“What Matters More Than Your Talents”
This speech was originally delivered as the baccalaureate remarks to graduates from Princeton University on May 30, 2010. 1
Speech Transcript
As a kid, I spent my summers with my grandparents on their ranch in Texas. I helped fix windmills, vaccinate cattle, and do other chores. We also watched soap operas every afternoon, especially “Days of our Lives.” My grandparents belonged to a Caravan Club, a group of Airstream trailer owners who travel together around the U.S. and Canada. And every few summers, we’d join the caravan. We’d hitch up the Airstream trailer to my grandfather’s car, and off we’d go, in a line with 300 other Airstream adventurers. I loved and worshipped my grandparents and I really looked forward to these trips. On one particular trip, I was about 10 years old. I was rolling around in the big bench seat in the back of the car. My grandfather was driving. And my grandmother had the passenger seat. She smoked throughout these trips, and I hated the smell.
At that age, I’d take any excuse to make estimates and do minor arithmetic. I’d calculate our gas mileage — figure out useless statistics on things like grocery spending. I’d been hearing an ad campaign about smoking. I can’t remember the details, but basically the ad said, every puff of a cigarette takes some number of minutes off of your life: I think it might have been two minutes per puff. At any rate, I decided to do the math for my grandmother. I estimated the number of cigarettes per days, estimated the number of puffs per cigarette and so on. When I was satisfied that I’d come up with a reasonable number, I poked my head into the front of the car, tapped my grandmother on the shoulder, and proudly proclaimed, “At two minutes per puff, you’ve taken nine years off your life!”
I have a vivid memory of what happened, and it was not what I expected. I expected to be applauded for my cleverness and arithmetic skills. “Jeff, you’re so smart. You had to have made some tricky estimates, figure out the number of minutes in a year and do some division.” That’s not what happened. Instead, my grandmother burst into tears. I sat in the backseat and did not know what to do. While my grandmother sat crying, my grandfather, who had been driving in silence, pulled over onto the shoulder of the highway. He got out of the car and came around and opened my door and waited for me to follow. Was I in trouble? My grandfather was a highly intelligent, quiet man. He had never said a harsh word to me, and maybe this was to be the first time? Or maybe he would ask that I get back in the car and apologize to my grandmother. I had no experience in this realm with my grandparents and no way to gauge what the consequences might be. We stopped beside the trailer. My grandfather looked at me, and after a bit of silence, he gently and calmly said, “Jeff, one day you’ll understand that it’s harder to be kind than clever.”
What I want to talk to you about today is the difference between gifts and choices. Cleverness is a gift, kindness is a choice. Gifts are easy — they’re given after all. Choices can be hard. You can seduce yourself with your gifts if you’re not careful, and if you do, it’ll probably be to the detriment of your choices.
This is a group with many gifts. I’m sure one of your gifts is the gift of a smart and capable brain. I’m confident that’s the case because admission is competitive and if there weren’t some signs that you’re clever, the dean of admission wouldn’t have let you in.
Your smarts will come in handy because you will travel in a land of marvels. We humans — plodding as we are — will astonish ourselves. We’ll invent ways to generate clean energy and a lot of it. Atom by atom, we’ll assemble tiny machines that will enter cell walls and make repairs. This month comes the extraordinary but also inevitable news that we’ve synthesized life. In the coming years, we’ll not only synthesize it, but we’ll engineer it to specifications. I believe you’ll even see us understand the human brain. Jules Verne, Mark Twain, Galileo, Newton — all the curious from the ages would have wanted to be alive most of all right now. As a civilization, we will have so many gifts, just as you as individuals have so many individual gifts as you sit before me.
How will you use these gifts? And will you take pride in your gifts or pride in your choices?
I got the idea to start Amazon 16 years ago. I came across the fact that Web usage was growing at 2,300 percent per year. I’d never seen or heard of anything that grew that fast, and the idea of building an online bookstore with millions of titles — something that simply couldn’t exist in the physical world — was very exciting to me. I had just turned 30 years old, and I’d been married for a year. I told my wife MacKenzie that I wanted to quit my job and go do this crazy thing that probably wouldn’t work since most startups don’t, and I wasn’t sure what would happen after that. MacKenzie (also a Princeton grad and sitting here in the second row) told me I should go for it. As a young boy, I’d been a garage inventor. I’d invented an automatic gate closer out of cement-filled tires, a solar cooker that didn’t work very well out of an umbrella and tinfoil, baking-pan alarms to entrap my siblings. I’d always wanted to be an inventor, and she wanted me to follow my passion.
I was working at a financial firm in New York City with a bunch of very smart people, and I had a brilliant boss that I much admired. I went to my boss and told him I wanted to start a company selling books on the Internet. He took me on a long walk in Central Park, listened carefully to me, and finally said, “That sounds like a really good idea, but it would be an even better idea for someone who didn’t already have a good job.” That logic made some sense to me, and he convinced me to think about it for 48 hours before making a final decision. Seen in that light, it really was a difficult choice, but ultimately, I decided I had to give it a shot. I didn’t think I’d regret trying and failing. And I suspected I would always be haunted by a decision to not try at all. After much consideration, I took the less safe path to follow my passion, and I’m proud of that choice.
Tomorrow, in a very real sense, your life — the life you author from scratch on your own — begins.
How will you use your gifts? What choices will you make?
Will inertia be your guide, or will you follow your passions?
Will you follow dogma, or will you be original?
Will you choose a life of ease, or a life of service and adventure?
Will you wilt under criticism, or will you follow your convictions?
Will you bluff it out when you’re wrong, or will you apologize?
Will you guard your heart against rejection, or will you act when you fall in love?
Will you play it safe, or will you be a little bit swashbuckling?
When it’s tough, will you give up, or will you be relentless?
Will you be a cynic, or will you be a builder?
Will you be clever at the expense of others, or will you be kind?
I will hazard a prediction. When you are 80 years old, and in a quiet moment of reflection narrating for only yourself the most personal version of your life story, the telling that will be most compact and meaningful will be the series of choices you have made. In the end, we are our choices. Build yourself a great story. Thank you and good luck!
This speech was published on the Princeton website .
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Jeff Bezos’ Princeton Commencement Speech: What Matters More Than Your Talents
April 5, 2019
This speech was originally given to graduates of Princeton University, May 30, 2010. Jeff Bezos closes with:
I will hazard a prediction. When you are 80 years old, and in a quiet moment of reflection narrating for only yourself the most personal version of your life story, the telling that will be most compact and meaningful will be the series of choices you have made. In the end, we are our choices. Build yourself a great story. Thank you and good luck!
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Speech Transcript
As a kid, I spent my summers with my grandparents on their ranch in Texas. I helped fix windmills, vaccinate cattle, and do other chores. We also watched soap operas every afternoon, especially “Days of our Lives.”
My grandparents belonged to a Caravan Club, a group of Airstream trailer owners who travel together around the U.S. and Canada. And every few summers, we’d join the caravan. We’d hitch up the Airstream trailer to my grandfather’s car, and off we’d go, in a line with 300 other Airstream adventurers.
I loved and worshipped my grandparents and I really looked forward to these trips.
On one particular trip, I was about 10 years old. I was rolling around in the big bench seat in the back of the car. My grandfather was driving. And my grandmother had the passenger seat. She smoked throughout these trips, and I hated the smell.
At that age, I’d take any excuse to make estimates and do minor arithmetic. I’d calculate our gas mileage — figure out useless statistics on things like grocery spending…
I’d been hearing an ad campaign about smoking. I can’t remember the details, but basically the ad said, every puff of a cigarette takes some number of minutes off of your life: I think it might have been two minutes per puff.
At any rate, I decided to do the math for my grandmother. I estimated the number of cigarettes per days, estimated the number of puffs per cigarette and so on. When I was satisfied that I’d come up with a reasonable number, I poked my head into the front of the car, tapped my grandmother on the shoulder, and proudly proclaimed, “At two minutes per puff, you’ve taken nine years off your life!”
I have a vivid memory of what happened, and it was not what I expected.
I expected to be applauded for my cleverness and arithmetic skills. “Jeff, you’re so smart. You had to have made some tricky estimates, figure out the number of minutes in a year and do some division.”
That’s not what happened. Instead, my grandmother burst into tears. I sat in the backseat and did not know what to do. While my grandmother sat crying, my grandfather, who had been driving in silence, pulled over onto the shoulder of the highway.
He got out of the car and came around and opened my door and waited for me to follow.
Was I in trouble?
My grandfather was a highly intelligent, quiet man. He had never said a harsh word to me, and maybe this was to be the first time? Or maybe he would ask that I get back in the car and apologize to my grandmother.
I had no experience in this realm with my grandparents and no way to gauge what the consequences might be.
We stopped beside the trailer. My grandfather looked at me, and after a bit of silence, he gently and calmly said, “Jeff, one day you’ll understand that it’s harder to be kind than clever.”
What I want to talk to you about today is the difference between gifts and choices.
Cleverness is a gift, kindness is a choice.
Gifts are easy — they’re given after all.
Choices can be hard. You can seduce yourself with your gifts if you’re not careful, and if you do, it’ll probably be to the detriment of your choices.
This is a group with many gifts. I’m sure one of your gifts is the gift of a smart and capable brain. I’m confident that’s the case because admission is competitive and if there weren’t some signs that you’re clever, the dean of admission wouldn’t have let you in.
Your smarts will come in handy because you will travel in a land of marvels.
We humans — plodding as we are — will astonish ourselves. We’ll invent ways to generate clean energy and a lot of it. Atom by atom, we’ll assemble tiny machines that will enter cell walls and make repairs. This month comes the extraordinary but also inevitable news that we’ve synthesized life. In the coming years, we’ll not only synthesize it, but we’ll engineer it to specifications.
I believe you’ll even see us understand the human brain. Jules Verne, Mark Twain, Galileo, Newton — all the curious from the ages would have wanted to be alive most of all right now. As a civilization, we will have so many gifts, just as you as individuals have so many individual gifts as you sit before me.
How will you use these gifts? And will you take pride in your gifts or pride in your choices?
I got the idea to start Amazon 16 years ago.
I came across the fact that Web usage was growing at 2,300 percent per year. I’d never seen or heard of anything that grew that fast, and the idea of building an online bookstore with millions of titles — something that simply couldn’t exist in the physical world — was very exciting to me.
I had just turned 30 years old, and I’d been married for a year.
I told my wife MacKenzie that I wanted to quit my job and go do this crazy thing that probably wouldn’t work since most startups don’t, and I wasn’t sure what would happen after that. MacKenzie (also a Princeton grad and sitting here in the second row) told me I should go for it.
As a young boy, I’d been a garage inventor. I’d invented an automatic gate closer out of cement-filled tires, a solar cooker that didn’t work very well out of an umbrella and tinfoil, baking-pan alarms to entrap my siblings.
I’d always wanted to be an inventor, and she wanted me to follow my passion.
I was working at a financial firm in New York City with a bunch of very smart people, and I had a brilliant boss that I much admired. I went to my boss and told him I wanted to start a company selling books on the Internet.
He took me on a long walk in Central Park, listened carefully to me, and finally said, “That sounds like a really good idea, but it would be an even better idea for someone who didn’t already have a good job.”
That logic made some sense to me, and he convinced me to think about it for 48 hours before making a final decision.
Seen in that light, it really was a difficult choice, but ultimately, I decided I had to give it a shot. I didn’t think I’d regret trying and failing. And I suspected I would always be haunted by a decision to not try at all.
After much consideration, I took the less safe path to follow my passion, and I’m proud of that choice.
Tomorrow, in a very real sense, your life — the life you author from scratch on your own — begins.
- How will you use your gifts? What choices will you make?
- Will inertia be your guide, or will you follow your passions?
- Will you follow dogma, or will you be original?
- Will you choose a life of ease, or a life of service and adventure?
- Will you wilt under criticism, or will you follow your convictions?
- Will you bluff it out when you’re wrong, or will you apologize?
- Will you guard your heart against rejection, or will you act when you fall in love?
- Will you play it safe, or will you be a little bit swashbuckling?
- When it’s tough, will you give up, or will you be relentless?
- Will you be a cynic, or will you be a builder?
- Will you be clever at the expense of others, or will you be kind?
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Why you should listenJeff Bezos didn't invent online shopping, but he almost single-handedly turned it into a multi-billion-dollar enterprise. His Amazon.com began as a bookstore in 1994, and quickly expanded into dozens of product categories, forcing the world's biggest retailers to rethink their business models, and ultimately changing the way people shop . But Amazon.com isn't just an internet success story. It's the standard by which all web businesses are now judged -- if not by their shareholders, then by their customers. Amazon set a high bar for reliability and customer service, and also introduced a wide range of online retail conventions -- from user reviews and one-click shopping to the tab interface and shopping cart icon -- so commonplace we no longer think of them as once having been innovations. When the Internet bubble burst, Amazon.com took a hit with the other e-commerce pioneers, but the fundamentally sound company hung tough. It now sells more than $10 billion a year of goods, profitably , and its technology will influence the changes to business and media that will come next. Amazon recently released Kindle, a wireless digital reading device, giving the term "page turning" a completely new definition. Bezos, meanwhile, is one of the few early Web CEOs who still run the companies they founded. Outside of his work with Amazon, he recently founded Blue Origin , a space-flight startup. What others say“If the Internet was the new rock and roll, Jeff Bezos…was its Elvis … [Today he’s] the ultimate dotcom survivor.” — BBCNews.com Jeff Bezos’ TED talks The electricity metaphor for the web's future What matters more than your talentsMore news and ideas from jeff bezos, your weekend reading: gary’s glass, a malarial milestone. A round-up of what’s interesting on the interwebs this week: Gary Shteyngart tries Google Glass. Hilarity ensues. [The New Yorker] To everyone’s surprise, a malaria vaccine has been 100 percent effective in clinical trials. [Nature] For writers, adopting a second language is more than gaining a new skill set. It’s a rebirth. [The Stone Blog, […] TED News in Brief: Jeff Bezos buys The Washington Post, Alex Odundo plans a makerspace in KenyaOver the past week, we’ve noticed a lot of fascinating TED-related news items. Here, some highlights. Jeff Bezos, the co-founder of Amazon (watch his TED Talk), made waves on Monday when it was announced that he will buy The Washington Post for $250 million. “The paper’s duty will remain to its readers and not to […] New Best of the Web talk: Jeff BezosJeff Bezos: What matters more than talents In this Princeton University graduation address, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos makes the case that our character is reflected not in the gifts we’re endowed with at birth, but by the choices we make over the course of a lifetime. Watch Jeff Bezos’ talk >> The Best Commencement Speeches, Ever Princeton University, May 30, 2010 … one day you will understand that it is harder to be kind than to be clever.
 Next “Change the world” speechJessica lange. Sarah Lawrence College, 2008 NPR thanks our sponsors Become an NPR sponsor 2010 Baccalaureate Remarks"We are What We Choose" Remarks by Jeff Bezos, as delivered to the Class of 2010 Baccalaureate May 30, 2010 As a kid, I spent my summers with my grandparents on their ranch in Texas. I helped fix windmills, vaccinate cattle, and do other chores. We also watched soap operas every afternoon, especially "Days of our Lives." My grandparents belonged to a Caravan Club, a group of Airstream trailer owners who travel together around the U.S. and Canada. And every few summers, we'd join the caravan. We'd hitch up the Airstream trailer to my grandfather's car, and off we'd go, in a line with 300 other Airstream adventurers. I loved and worshipped my grandparents and I really looked forward to these trips. On one particular trip, I was about 10 years old. I was rolling around in the big bench seat in the back of the car. My grandfather was driving. And my grandmother had the passenger seat. She smoked throughout these trips, and I hated the smell. At that age, I'd take any excuse to make estimates and do minor arithmetic. I'd calculate our gas mileage -- figure out useless statistics on things like grocery spending. I'd been hearing an ad campaign about smoking. I can't remember the details, but basically the ad said, every puff of a cigarette takes some number of minutes off of your life: I think it might have been two minutes per puff. At any rate, I decided to do the math for my grandmother. I estimated the number of cigarettes per days, estimated the number of puffs per cigarette and so on. When I was satisfied that I'd come up with a reasonable number, I poked my head into the front of the car, tapped my grandmother on the shoulder, and proudly proclaimed, "At two minutes per puff, you've taken nine years off your life!" I have a vivid memory of what happened, and it was not what I expected. I expected to be applauded for my cleverness and arithmetic skills. "Jeff, you're so smart. You had to have made some tricky estimates, figure out the number of minutes in a year and do some division." That's not what happened. Instead, my grandmother burst into tears. I sat in the backseat and did not know what to do. While my grandmother sat crying, my grandfather, who had been driving in silence, pulled over onto the shoulder of the highway. He got out of the car and came around and opened my door and waited for me to follow. Was I in trouble? My grandfather was a highly intelligent, quiet man. He had never said a harsh word to me, and maybe this was to be the first time? Or maybe he would ask that I get back in the car and apologize to my grandmother. I had no experience in this realm with my grandparents and no way to gauge what the consequences might be. We stopped beside the trailer. My grandfather looked at me, and after a bit of silence, he gently and calmly said, "Jeff, one day you'll understand that it's harder to be kind than clever." What I want to talk to you about today is the difference between gifts and choices. Cleverness is a gift, kindness is a choice. Gifts are easy -- they're given after all. Choices can be hard. You can seduce yourself with your gifts if you're not careful, and if you do, it'll probably be to the detriment of your choices. This is a group with many gifts. I'm sure one of your gifts is the gift of a smart and capable brain. I'm confident that's the case because admission is competitive and if there weren't some signs that you're clever, the dean of admission wouldn't have let you in. Your smarts will come in handy because you will travel in a land of marvels. We humans -- plodding as we are -- will astonish ourselves. We'll invent ways to generate clean energy and a lot of it. Atom by atom, we'll assemble tiny machines that will enter cell walls and make repairs. This month comes the extraordinary but also inevitable news that we've synthesized life. In the coming years, we'll not only synthesize it, but we'll engineer it to specifications. I believe you'll even see us understand the human brain. Jules Verne, Mark Twain, Galileo, Newton -- all the curious from the ages would have wanted to be alive most of all right now. As a civilization, we will have so many gifts, just as you as individuals have so many individual gifts as you sit before me. How will you use these gifts? And will you take pride in your gifts or pride in your choices? I got the idea to start Amazon 16 years ago. I came across the fact that Web usage was growing at 2,300 percent per year. I'd never seen or heard of anything that grew that fast, and the idea of building an online bookstore with millions of titles -- something that simply couldn't exist in the physical world -- was very exciting to me. I had just turned 30 years old, and I'd been married for a year. I told my wife MacKenzie that I wanted to quit my job and go do this crazy thing that probably wouldn't work since most startups don't, and I wasn't sure what would happen after that. MacKenzie (also a Princeton grad and sitting here in the second row) told me I should go for it. As a young boy, I'd been a garage inventor. I'd invented an automatic gate closer out of cement-filled tires, a solar cooker that didn't work very well out of an umbrella and tinfoil, baking-pan alarms to entrap my siblings. I'd always wanted to be an inventor, and she wanted me to follow my passion. I was working at a financial firm in New York City with a bunch of very smart people, and I had a brilliant boss that I much admired. I went to my boss and told him I wanted to start a company selling books on the Internet. He took me on a long walk in Central Park, listened carefully to me, and finally said, "That sounds like a really good idea, but it would be an even better idea for someone who didn't already have a good job." That logic made some sense to me, and he convinced me to think about it for 48 hours before making a final decision. Seen in that light, it really was a difficult choice, but ultimately, I decided I had to give it a shot. I didn't think I'd regret trying and failing. And I suspected I would always be haunted by a decision to not try at all. After much consideration, I took the less safe path to follow my passion, and I'm proud of that choice. Tomorrow, in a very real sense, your life -- the life you author from scratch on your own -- begins. How will you use your gifts? What choices will you make? Will inertia be your guide, or will you follow your passions? Will you follow dogma, or will you be original? Will you choose a life of ease, or a life of service and adventure? Will you wilt under criticism, or will you follow your convictions? Will you bluff it out when you're wrong, or will you apologize? Will you guard your heart against rejection, or will you act when you fall in love? Will you play it safe, or will you be a little bit swashbuckling? When it's tough, will you give up, or will you be relentless? Will you be a cynic, or will you be a builder? Will you be clever at the expense of others, or will you be kind? I will hazard a prediction. When you are 80 years old, and in a quiet moment of reflection narrating for only yourself the most personal version of your life story, the telling that will be most compact and meaningful will be the series of choices you have made. In the end, we are our choices. Build yourself a great story. Thank you and good luck! Related Stories Choices shape lives, Bezos tells seniors .The founder and chief executive officer of the major Internet retailer Amazon.com made an impassioned plea to Princeton's graduating seniors on May 30 to pay close attention to the choices they make in life, as they will dictate not only success, but happiness. Bezos, a 1986 Princeton alumnus, delivered this year's Baccalaureate address. 2013 President's Commencement Address .2013 Commencement Address delivered by President Shirley M. Tilghman 2011 Class Day Remarks .2011 Class Day remarks by Brooke Shields Princeton 2015 Baccalaureate remarks .2015 Baccalaureate address delivered by Lisa P. Jackson Princeton University's 2013 Baccalaureate remarks .2013 Baccalaureate remarks by Ben Bernanke Princeton University's 2012 Baccalaureate Remarks .2012 Baccalaureate remarks by Michael Lewis Princeton 2014 Baccalaureate remarks .2014 Baccalaureate address delivered by Christopher Lu
Cleverness is a gift, kindness is a choice: Jeff Bezos"choices can be hard. you can seduce yourself with your gifts if you’re not careful. and if you do, it will probably be to the detriment of your choices," he said.  At Princeton University, Founder of Amazon, Jeff Bezos spoke about his early life. Recalling an incident, he shared what he learnt from it. “What I want to talk to you about today is the difference between gifts and choices. Cleverness is a gift. Kindness is a choice. Gifts are easy — they’re given, after all. Choices can be hard. You can seduce yourself with your gifts if you’re not careful. And if you do, it will probably be to the detriment of your choices. This is a group with many gifts. I am sure one of your gifts is the gift of a smart and capable brain. I am confident that’s the case, because admission is competitive, and if there weren’t some signs that you’re clever, the Dean of admissions wouldn’t have let you in.” He added, “Tomorrow, in a very real sense, your life, the life you author from scratch, on your own, begins. How will you use your gifts? What choices will you make? Will inertia be your guide or will you follow your passions? Will you follow dogma or will you be original? Will you choose a life of ease or a life of service and adventure?  ALSO READ | Accept the world for what it is, and at the same time, make it your own: Jane Lynch Will you wilt under criticism or will you follow your convictions? Will you bluff it out when you’re wrong or will you apologise? Will you guard your heart against rejection or will you act when you fall in love? Will you play it safe or will you be a little swashbuckling? When it’s tough, will you give up or will you be relentless? Will you be a cynic or will you be a builder? Will you be clever at the expense of others or will you be kind?” Answering this himself, he said, “I will hazard a prediction. When you are 80 years old and, in a quiet moment of reflection, narrating for only yourself the most personal version of your life’s story, the telling that will be most compact and meaningful will be the series of choices you have made. In the end, we are our choices. Build yourself a great story.” 
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Jeff Bezos: What Matters More Than Your Talents Speech (Full Transcript)
 Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’ famous speech “What Matters More Than Your Talents” with ENGLISH SUBTITLES which was delivered at 2010 Commencement address at Princeton University. Listen to the MP3 audio of this speech: Below is the full text [ verbatim transcript ] of Jeff Bezos’ speech “What Matters More Than Your Talents.” TRANSCRIPT : As a kid, I spent my summers with my grandparents on their ranch in Texas. I helped fix windmills, vaccinate cattle, and do other chores. We also watched soap operas every afternoon, especially Days of Our Lives. My grandparents belonged to a caravan club, a group of Airstream trailer owners who traveled together around the US and Canada. And every few summers, we’d join the caravan. We’d hitch up the Airstream to my grandfather’s car and off we’d go, in line with 300 other Airstream adventurers. I loved and worshipped my grandparents. And I really looked forward to these trips. On one particular trip — I was about 10 years old — I was rolling around in the big bench-seat in the back of the car. My grandfather was driving and my grandmother had the passenger’s seat. She smoked throughout these trips. And I hated the smell. Pages: First | 1 | ... | Next → | Last | View Full Transcript
Inc. Premium Jeff Bezos Said Living a Successful and Meaningful Life Boils Down to 1 Simple ThingThe amazon founder spells out the formula for lifelong success..  Jeff Bezos , the founder of Amazon and one of the most influential entrepreneurs of our time, once said, "You don't choose your passions, your passions choose you." Many people get upset when they read this quote, mistakenly thinking it suggests waiting for a perfect moment to realize their purpose in life while life passes by. But it's not that romantic. Achieving success requires drive, motivation, hard work, and numerous encounters with failure. There are no shortcuts. What I understand from Bezos is that success comes to those who know, without any doubt, what they were meant to do. They choose their path with unbridled passion, move full speed ahead, and stay focused, preparing every day and working hard to achieve their goals and objectives. Bezos's Formula for Lifelong SuccessFinding your passion in life is a crucial piece of advice that Bezos often gives to young people, he said at the George W. Bush Presidential Center's Forum on Leadership in 2018. "You can have a job, or you can have a career, or you can have a calling," Bezos said. "And if you can somehow figure out how to have a calling, you have hit the jackpot, because that's the big deal." In other words, true success comes from turning your passion into a career, and Bezos believes everyone has a passion. I tend to agree because I'm living proof. My passion has always been to help others become better leaders and better humans. I believe that you are gifted with certain passions as well. How will you know what they are? Passions are intrinsic. They are not something you consciously decide to have; instead, they are an integral part of who you are. These deep-seated interests and longings emerge naturally, often from a young age, and shape our desires and actions. Bezos's quote underscores this natural occurrence of passions, suggesting that they are a gift each of us possesses uniquely. Recognizing and embracing our passions is important because they give us motivation and energy. Doing things we love makes us feel fulfilled and purposeful, leading to more creativity, productivity, and satisfaction. The PursuitThis pursuit is not always easy or straightforward. Many people face obstacles, whether they are financial constraints, societal pressures, or personal fears. However, those who manage to overcome these barriers and dedicate themselves to their passions often find the most success and happiness. Following your passion means investing time and effort into something that genuinely excites and interests you. It means taking risks and sometimes stepping out of your comfort zone. The journey may be challenging, but the rewards are often worth it. Doing What You LoveFollowing your passions comes with added benefits: You love coming to work because you love what you do. Warren Buffett said it best: "In the world of business, the people who are most successful are those who are doing what they love." So what do you love? For most of us, we take for granted our cushy paycheck, health benefits, and job security, even though we may dislike our jobs and toxic co-workers, and wish we were doing something else -- something we actually loved . Doing what we love as entrepreneurs and business owners is a major contributor to our happiness as humans. And, more important, knowing what you love should be a top priority. If you don't know what it is you love, then finding out what it is should be your first step. That's when passion chooses you. A refreshed look at leadership from the desk of CEO and chief content officer Stephanie Mehta Privacy Policy Jul 29, 2020 Jeff Bezos Opening Statement Transcript Antitrust Hearing July 29 Amazon Founder and CEO Jeff Bezos’ opening statement at the Congressional Antitrust Hearing on July 29. Read the transcript here.  Transcribe Your Own Content Try Rev and save time transcribing, captioning, and subtitling.  Cicilline: ( 00:00 ) Mr Bezos, you may begin. Jeff Bezos: ( 00:03 ) Thank you. Chairman Cicilline, ranking member Sensenbrenner and members of the subcommittee. I was born into great wealth, not monetary wealth, but as said the wealth of a loving family, a family that fostered my curiosity and encouraged me to dream big. My mom, Jackie, had me when she was a 17 year old high school student in Albuquerque. Being pregnant in high school was not popular. The school tried to kick her out, but she was allowed to finish after my grandfather negotiated terms with the principal. She couldn’t have a locker, no extracurriculars and couldn’t walk across the stage to get her diploma. She graduated and was determined to continue her education so she enrolled in night school, bringing me, her infant son, to class with her throughout. Jeff Bezos: ( 00:54 ) My dad’s name is Miguel. He adopted me when I was four. He was 16 when he came to the US from Cuba by himself, shortly after Castro took over. My dad didn’t speak English and he did not have an easy path. What he did have was grit and determination. He received a scholarship to college in Albuquerque, which is where he met my mom. Together with my grandparents, these hardworking, resourceful, and loving people made me who I am. I walked away from a steady job on Wall Street into a Seattle garage to found Amazon fully understanding that it might not work. It feels like just yesterday I was driving the packages to the post office, myself, dreaming that one day we might afford a forklift. Customer obsession has driven our success, and I take it as an article of faith, the customers notice when you do the right thing. You earn trust slowly over time by doing hard things well, delivering on time, offering everyday low prices, making promises and keeping them and making principle decisions even when they are unpopular. Jeff Bezos: ( 02:06 ) And our approach is working. 80% of Americans have a favorable impression of Amazon overall. Who do Americans trust more than Amazon to do the right thing? Only their doctors and the military. The retail market we participate in is extraordinarily large and competitive. Amazon accounts for less than 1% of the $25 trillion global retail market and less than 4% of US retail. There’s room in retail for multiple winners. We compete against large established players like Target, Costco, Kroger and of course, Walmart, a company more than twice Amazon’s size. 20 years ago, we made the decision to invite other sellers to sell in our store to share the same valuable real estate we spent billions to build, market and maintain. We believe that combining the strengths of Amazon’s store with the vast selection of products offered by third parties would be a better experience for customers. And to the growing pie of revenue and profits, would be big enough for all. Jeff Bezos: ( 03:12 ) We were betting that it was not a zero sum game. Fortunately, we were right. There are now 1.7 million small and medium sized businesses selling on Amazon. The trust customers put in us every day has allowed Amazon to create more jobs in the United States over the past decade than any other company, hundreds of thousands of jobs across 42 states. Amazon employees make a minimum of $15 an hour, more than double the federal minimum wage and we offer the best benefits. Benefits that include comprehensive health insurance, 401k retirement, and parental leave, which includes 20 weeks of paid maternity leave. More than any place on earth, entrepreneurial companies start, grow and thrive here in the US. We nurture entrepreneurs and startups with stable rule of law, the finest university system in the world, the freedom of democracy and a deeply accepted culture of risk taking. Of course, this great nation of ours is far from perfect. Jeff Bezos: ( 04:16 ) Even as we remember Congressman John Lewis and honor his legacy, we’re in the middle of a much needed race reckoning. We also face the challenges of climate change and income inequality, and we’re stumbling through the crisis of a global pandemic. Still with all of our faults and problems, the rest of the world would love even the tiniest sip of the elixir we have here in the US. Immigrants like my dad see what a treasure this country is. They have perspective and often can see it even more clearly than those of us who were lucky enough to be born here. It is still day one for this country and even in the face of today’s humbling challenges, I have never been more optimistic about our future. I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today, and I’m very happy to take your questions. Other Related Transcripts Stay updated.Get a weekly digest of the week’s most important transcripts in your inbox. It’s the news, without the news.
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Terms & Conditions apply Explore our full range of subscriptions.Why the ft. See why over a million readers pay to read the Financial Times. International Edition Elon Musk is reigniting his space feud with Jeff Bezos: 'Sue Origin'
 Jeff Bezos' rocket company, Blue Origin, thinks the FAA should cap SpaceX's launches — and Elon Musk isn't too pleased about it. Blue Origin recently expressed concerns over the environmental impacts of SpaceX's rocket launches on nearby facilities in a filing to the FAA, which the agency published on Friday. The company also recommended imposing a cap on the Starship-Super Heavy mega-rocket's "launch, landing, and other operations" so that it would have a "minimal impact on the local environment, locally operating personnel, and the local community." "An obviously disingenuous response," Musk said on X on Tuesday. "Not cool of them to try (for the third time) to impede SpaceX's progress by lawfare." "Sue Origin," Musk said in a subsequent post, taking a jab at the company's name. This isn't the first time the two space barons have feuded . Related stories In fact, Musk himself mentioned two other disputes that SpaceX had with Blue Origin in the past in an earlier post he made on Tuesday. In 2013, Blue Origin filed a complaint with the Government Accountability Office (GAO) after NASA chose to lease one of its launchpads at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida to SpaceX. The GAO rejected their complaint. Then, in 2014, Blue Origin was granted a patent for a reusable rocket concept that involved landing the rocket on a boat. The US Patent and Trademark Office canceled the patent a year later after SpaceX protested that the technology being patented " was, at best, 'old hat' by 2009. " In past years, Blue Origin also sued to stop SpaceX from using what is now our primary launchpad at 39A and tried to patent landing a rocket on a ship, even though that idea had been around for 70 years! — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 25, 2024 To be sure, Blue Origin isn't the only party that has flagged the environmental concerns posed by SpaceX's rocket launches. In 2021, residents of Brownsville, Texas, told BI that rocket explosions at a nearby SpaceX launchpad were a source of environmental pollution. "SpaceX explosions are littering our ecosystems, home to the endangered ocelot, aplomado falcon, and numerous migratory birds," Brownsville resident Bekah Hinojosa told BI's Kate Duffy . SpaceX and Blue Origin did not immediately respond to requests for comment from BI sent outside regular business hours. Watch: A report says Starlink terminals are being used in Russia after Putin and Musk deny it
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We stopped beside the trailer. My grandfather looked at me, and after a bit of silence, he gently and calmly said, "Jeff, one day you'll understand that it's harder to be kind than clever.". What I want to talk to you about today is the difference between gifts and choices. Cleverness is a gift, kindness is a choice.
Jeff Bezos's Life Changing Advice (Must Watch!!) The $160 billion dollar man share's his greatest advice with you.Subscribe for new Motivational Speeches and...
Apr 2013. 4 pillars of college success in science. Freeman Hrabowski. In this Princeton University graduation address, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos makes the case that our character is reflected not in the gifts we're endowed with at birth, but by the choices we make over the course of a lifetime.
Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos gave the Baccalaureate address to Princeton University's Class of 2010. Bezos graduated from Princeton in 1986 with a degre...
Jeff Bezos shares his personal story and advice on how to use your gifts and make choices that matter in life. He contrasts cleverness and kindness, and urges graduates to build a great story with their choices.
Watch Jeff Bezos' TED talk on what's interesting on the interwebs this week, and learn how he founded Amazon.com and Blue Origin. He is the ultimate dotcom survivor and the Man of the Year in 1999.
Learn English with Jeff Bezos. Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos gave the Baccalaureate address to Princeton University's Class of 2010. On July 27, 2017, he...
Photo: Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images. Share this quote image. Read the speech at princeton.edu. Tagged: Change the world. We've hand-picked over 350 addresses going back to 1774.
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos speaks at the 2018 Air, Space and Cyber Conference in Maryland. (DVIDS / DOD) When Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos spoke today at the Air Force Association's 2018 Air, Space and ...
Learn how Jeff Bezos, the founder and CEO of Amazon, shared a story of his grandmother's kindness and wisdom in his graduation speech at Princeton University. Discover how to use this story as a tool for business storytelling and communication.
Jeff Bezos sends a birthday message to his fourth-grade teacher. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos was the valedictorian of his high school class in 1982. In his graduation speech, he said his "final ...
Read the full text of Amazon CEO & founder Jeff Bezos' commencement address to the Princeton University class of 2010. Full transcript of his May 30, 2010 commencement speech here: Try Rev and save time transcribing, captioning, and subtitling. As a kid, I spent my summers with my grandparents on their ranch in Texas.
By Staff on May 30, 2010, 4:35 p.m. "We are What We Choose". Remarks by Jeff Bezos, as delivered to the Class of 2010. Baccalaureate. May 30, 2010. As a kid, I spent my summers with my grandparents on their ranch in Texas. I helped fix windmills, vaccinate cattle, and do other chores. We also watched soap operas every afternoon, especially ...
Jeff Bezos. Here is the full text [verbatim transcript] of the commencement address "We are What We Choose" delivered by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos at 2010 Commencement Ceremony at Princeton University. Listen to the MP3 Audio here: Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos delivers graduation speech at Princeton University.
At Princeton University, Founder of Amazon, Jeff Bezos spoke about his early life. Recalling an incident, he shared what he learnt from it. "What I want to talk to you about today is the difference between gifts and choices. Cleverness is a gift. Kindness is a choice. Gifts are easy — they're given, after all. Choices can be hard.
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos' famous speech "What Matters More Than Your Talents" with ENGLISH SUBTITLES which was delivered at 2010 Commencement address at Princeton University. Listen to the MP3 audio of this speech: Below is the full text [verbatim transcript] of Jeff Bezos' speech "What Matters More Than Your Talents." TRANSCRIPT:
Lydic goes on to say that while Bezos has given 1.5% of his fortune to charity, he hasn't shared that largesse with Amazon employees, preferring to grant them the gift of knowledge instead.
Our founder and Chair, Jeff Bezos, received the Galileo Prophets of Philanthropy Award at the Vatican on October 14, 2022. In his remarks, he voiced the urge...
Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon and one of the most influential entrepreneurs of our time, ... Jason Sudeikis Just Ditched His SHRM Keynote Speech to Go Watch Caitlin Clark.
Jeffrey Preston Bezos (/ ˈ b eɪ z oʊ s / BAY-zohss; né Jorgensen; born January 12, 1964) is an American businessman, media proprietor and investor.He is the founder, executive chairman, and former president and CEO of Amazon, the world's largest e-commerce and cloud computing company. He is the second wealthiest person in the world, with a net worth of US$ 201 billion as of June 14, 2024 ...
She graduated and was determined to continue her education so she enrolled in night school, bringing me, her infant son, to class with her throughout. Jeff Bezos: ( 00:54) My dad's name is Miguel. He adopted me when I was four. He was 16 when he came to the US from Cuba by himself, shortly after Castro took over.
Amazon CEO & Founder Jeff Bezos share his wisdom to us
Three years after Jeff Bezos bought The Washington Post for $250mn, the Amazon billionaire made another Washington acquisition that was arguably just as significant to the Georgetown social set: a ...
Space barons Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos have long had competing ambitions to take over the skies. Bezos' Blue Origin recently proposed a cap on SpaceX's launches due to environmental concerns. Musk ...
teacher ends up paying a higher tax rate than Jeff Bezos. As an infamous tax cheat said long ago, "Only the little people pay taxes." And who are these little people? ... He stood on the floor of the House for his fiery State of the Union speech and called out billionaires for paying lower tax rates than teachers, sanitation workers, and ...
Jeff Bezos's Life-Changing Advice (Must Watch!!) The $150 billion dollar man and founder of Amazon shares his greatest advice with you. Listen to more of the...
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Jeffrey Preston Bezos is an American entrepreneur, He is the founder, executive chairman, and former president and CEO of Amazon. In this motivational video,...
Bezos was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and raised in Houston, Texas. Enjoy our Speeches with big English subtitles and keep your English learning journey. English Speeches also makes this content available for download. Download this Speech in PDF transcript and/or MP3 audio file: Jeff Bezos Quote: " Work Hard. Have Fun.