Bezos thinks in terms of decades, even centuries.
While most leaders think in terms of the next quarter or perhaps two to three years, Bezos’s long-termism makes him think in terms of centuries. And he pushes his investors and employees to do the same.
Bezos made a lot of educated bets with Amazon. While some of them became huge winners like Prime and Kindle, others became big flops like Fire Phone and Pets.com.
Even when a product failed, as in the case of the Fire Phone with its late arrival to market, Amazon kept innovating because Bezos felt deeply that no matter the outcome, the effort always pays off in the long run. Amazon kept on learning from its failures, and so the Fire Phone eventually ended up in Amazon’s next-generation smart speaker, the Echo.
