There are two ways to extend a business. Take inventory of what you're good at and extend out from your skills. Or determine what your customers need and work backward, even if it requires learning new skills. Kindle is an example of working backward.

I don't think that you can invent on behalf of customers unless you're willing to think long-term, because a lot of invention doesn't work.If you're going to invent, it means you're going to experiment, and if you're going to experiment, you're going to fail, and if you're going to fail, you have to think long term.

We've done price elasticity studies, and the answer is always that we should raise prices. We don't do that because we believe, and we have to take this as an article of faith, that by keeping our prices very, very low, we earn trust with customers over time, and that actually does maximize free cash flow over the long term.

I think one of the things people don't understand is we can build more shareholder value by lowering product prices than we can by trying to raise margins. It's a more patient approach, but we think it leads to a stronger, healthier company. It also serves customers much, much better.

Most big technology companies are competitor focused. They see what others are doing, and then work to fast follow. In contrast, 90 to 95 percent of what we build in AWS is driven by what customers tell us they want.

We want to make money when people use our devices-not when people buy our devices. We think this aligns us better with customers. For example, we don't need our customers to be on the upgrade treadmill. We can be very happy to see people still using four-year-old Kindles!