Jeff Bezos says the true secret to business success is to focus on the things that won’t change, not the things that will

Business Insider/Julie Bort

Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos is constantly asked to predict what the future will be like in 10 years.
And he’s game to try even though he’s the first to admit that he doesn’t know.
However, he says that’s really the reverse way to come at business strategy.
The best question to ask? What won’t change in 10 years, he said on stage at Amazon’s re:MARS conference about AI, robotics and space.

LAS VEGAS — Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is constantly asked to predict what the future will be like in 10 years — and he’s game to shrug and try — but he says that’s exactly the wrong way to go about business strategy.

"It’s interesting, I do get asked quite frequently what’s going to change in the next 10 years. One thing I rarely get asked is probably even more important — and I encourage you to think about this — is the question: ‘What’s not going to change in the next 10 years," he said on stage at Amazon’s inaugural re:MARS AI and robotics conference on Thursday.

"The answer to that question can allow you to organize your activities. You can work on those things with the confidence to know that all the energy you put into them today is still going to be paying you dividends 10 years from now," he said.

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For Amazon’s ecommerce business, for instance, he knows that in the next decade people will still want low prices, fast shipping, and large selection.

"It’s impossible to imagine people saying to me, ‘Jeff, I love Amazon. I just wish you delivered a little more slowly. Or, I love Amazon, I just wish your prices were a little higher,’" he joked.

Bezos says that when a business leader can identify those big ideas that are stable — and are usually customer needs — this changes how leaders organize their business, what they fund, what risks they take and so one. The focus becomes, "What can we do to offer lower prices? To deliver faster? and so on," Bezos said.

In contrast, leaders that base their strategy on things that will change, like who the competitors are and what their activities are, means "you are going to have to be changing your strategy all the time," he said.

And, he adds that when it comes to knowing what won’t change, "you won’t have to do a lot of research on that. As soon as you think about it that way, these things are so big, so fundamental, you can just write the answers down."

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Source: Business Insider – jbort@businessinsider.com (Julie Bort)