Who Often Changed Their Minds.

On The Internet, Companies Are Scale Businesses, Characterized By High Fixed Costs And Relatively Low Variable Costs. You Can Be Two Sizes: You Can Be Big, Or You Can Be Small. It's Very Hard To Be Medium. A Lot Of Medium-sized Companies Had The Financing Rug Pulled Out From Under Them Before They Could Get Big.

If Everything You Do Needs To Work On A Three-year Time Horizon, Then You’re Competing Against A Lot Of People, But If You’re Willing To Invest On A Seven-year Time Horizon, You’re Now Competing Against A Fraction Of Those People, Because Very Few Companies Are Willing To Do That. Just By Lengthening The Time Horizon, You Can Engage In Endeavours That You Could Never Otherwise Pursue. At Amazon We Like Things To Work In Five To Seven Years. We’re Willing To Plant Seeds, Let Them Grow—and We’re Very Stubborn. We Say We’re Stubborn On Vision And Flexible On Details.

The Balance Of Power Is Shifting Toward Consumers And Away From Companies The Right Way To Respond To This If You Are A Company Is To Put The Vast Majority Of Your Energy, Attention And Dollars Into Building A Great Product Or Service And Put A Smaller Amount Into Shouting About It, Marketing It.