Jeff Bezos explains his decision making process

Jeff Bezos says that his best decisions were taken based on intuition and gut rather than analysis.

When it comes to making decisions, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos goes with his heart.

Bezos outlined his approach to business in a speech to the Economic Club of Washington.

He said, “I believe in the power of wandering.”

“In business and in life, all of my best decisions have been taken with my heart, intuition, and guts… not analysis.”

“You can make a decision based on analysis if you can.  However, it turns out that the most important choices in life are often taken with instinct and intuition, taste, and heart.”

Bezos goes into more depth about Amazon’s growth, citing customer service as a core factor. “The secret sauce of Amazon […] the number one thing that has made us successful by far is obsessive compulsive focus on the customer as opposed to obsession over the competitor.”

Amazon today employs about 500,000 workers, but Bezos recalls when the business was still small, with just ten employees. “It’s hard to remember for you guys, but for me it’s like yesterday I was driving the packages to the post office myself, and hoping one day we could afford a forklift.”

“I like treating things as if they’re small, you know Amazon even though it is a large company, I want it to have the heart and spirit of a small one.”