What's the Same?

What do you think is going to change in the next ten years?

That is a question that Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos gets all the time. He thinks that is an interesting question, but not the best one people could ask.

“I almost never get the question: What’s not going to change in the next 10 years?’ said Bezos. “And I submit to you that the second question is far more important of the two, because you can build a business strategy around the things that are stable in time…..In our retail business, we know that customers want low prices, and I know that’s going to be true 10 years from now. They want fast delivery; they want vast selection. It’s impossible to imagine a future 10 years from now where a customer comes up and says, ‘Jeff, I love Amazon; I just wish the prices were a little higher,’ [or] ‘I love Amazon; I just wish you’d deliver a little more slowly.’ Impossible.”

As a result, Amazon invests its’ time, energy and finances into the things that won’t be changing, instead of worrying about or trying to predict the things that are changing. It’s a sound strategy that has paid off handsomely for Amazon.