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Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos delivers graduation speech at Princeton University


00:00:00it is hard to imagine life without

00:00:04amazon.com

00:00:08even for someone of my advanced age

00:00:12after all where else can a few clicks of

00:00:17a mouse take you from the latest novel

00:00:20by Toni Morrison to an 18th century

00:00:23edition of the works of John Locke

00:00:26having stopped in power tools and

00:00:29women’s shoes along the way yet the

00:00:34founder and chief executive officer of

00:00:36the world’s largest retailer whose net

00:00:40sales surpassed twenty four point five

00:00:43billion dollars in 2009 is only 46 years

00:00:47old

00:00:48and amazon.com has only existed since

00:00:531995 making it even younger than the

00:00:57class of 2010 the moral of this story is

00:01:02that the right idea in the right hands

00:01:05at the right time can change the way we

00:01:09leave our lives the idea in this case

00:01:13was harnessing the power of the nascent

00:01:16Internet to create a virtual bookstore

00:01:19of limitless proportions

00:01:21the hands were those of our speaker Jeff

00:01:25Bezos a self-described nerdy commuter

00:01:29compute computer science and electrical

00:01:32engineering major who graduated from

00:01:35Princeton with highest honors in 1986

00:01:39and the time was 1994 when he and his

00:01:45wife Mackenzie Tuttle Bezos of the class

00:01:48of 1992 exchanged the security of Wall

00:01:52Street where they worked at de Shan

00:01:55company for the uncertain prospects of a

00:01:59dot-com startup but then as Jeff points

00:02:02out failure is an essential component of

00:02:06innovation and invention if you know

00:02:09it’s going to work it’s not an

00:02:12experiment and amazon.com was nothing if

00:02:16not a grand experiment

00:02:19working on improvised tables in the

00:02:21garage of a Seattle home and using his

00:02:24parents savings as startup capital jeff

00:02:28defied the forces that caused most young

00:02:31companies to fail

00:02:32partly he admits through sheer good

00:02:35fortune but also because of his

00:02:38unwavering determination to create the

00:02:42world’s most customer centric company

00:02:45and as he notes in his company’s latest

00:02:49annual report of the 452 goals that

00:02:53amazon.com has set for itself this year

00:02:57360 of them will directly affect the

00:03:01customer experience while the word

00:03:04revenue is used on only eight occasions

00:03:07I do not advise you to start off with

00:03:12452 goals this year by the way but this

00:03:17is just one of the keys to Jeff’s

00:03:19success another lies in his exceptional

00:03:23ability to marry commerce and technology

00:03:26in creative ways in his sheer

00:03:29inventiveness and willingness to take

00:03:31the risks inherent in this process

00:03:34indeed the history of amazon.com is one

00:03:38of daring leaps

00:03:39one such leap involved creating the

00:03:42capacity to search inside the books sold

00:03:45by his company not by designing a modest

00:03:49pilot project but by committing the

00:03:52resources to make it possible to scour

00:03:55the text of more than a hundred and

00:03:57twenty thousand volumes when this

00:03:59feature debuted in 2003 other

00:04:04innovations have included one-click

00:04:06shopping online product reviews by

00:04:09customers and of course the Kindle

00:04:12reading device which we test-drove in

00:04:15three courses this fall mirroring the

00:04:19rapid growth of Amazon itself the number

00:04:21of books available through the u.s.

00:04:23Kindle Store topped four hundred and

00:04:25sixty thousand in 2009 just two years

00:04:30after its long

00:04:31and there’s no turning back

00:04:34our vision is every book every printed

00:04:39in any language all available in less

00:04:42than 60 seconds jeff has stated an

00:04:45audacious proposition to be sure but as

00:04:49Elle Albert Einstein once observed if at

00:04:52first the idea is not absurd then there

00:04:55is no hope for it perhaps the American

00:04:59Academy of achievement summarized our

00:05:01speakers impact best when it noted

00:05:05having already revolutionized the way

00:05:08the world buys books Jeff Bezos is now

00:05:11transforming the way we read them as

00:05:14well I like to think the Princeton

00:05:17helped to lay the groundwork for this

00:05:19revolution dreamer and doer entrepreneur

00:05:24and engineer refreshingly unassuming

00:05:29even in the face of unimaginable success

00:05:32jeff has done his alma mater proud it is

00:05:36a true honor and pleasure to welcoming

00:05:39him back to old Nassau today

00:06:25as a kid I spent my summers with my

00:06:31grandparents on the ranch in Texas I

00:06:35helped fix windmills vaccinate cattle

00:06:39and do other chores we also watched soap

00:06:45operas every afternoon especially Days

00:06:47of Our Lives

00:06:50my grandparents belonged to a caravan

00:06:54Club a group of Airstream trailer owners

00:06:58who travel together around the u.s. and

00:07:01Canada and every few summers we joined

00:07:06the caravan we’d hitch up the Airstream

00:07:10to my grandfather’s car and off we’d go

00:07:15in a line with 300 other Airstream

00:07:19adventurers I loved and worshipped my

00:07:23grandparents and I really looked forward

00:07:27to these trips a one particular trip I

00:07:32was about ten years old I was rolling

00:07:36around in the big bench seat in the back

00:07:41of the car my grandfather was driving

00:07:44and my grandmother had the passenger

00:07:48seat she smoked throughout these trips

00:07:53and I hated the smell

00:08:02at that age I take any excuse to make

00:08:07estimates and do minor arithmetic I’d

00:08:10calculate our gas mileage figure out

00:08:13useless statistics on things like

00:08:15grocery spending I’ve been hearing an ad

00:08:18campaign about smoking I can’t remember

00:08:22the details but basically the ad said

00:08:25every pop of a cigarette takes some

00:08:29number of minutes off of your life I

00:08:31think it might have been two minutes per

00:08:33puff at any rate I decided to do the

00:08:37math for my grandmother I estimated the

00:08:41number of cigarettes per day estimated

00:08:44the number of puffs per cigarette and so

00:08:46on when I was satisfied that I had come

00:08:49up with a reasonable number I poked my

00:08:51head into the front of the car tapped my

00:08:54grandmother on the shoulder and proudly

00:08:57proclaimed at two minutes per puff

00:09:01you’ve taken nine years off of your life

00:09:03I have a very vivid memory of what

00:09:10happened next

00:09:12and it was not what I had expected I

00:09:17expected to be applauded for my

00:09:19cleverness and my arithmetic skills Jeff

00:09:26you’re so smart

00:09:28you had to have made some tricky

00:09:31estimates figure out the number of

00:09:33minutes in a year and do some division

00:09:38that’s not what happened instead my

00:09:44grandmother burst into tears i sat in

00:09:51the back seat didn’t know what to do

00:09:53well my grandmother was crying my

00:09:56grandfather who’d been driving in

00:09:59silence pulled over onto the shoulder of

00:10:02the highway he got out of the car and

00:10:04came around and opened my door waited

00:10:08for me to follow was I in trouble my

00:10:12grandfather was a highly intelligent

00:10:13quiet man he had never said a harsh word

00:10:17to me maybe this was to be the first

00:10:19time or maybe he would ask that I get

00:10:23back in the car and apologize to my

00:10:25grandmother I had no experience in this

00:10:28realm with my grandparents and no way to

00:10:31gauge what the consequences might be

00:10:35we stopped beside the trailer my

00:10:39grandfather looked at me and after a bit

00:10:43of silence he gently and calmly said

00:10:48Jeff one day you’ll understand that it’s

00:10:54harder to be kind than clever what I

00:11:02want to talk to you about today is the

00:11:05difference between gifts and choices

00:11:09cleverness is a gift kindness is a

00:11:13choice

00:11:14gifts are easy they’re given after all

00:11:18choices can be hard you can seduce

00:11:22yourself with your gifts if you’re not

00:11:24careful and if you do

00:11:26it’ll probably be to the detriment of

00:11:28your choices this is a group with many

00:11:31gifts I’m sure one of your gifts is the

00:11:35gift of a smart and capable brain I’m

00:11:38confident that’s the case because

00:11:40admission is competitive and if there

00:11:43weren’t some signs that you’re clever

00:11:45the Dean of Admissions wouldn’t have let

00:11:47you in your smarts will come in handy

00:11:52because you will travel in a land of

00:11:54marvels we humans plotting as we are

00:11:58will astonish ourselves will invent ways

00:12:02to generate clean energy and a lot of it

00:12:05atom by atom will assemble small

00:12:09machines that can inner cell walls and

00:12:11make repairs this month comes the

00:12:14extraordinary but inevitable news that

00:12:17we’ve synthesized life and the coming

00:12:20years will not only synthesize it but

00:12:23engineer it to specifications I believe

00:12:26you’ll even see us understand the human

00:12:28brain Jules Verne Mark Twain Galileo

00:12:33Newton all the curious from the ages

00:12:37would have wanted to be alive most of

00:12:40all right now as a civilization we will

00:12:45have so many gifts just as you as

00:12:47individuals have so many individual

00:12:50gifts as you sit before me how you use

00:12:53these gifts and will you take pride in

00:12:56your gifts or pride in your choices I

00:12:59got the idea to start Amazon 16 years

00:13:03ago I came across the fact that web

00:13:06usage was growing at 2,300 percent per

00:13:10year I had never seen or heard of

00:13:12anything that grew that fast the idea of

00:13:17building an online bookstore with

00:13:18millions of titles something that simply

00:13:21couldn’t exist in the physical world was

00:13:23very exciting to me I just turned 30

00:13:27years old and I’d been married for a

00:13:29year I told my wife McKenzie but I

00:13:33wanted to quit my job and go do this

00:13:35crazy thing

00:13:37that probably wouldn’t work since most

00:13:39startups don’t and I wasn’t sure what

00:13:42would happen after that

00:13:44McKenzie also Princeton grad and sitting

00:13:47here in the second row told me I should

00:13:50go for it as a young boy had been a

00:13:56garage inventor I’d invented an

00:13:59automatic gate closer out of cement

00:14:01filled tires a solar cooker that didn’t

00:14:05work very well out of an umbrella and

00:14:06aluminum foil baking pan alarms to

00:14:10entrap my siblings I’d always wanted to

00:14:13be an inventor and she wanted me to

00:14:15follow my passion I was working at a

00:14:20financial firm in New York City with a

00:14:22bunch of very smart people and I had a

00:14:25brilliant boss I much admired I went to

00:14:29my boss and told him I was going to

00:14:31start a company selling books on the

00:14:34Internet he took me on a long walk in

00:14:37Central Park listen carefully to me and

00:14:41finally said that sounds like a really

00:14:45good idea

00:14:46but it would be an even better idea for

00:14:48someone who didn’t already have a good

00:14:51job

00:14:55that logic made some sense to me and he

00:14:59convinced me to think about it for 48

00:15:01hours before making a final decision

00:15:07seen in that light it really was a

00:15:09difficult choice but ultimately I

00:15:12decided I had to give it a shot I didn’t

00:15:16think I’d regret trying and failing and

00:15:19I suspected I would always be haunted by

00:15:23a decision to not try at all after much

00:15:28consideration I took the less safe path

00:15:32to follow my passion and I’m proud of

00:15:36that choice tomorrow in a very real

00:15:43sense your life the life you author from

00:15:47scratch on your own begins how will you

00:15:52use your gifts what choices will you

00:15:55make will inertia be your guide or will

00:16:00you follow your passions will you follow

00:16:04Dogma or will you be original will you

00:16:10choose a life of ease or a life of

00:16:14service an adventure will you wilt under

00:16:19criticism or will you follow your

00:16:23convictions will you Bluff it out when

00:16:26you’re wrong or will you apologize will

00:16:32you guard your heart against rejection

00:16:36or were you act when you fall in love

00:16:40will you play it safe or will you be a

00:16:44little bit swashbuckling when it’s tough

00:16:49will you give up or will you be

00:16:52relentless will you be a cynic or will

00:17:00you be a builder

00:17:04will you be clever at the expense of

00:17:09others or will you be kind

00:17:13I will hazard a prediction when you are

00:17:2280 years old and in a quiet moment of

00:17:28reflection narrating for only yourself

00:17:32the most personal version of your life

00:17:36story the telling that will be most

00:17:42compact and meaningful will be the

00:17:45series of choices you have made in the

00:17:49end we are our choices build yourself a

00:17:54great story thank you and good luck

00:18:29you

00:18:38you