Jeff Bezos on how to be innovative

January 23, 2026

“To me, true innovation is something that is not only an invention but an improvement,” Jeff explains. “It’s not hard to make things different, but it is hard to make things different and better.”

In Jeff’s view, there are endless opportunities for innovation:

“Most of the problems in the world already have solutions of one kind or another, and all of those solutions can be improved upon. There’s no chance that anything is perfected yet. I don’t believe that . . . People have been working on solutions to most problems for a long time, but it wasn’t that long ago that somebody figured out that you should add wheels to suitcases. Pretty good improvement!”

It’s hard work though, Jeff caveats:

“It’s easy to have ideas. It’s very hard to turn an idea into a successful product. There are a lot of steps in between and it takes persistence and relentlessness. I always tell people who think they want to be entrepreneurs that you need a combination of stubborn relentlessness and flexibility. And you have to know when to be which.”

Jeff explains:

“Basically you need to be stubborn on your vision because otherwise it’ll be too easy to give up. But you need to be very flexible on the details because as you go along pursuing your vision, you’ll find that some of your preconceptions were wrong, and you’re going to need to be able to change those things.”

He concludes:

“Taking an idea successfully all the way to market and turning it into a real product that people care about and really improves people’s lives is a lot of hard work.”