亚马逊 CEO 国会辩护词：给议员们端上一碗热腾腾的鸡汤

作者：  来源：财经会议资讯

本文转载自公众号：继民财经汇(ID：jimincaijing)

这哪里是辩护词， 简直就是给国会议员们热腾腾的鸡汤……

亚马逊CEO杰夫·贝索斯于7月29日周三在国会听证会上为公司辩护，宣传亚马逊创造的就业机会和对小企业的支持。

据已公开的发言稿，贝索斯将向众议院反垄断小组委员会表示，亚马逊目前拥有100万名员工，公司建立的在线市场为部分第三方卖家提供了超10万美元的年收入。贝索斯承认亚马逊是“一家大公司”，但其庞大的规模为股东创造了超1万亿美元的财富，其中包括“消防、警察和学校教师养老基金”。

声明反复提到了亚马逊取悦客户的动力，并指出这一取向使公司成为全美最受信赖的机构之一。

声明表示：“乔治城大学和纽约大学在2018年的一项调查显示，在机构和品牌信任度方面，亚马逊仅落后于军队。在共和党人中，亚马逊的受信任度仅落后于军队和当地警察;在民主党人中，亚马逊名列前茅，领先于各政府部门、大学和媒体。”

以下是该辩护词全文(中文翻译仅供参考， 英文为准)：

杰弗里·贝佐斯的发言

亚马逊创始人兼首席执行官在

美国众议院

司法委员会

反垄断、商业和行政法小组委员会

2020年7月29日

谢谢西西琳主席、副主席森森布伦纳和小组委员会成员。我是杰夫·贝佐斯。26 年前，我创立了亚马逊，其长期使命是成为地球最以客户为中心的公司。

我妈妈杰姬在新墨西哥州阿尔伯克基的17岁高中时就拥有了我。1964年，在阿尔伯克基，高中怀孕并不普遍。这为她来说很难。当他们试图把她踢出学校时，我的祖父去为她打。经过一些谈判，校长说，"好吧，她可以留下来完成高中，但她不能做任何课外活动，她不能有一个储物柜。我祖父接受了这笔交易，我母亲高中毕业了，尽管她不允许和同学一起走过舞台去拿到她的文凭。决心跟上她的教育，她报名参加夜校，挑选由教授带领的课程，谁让她带一个婴儿上课。她带着两个帆布袋出现——一个装满课本，一个装满尿布、瓶子，还有任何能让我感兴趣和安静几分钟的东西。

我爸爸叫米格尔，在我四岁时他收养了我。卡斯特罗接手古巴后不久，他从古巴来到美国，作为佩德罗·潘行动的一部分来到美国。我爸爸独自来到美国。他的父母觉得他在这里会更安全，他妈妈想象美国会很冷，所以她给他做了一件完全用清洁布缝制的夹克，这是他们手头唯一的材料。我们还保留有那件夹克;它挂在我父母的餐厅里。我爸爸在佛罗里达的难民中心Matecumbe营地呆了两个星期，然后被转移到特拉华州威尔明顿的天主教传教所。他很幸运地到达任务，但即便如此，他也没有说英语，也没有一条容易的道路。他所做的是很大的勇气和决心。他获得了阿尔伯克基大学奖学金，在那里他遇见了我妈妈。你在生活中得到不同的礼物，而我的一个伟大的礼物是我的爸爸妈妈。他们一直是我和兄弟姐妹们一生不可思议的榜样。

你从祖父母那里学到的东西和从父母那里学到的东西不一样，我有机会在德州祖父母的牧场度过我四到十六岁的夏天。我的祖父是一名公务员和牧场主，他在20世纪50年代和60年代为原子能委员会从事空间技术和导弹防御系统工作，他自力更生，足智多谋。当你在无处可去的时候，你不会拿起电话，在东西坏了的时候给别人打电话。作为一个孩子你自己解决，我看到他解决了许多看似无法解决的问题，无论是恢复一个破碎的卡特彼勒推土机或做他自己的兽医工作。他教我，你可以承担困难的问题。当你遇到挫折时，你站起来再试一次。你可以发明你的方式到一个更好的地方。

我十几岁时把这些教训放在心上，我打算成为车库发明家。我发明了一个自动门，靠近水泥填充的轮胎，一个太阳能炊具从伞和锡箔，和报警器，从烤盘，以诱捕我的兄弟姐妹。

亚马逊的概念在1994年来到我脑中。建立一个拥有数百万种书名的在线书店的想法让我兴奋不已。当时，我在纽约市的一家投资公司工作。当我告诉我的老板我要离开时，他带我去中央公园散步。经过很多的聆听，他终于说，"你知道吗，杰夫，我认为这是个好主意，但是对于一个还没有一份好工作的人来说，这将是一个更好的主意。他说服我考虑两天，然后再做最后决定。这是一个决定，我的心脏，而不是我的头。当我 80 岁， 回想回来的时候， 我想尽量减少我生活中后悔的数量。我们大部分的遗憾都是不作为——我们没有尝试过的事情，没有走的路。那些是困扰我们的事情。我决定，如果我不至少给它我最好的机会，我会后悔没有试图参与这个称为互联网东西，我认为这将是一个大问题。

Amazon.com最初的创业资金主要来自我的父母，他们把他们毕生积蓄的很大一部分投资在了他们不明白的事情上。他们没有押注于亚马逊或网上书店的概念。他们在赌他们的儿子。我告诉他们，我认为他们失去投资的可能性是70%，他们还是这么做了。我花了50多次会议才从投资者那里筹集到100万美元，在所有这些会议的过程中，最常见的问题是：“互联网是什么?”与世界上许多其他国家不同的是，我们生活在这个伟大的国家中，它支持并不贬低企业冒险行为。我离开了一份稳定的工作，来到西雅图的一家车库，找到了我的创业公司，完全明白这可能行不通。就在昨天，我自己开车把包裹送到邮局，梦想有一天我们能买得起叉车。亚马逊的成功绝非命中注定。早期投资亚马逊是一个非常冒险的提议。从我们成立到2001年底，我们的业务累计亏损近30亿美元，而我们直到该年第四季度才有盈利季度。聪明的分析师预测Barnes&Noble会给我们带来蒸汽，并给我们贴上“Amazon.Toast”的标签。1999年，在我们做了近五年的生意之后，巴伦的头条新闻是我们即将灭亡的“亚马逊炸弹”。我2000年的年度股东来信以一句话开头：“哎哟。”在互联网泡沫的巅峰时期，我们的股价达到了116美元的峰值，泡沫破裂后，我们的股价跌到了6美元。专家和专家们认为我们要破产了。很多聪明的人愿意和我一起冒险，也愿意坚持我们的信念，亚马逊才能生存下来，最终取得成功。

不仅仅是那些早年。除了好运和伟大的人，我们之所以能够成功，只是因为我们继续冒很大的风险。要发明，你必须做实验，如果你事先知道它会起作用，这不是一个实验。巨大的回报来自于对传统智慧的押注，但传统智慧通常是正确的。许多观察家认为亚马逊网络服务是一个危险的分心，当我们开始。"销售计算和存储与销售图书有关?没有人要求使用 AWS。原来全世界都准备好了，渴望云计算，但还不知道。我们对 AWS 说的是对的，但事实是，我们也冒了很多风险，但都没有意识到。事实上，亚马逊已经制造了数十亿美元的失败。失败不可避免地伴随着发明和冒险，这就是为什么我们试图使亚马逊成为世界上最好的失败的地方。

自成立以来，我们努力在公司保持"第一天"的心态。我的意思是接近我们用第一天的精力和创业精神所做的一切。尽管亚马逊是一家大公司，但我始终相信，如果我们致力于保持第一天的心态，作为我们DNA的关键部分，我们可以拥有大公司的范围和能力，以及一个小公司的精神和心脏。

在我看来，以客户为焦点是迄今为止实现和保持第一天活力的最佳方式。为什么?因为客户总是很漂亮，非常不满意，即使他们报告是快乐和业务是伟大的。即使他们还不知道，客户也想要更好的东西，并且不断渴望取悦客户，促使我们不断代表他们进行发明。因此，通过专注于客户，我们内部推动改善我们的服务，增加优势和功能，发明新产品，降低价格，并加快运输时间 – 之前，我们必须。没有客户要求亚马逊创建 Prime 会员计划， 但事实证明他们想要它。我可以给你很多这样的例子。并不是每个企业都采用这种客户第一的方法，但我们会采用，这是我们最大的优势。

客户信任是很难赢的，容易输。当你让客户使您的业务成为现在的样东西时，他们就会忠于你——一开始，就在别人为他们提供更好的服务之前。我们知道客户是敏锐和聪明的。当我们努力做正确的事时，我们视为一份信念，客户会注意到这一点，通过一次又一次地这样做，我们将赢得信任。随着时间的推移，你通过做好困难的事情来慢慢赢得信任——按时交付;提供日常低价;作出承诺并遵守承诺;做出有原则的决定，即使它们不受欢迎;通过发明更方便的购物、阅读和自动化家庭方式，让顾客有更多时间与家人共度时光。正如我自1997年第一次收到股东信以来说过的，我们根据我们为满足客户需求而创造的长期价值来做出决策。当我们因这些选择而受到批评时，我们倾听，看着镜子里的自己。当我们认为我们的批评者是对的，我们改变。当我们犯错时，我们道歉。但是，当你照镜子，评估批评，仍然相信你在做正确的事，世界上任何力量都不应该移动你。

幸运的是，我们的方法正在发挥作用。根据领先的独立民调，80%的美国人对亚马逊的总体印象良好。美国人比亚马逊更信任谁 "做正确的事"?根据2020年1月的晨间咨询调查，只有他们的主医生和军方。乔治敦大学和纽约大学的研究人员在2018年发现，在一项有关机构和品牌信任的调查中，亚马逊在所有受访者中仅落后于军方。在共和党人中，我们只落后于军队和地方警察;在民主党人中，我们处于最高水平，领导着政府、大学和新闻界的每一个分支。在《财富》杂志2020年全球最受尊敬的公司排名中，我们排在第二位(苹果#1)。我们非常感谢客户注意到我们代表他们做的辛勤工作，并奖励我们的信任。努力赢得和保持这种信任是亚马逊第一天文化的最大驱动力。

你们大多数人知道，亚马逊是一个送你你的在线订单在棕色的盒子与微笑的一面。这是我们开始的地方，零售业仍然是我们迄今为止最大的业务，占我们总收入的80%以上。该业务的本质是将产品销售给客户。这些业务需要贴近客户，我们不能将这些工作外包给中国或其他地方。为了履行我们对这个国家客户的承诺，我们需要美国工人把产品给美国客户。当客户在亚马逊上购物时，他们正在帮助在当地社区创造就业机会。因此，亚马逊直接雇佣了一百万员工，其中许多是入门级的，按小时付费。我们不只是在西雅图和硅谷雇佣受过高等教育的计算机科学家和 MBA。我们雇佣和训练了数十万人，遍布全国的西弗吉尼亚州、田纳西州、堪萨斯州和爱达荷州。这些员工是包裹存放者、机械师和工厂经理。对许多人来说，这是他们的第一份工作。对一些公司来说，这些工作是其他职业的垫脚石，我们很荣幸能帮助他们。我们花费了 7 亿多美元，让 100.000 多名亚马逊员工能够参加医疗保健、交通、机器学习和云计算等领域的培训计划。该计划被称为"职业选择"，我们支付95%的学费和学费，用于按需、高薪领域的证书或文凭，无论它是否与亚马逊的职业相关。

帕特里夏索托，我们的同事之一，是一个职业选择的成功故事。Patricia一直想在医疗领域从事一项事业，以帮助照顾他人，但只有高中文凭，面临中学后教育的费用，她不确定自己能否实现这一目标。在通过职业选择获得医疗认证后，Patricia 离开亚马逊，开始了她在萨特古尔德医疗基金会的医疗助理的新职业生涯，支持一位肺科医生。职业选择给了帕特里夏和其他许多人一次机会，在第二个职业生涯，曾经似乎遥不可及。

在过去的十年里，亚马逊在美国的投资超过2700亿美元。除了我们自己的员工，亚马逊的投资在建筑、建筑服务和酒店等领域创造了近70万个间接就业机会。我们的招聘和投资带来了急需的就业机会，并增加了数亿美元的经济活动，如秋季河，马萨诸塞州，加利福尼亚州的内陆帝国，和像俄亥俄州这样的锈带州。在COVID-19危机期间，我们又雇佣了175.000名员工，包括许多在经济关闭期间从其他工作岗位上下岗的员工。仅第二季度，我们就花费了 40 多亿美元，为客户获取基本产品，并在 COVID-19 危机期间确保员工安全。来自整个公司的亚马逊员工团队创建了一个计划，定期测试我们的员工是否使用 COVID-19.我们期待着与其他感兴趣的公司和政府合作伙伴分享我们的学习。

我们竞争的全球零售市场规模惊人，竞争异常激烈。亚马逊占全球25万亿美元零售市场的不到1%，占美国零售市场的不到4%。与赢家为一等的行业不同，许多赢家在零售业中还有空间。例如，仅美国就有 80 多个零售商的年收入就超过 10 亿美元。像任何零售商一样，我们知道我们商店的成功完全取决于客户对我们在商店体验的满意。每天，亚马逊都会与像 Target、Costco、Kroger 这样的老牌大型公司竞争，当然还有沃尔玛——一家规模超过亚马逊两倍的公司。虽然我们一直专注于为主要在网上完成的零售销售提供出色的客户体验，但在线发起的销售现在对于其他商店来说，是一个更大的增长领域。沃尔玛第一季度的网上销售额增长了74%。越来越多的顾客涌向亚马逊发明的其他商店所发明的服务，这些服务在其他大公司的规模上仍然无法比及，比如路边取货和店内退货。COVID-19大流行使这些趋势成为人们关注的焦点，这些趋势多年来一直在增长。近几个月来，在线订单的路边取货量增加了200%以上，部分原因是COVID-19的担忧。我们还面临着来自 Shopify 和 Instacart 等公司的新竞争，这些公司使传统的实体店能够几乎即时地开设一个完整的在线商店，并以新的创新方式直接向客户提供产品，以及越来越多的全渠道业务模式。与几乎每个经济领域一样，技术在零售业中随处可见，而且只是使零售业更具竞争力，无论是在线的、实体店，还是当今大多数商店的两种组合。我们和所有其他商店都非常清楚，无论"在线"和"实体"商店的最佳功能如何结合，我们都在竞争和服务于相同的客户。零售竞争对手和相关服务的范围在不断变化，零售业唯一真正不变的是客户对更低价格、更好的选择和便利性的渴望。

同样重要的是要明白，亚马逊的成功在很大程度上取决于成千上万的中小型企业的成功，这些企业也在亚马逊的商店里销售他们的产品。早在1999年，我们采取了前所未有的步骤，欢迎第三方卖家进入我们的商店，使他们能够提供他们的产品的权利与我们自己的。在内部，这是极具争议性的，许多人不同意，一些人预测这将是一场长期失败之战的开始。我们不必邀请第三方卖家进店。我们本可以自己保留这个宝贵的房地产。但是，我们致力于从长远来看，它将增加客户的选择，更满意的客户将是伟大的第三方卖家和亚马逊。事情就是这样的。在加入这些卖家的一年内，第三方销售额占单位销售额的5%，很快发现，客户喜欢购买最好的产品，并在同一家商店看到不同卖家的价格。这些中小型第三方企业现在为亚马逊的商店增加了比亚马逊自己的零售业务更多的产品选择。第三方销售额现在约占亚马逊实体产品销售额的 60%，而且这些销售的增长快于亚马逊自己的零售销售。我们猜想这不是零和游戏。我们是对的——整个馅饼确实增长，第三方卖家表现良好，并且增长迅速，这对于客户和亚马逊来说都很棒。

目前，全球有170万家中小企业在亚马逊的商店里销售。2019 年，全球超过 200.000 名企业家在门店的销售额超过 100.000 美元。除此之外，我们估计在亚马逊商店销售的第三方企业已经在世界各地创造了超过220万个新的就业机会。

其中一位卖家是雪莉·尤克尔，她想改变职业，为孩子多当家。她开始为朋友手工制作礼物和派对用品作为业余爱好，并最终开始在亚马逊上销售她的产品。如今，Sherri 公司拥有近 80 名员工，拥有全球客户群。另一位是克里斯蒂娜·克罗格，她是盐湖城五个孩子的母亲。在亚马逊上冒险之前，克里斯汀通过自己的网站开始了一家销售婴儿服装的生意。此后，她的销售额翻番，她得以扩大产品线，并雇佣了一支兼职员工团队。在亚马逊上销售使雪莉和克里斯汀能够发展自己的业务，并满足客户自己的条件。

令人吃惊的是，这一切是多么的最近。我们一开始并不是最大的市场——eBay是我们规模的很多倍。只有专注于支持卖家，并给他们最好的工具，我们可以发明，我们才能够成功，并最终超越eBay。其中一个这样的工具是亚马逊的交付，它使我们的第三方卖家能够将他们的库存存放在我们的交付中心，我们承担所有的物流、客户服务和产品退货。通过以经济高效的方式显著简化销售体验的所有挑战性方面，我们帮助成千上万的卖家在亚马逊上发展业务。我们的成功可能有助于解释世界各地各种类型和规模的市场的广泛扩散。这包括沃尔玛、eBay、Etsy和 Target 等美国公司，以及位于海外但在全球销售的零售商，如阿里巴巴和乐天。这些市场进一步加剧了零售业的竞争。

过去十年来，客户每天对我们的信任使得亚马逊在美国创造的就业机会比任何其他公司都多——在42个州创造了数十万个就业机会。亚马逊员工每小时至少挣15美元，是联邦最低工资的两倍(我们敦促国会提高最低工资)。我们已经向其他大型零售商提出了挑战，要求其符合我们的15美元最低工资标准。Target 最近也做了， 就在上周， 百思买也做了。我们欢迎他们，他们仍然是唯一这样做的人。我们也不轻描淡写地享受福利。我们的全职小时工享受与领薪总部员工相同的福利，包括从就业第一天开始的全面健康保险、401(k) 退休计划和育儿假，包括 20 周的带薪产假。我鼓励您针对任何零售竞争对手来衡量我们的薪酬和福利。

亚马逊超过80%的股份归外部人士所有，在过去的26年里，我们从零开始，为外部股东创造了超过1万亿美元的财富。那些股东是谁?它们是养老基金：消防、警察和学校教师养老基金。其他是拥有亚马逊部分的401(k)共同基金。大学捐赠，也是，名单还在继续。很多人会因为我们为许多人创造的财富而更好地退休，我们为此感到非常自豪。

在亚马逊，对客户的痴迷使我们成为现在的一部分，并允许我们做更伟大的事情。我知道亚马逊在 10 岁时能做什么。我知道当我们是1000人，当我们是10.000人的时候，我们能做什么。我知道今天我们差不多一百万的时候能做什么。我爱车库企业家——我是其中之一。但是，就像世界需要小公司一样，它也需要大公司。有些事情小公司根本不能做。我不在乎你是个多么优秀的企业家， 你不会在你的车库里制造一架全纤维的波音 787 。

我们的规模使我们能够对重要的社会问题产生有意义的影响。气候承诺是亚马逊做出的承诺，其他公司也加入到一起，提前10年实现《巴黎协定》的目标，到2040年实现净零碳。我们计划通过从总部位于密歇根州的电动汽车生产商Rivian购买10万辆电动送货车来履行承诺。亚马逊计划早在2022年就拥有1万辆Rivian的新电动面包车，到2030年，所有10万辆汽车上路。在全球范围内，Amazon 运营着 91 个太阳能和风能项目，这些项目的发电能力超过 2.900 MW，每年提供超过 760 万兆瓦时的能源，足以为超过 680.000 个美国家庭供电。亚马逊还通过"现在"气候基金向全球造林项目投资1亿美元，其中包括亚马逊在4月份承诺的1000万美元，用于保护、恢复和支持阿巴拉契亚山脉的可持续林业、野生动物和基于自然的解决方案——与自然保护协会合作，资助两个创新项目。四家全球性公司——Verizon、Reckitt Benckiser、Infosys和橡树景集团——最近签署了《气候承诺书》。我们继续鼓励其他人加入我们的这场战斗。我们将共同努力，利用我们的规模和规模，解决气候危机。上个月，亚马逊推出了气候承诺基金，最初由亚马逊提供20亿美元的资金。该基金将支持可持续技术和服务的发展，进而使亚马逊和其他公司能够履行气候承诺。该基金将投资于有远见的企业家和创新者，他们构建产品和服务，以帮助企业减少碳影响，更可持续地运营。

我们最近开设了华盛顿州最大的无家可归者收容所，它位于西雅图市中心我们最新的总部大楼内。庇护所是玛丽的地方，一个令人难以置信的西雅图非营利组织。该庇护所是亚马逊在玛丽广场投资1亿美元投资的一部分，横跨8层，每晚最多可容纳200名家庭成员。它拥有自己的健康诊所，并提供关键工具和服务，帮助家庭与无家可归作斗争，重新站起来。亚马逊还专门提供一周无偿法律诊所，就信贷和债务问题、人身伤害、住房和租户权利提供法律咨询。自 2018 年以来，Amazon 的法律团队已经支持了数百名 Mary Place 的客人，并自愿提供了 1.000 多个公益小时。

Amazon 未来工程师是一个全球性的儿童到职业计划，旨在激励、教育和培养来自代表性不足和服务不足社区的成千上万儿童和青少年从事计算机科学事业。该计划资助数百所小学的计算机科学课程和专业教师发展，为全国服务不足社区的2000多所学校开设入门和AP计算机科学课程，为来自低收入背景的计算机科学学生提供100个四年、40.000美元的大学奖学金。这些奖学金获得者还可以在亚马逊获得有保证的实习机会。科技领域存在多元化管道问题，这对黑人社区产生了巨大的影响。我们希望投资为该行业培养下一代技术人才，并扩大代表性不足的少数民族的机会。我们同样希望现在加快这一变革。为了找到技术和非技术角色的最佳人才，我们积极与历史上的黑人学院和大学合作，进行招聘、实习和提高技能。

让我在结束之前指出，我认为亚马逊应该仔细审查。我们应该仔细审查所有大型机构，无论是公司、政府机构还是非营利组织。我们的责任是确保我们通过这种审查与飞行的颜色。

亚马逊出生在这个国家不是巧合。比地球上任何其他地方都多，新公司可以在美国开始、成长和茁壮成长。我们的国家拥抱足智多谋和自力更生，它拥抱从零开始的建设者。我们培养企业家和初创企业，拥有稳定的法治、世界上最好的大学制度、民主自由以及深受人们欢迎的风险承担文化。当然，我们这个伟大的国家远非完美。即使我们缅怀国会议员约翰·刘易斯并缅怀他的遗产，我们也在进行一场急需的种族清算。我们还面临气候变化和收入不平等的挑战，我们正在经历全球大流行病的危机。尽管如此，世界其他地方还是会喜欢我们在美国最微小的一口灵丹妙药。像我爸爸这样的移民看到了这个国家是多么的宝藏——他们有远见，而且常常比我们这些有幸在这里出生的人更清楚地看到它。对于这个国家来说，这还是第一天，即使面对今天令人谦卑的挑战，我对我们的未来依然没有如此乐观过。

我很欣赏今天有机会出现在你们面前，很高兴回答您的问题。

以下是英文全文：

Statement by Jeff Bezos to the U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary

Testimony before the Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial, and Administrative Law

July 28. 2020

Statement by Jeffrey P. Bezos

Founder & Chief Executive Officer, Amazon

before the U.S. House of Representatives

Committee on the Judiciary

Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial, and Administrative Law

July 29. 2020

Thank you, Chairman Cicilline, Ranking Member Sensenbrenner, and members of the Subcommittee. I’m Jeff Bezos. I founded Amazon 26 years ago with the long-term mission of making it Earth’s most customer-centric company.

My mom, Jackie, had me when she was a 17-year-old high school student in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Being pregnant in high school was not popular in Albuquerque in 1964. It was difficult for her. When they tried to kick her out of school, my grandfather went to bat for her. After some negotiation, the principal said, “OK, she can stay and finish high school, but she can’t do any extracurricular activities, and she can’t have a locker.” My grandfather took the deal, and my mother finished high school, though she wasn’t allowed to walk across the stage with her classmates to get her diploma. Determined to keep up with her education, she enrolled in night school, picking classes led by professors who would let her bring an infant to class. She would show up with two duffel bags—one full of textbooks, and one packed with diapers, bottles, and anything that would keep me interested and quiet for a few minutes.

My dad’s name is Miguel. He adopted me when I was four years old. He was 16 when he came to the United States from Cuba as part of Operation Pedro Pan, shortly after Castro took over. My dad arrived in America alone. His parents felt he’d be safer here. His mom imagined America would be cold, so she made him a jacket sewn entirely out of cleaning cloths, the only material they had on hand. We still have that jacket; it hangs in my parents’ dining room. My dad spent two weeks at Camp Matecumbe, a refugee center in Florida, before being moved to a Catholic mission in Wilmington, Delaware. He was lucky to get to the mission, but even so, he didn’t speak English and didn’t have an easy path. What he did have was a lot of grit and determination. He received a scholarship to college in Albuquerque, which is where he met my mom. You get different gifts in life, and one of my great gifts is my mom and dad. They have been incredible role models for me and my siblings our entire lives.

You learn different things from your grandparents than you do from your parents, and I had the opportunity to spend my summers from ages four to 16 on my grandparents’ ranch in Texas. My grandfather was a civil servant and a rancher—he worked on space technology and missile-defense systems in the 1950s and ‘60s for the Atomic Energy Commission—and he was self-reliant and resourceful. When you’re in the middle of nowhere, you don’t pick up a phone and call somebody when something breaks. You fix it yourself. As a kid, I got to see him solve many seemingly unsolvable problems himself, whether he was restoring a broken-down Caterpillar bulldozer or doing his own veterinary work. He taught me that you can take on hard problems. When you have a setback, you get back up and try again. You can invent your way to a better place.

I took these lessons to heart as a teenager, and became a garage inventor. I invented an automatic gate closer out of cement-filled tires, a solar cooker out of an umbrella and tinfoil, and alarms made from baking pans to entrap my siblings.

The concept for Amazon came to me in 1994. The idea of building an online bookstore with millions of titles—something that simply couldn’t exist in the physical world—was exciting to me. At the time, I was working at an investment firm in New York City. When I told my boss I was leaving, he took me on a long walk in Central Park. After a lot of listening, he finally said, “You know what, Jeff, I think this is a good idea, but it would be a better idea for somebody who didn’t already have a good job.” He convinced me to think about it for two days before making a final decision. It was a decision I made with my heart and not my head. When I’m 80 and reflecting back, I want to have minimized the number of regrets that I have in my life. And most of our regrets are acts of omission—the things we didn’t try, the paths untraveled. Those are the things that haunt us. And I decided that if I didn’t at least give it my best shot, I was going to regret not trying to participate in this thing called the internet that I thought was going to be a big deal.

The initial start-up capital for Amazon.com came primarily from my parents, who invested a large fraction of their life savings in something they didn’t understand. They weren’t making a bet on Amazon or the concept of a bookstore on the internet. They were making a bet on their son. I told them that I thought there was a 70% chance they would lose their investment, and they did it anyway. It took more than 50 meetings for me to raise $1 million from investors, and over the course of all those meetings, the most common question was, “What’s the internet?”

Unlike many other countries around the world, this great nation we live in supports and does not stigmatize entrepreneurial risk-taking. I walked away from a steady job into a Seattle garage to found my startup, fully understanding that it might not work. It feels like just yesterday I was driving the packages to the post office myself, dreaming that one day we might be able to afford a forklift.

Amazon’s success was anything but preordained. Investing in Amazon early on was a very risky proposition. From our founding through the end of 2001. our business had cumulative losses of nearly $3 billion, and we did not have a profitable quarter until the fourth quarter of that year. Smart analysts predicted Barnes & Noble would steamroll us, and branded us “Amazon.toast.” In 1999. after we’d been in business for nearly five years, Barron’s headlined a story about our impending demise “Amazon.bomb.” My annual shareholder letter for 2000 started with a one-word sentence: “Ouch.” At the pinnacle of the internet bubble our stock price peaked at $116. and then after the bubble burst our stock went down to $6. Experts and pundits thought we were going out of business. It took a lot of smart people with a willingness to take a risk with me, and a willingness to stick to our convictions, for Amazon to survive and ultimately to succeed.

And it wasn’t just those early years. In addition to good luck and great people, we have been able to succeed as a company only because we have continued to take big risks. To invent you have to experiment, and if you know in advance that it’s going to work, it’s not an experiment. Outsized returns come from betting against conventional wisdom, but conventional wisdom is usually right. A lot of observers characterized Amazon Web Services as a risky distraction when we started. “What does selling compute and storage have to do with selling books?” they wondered. No one asked for AWS. It turned out the world was ready and hungry for cloud computing but didn’t know it yet. We were right about AWS, but the truth is we’ve also taken plenty of risks that didn’t pan out. In fact, Amazon has made billions of dollars of failures. Failure inevitably comes along with invention and risk-taking, which is why we try to make Amazon the best place in the world to fail.

Since our founding, we have strived to maintain a “Day One” mentality at the company. By that I mean approaching everything we do with the energy and entrepreneurial spirit of Day One. Even though Amazon is a large company, I have always believed that if we commit ourselves to maintaining a Day One mentality as a critical part of our DNA, we can have both the scope and capabilities of a large company and the spirit and heart of a small one.

In my view, obsessive customer focus is by far the best way to achieve and maintain Day One vitality. Why? Because customers are always beautifully, wonderfully dissatisfied, even when they report being happy and business is great. Even when they don’t yet know it, customers want something better, and a constant desire to delight customers drives us to constantly invent on their behalf. As a result, by focusing obsessively on customers, we are internally driven to improve our services, add benefits and features, invent new products, lower prices, and speed up shipping times—before we have to. No customer ever asked Amazon to create the Prime membership program, but it sure turns out they wanted it. And I could give you many such examples. Not every business takes this customer-first approach, but we do, and it’s our greatest strength.

Customer trust is hard to win and easy to lose. When you let customers make your business what it is, then they will be loyal to you—right up to the second that someone else offers them better service. We know that customers are perceptive and smart. We take as an article of faith that customers will notice when we work hard to do the right thing, and that by doing so again and again, we will earn trust. You earn trust slowly, over time, by doing hard things well—delivering on time; offering everyday low prices; making promises and keeping them; making principled decisions, even when they’re unpopular; and giving customers more time to spend with their families by inventing more convenient ways of shopping, reading, and automating their homes. As I have said since my first shareholder letter in 1997. we make decisions based on the long-term value we create as we invent to meet customer needs. When we’re criticized for those choices, we listen and look at ourselves in the mirror. When we think our critics are right, we change. When we make mistakes, we apologize. But when you look in the mirror, assess the criticism, and still believe you’re doing the right thing, no force in the world should be able to move you.

Fortunately, our approach is working. Eighty percent of Americans have a favorable impression of Amazon overall, according to leading independent polls. Who do Americans trust more than Amazon “to do the right thing?” Only their primary physicians and the military, according to a January 2020 Morning Consult survey. Researchers at Georgetown and New York University found in 2018 that Amazon trailed only the military among all respondents to a survey on institutional and brand trust. Among Republicans, we trailed only the military and local police; among Democrats, we were at the top, leading every branch of government, universities, and the press. In Fortune’s 2020 rankings of the World’s Most Admired Companies, we came in second place (Apple was #1). We are grateful that customers notice the hard work we do on their behalf, and that they reward us with their trust. Working to earn and keep that trust is the single biggest driver of Amazon’s Day One culture.

The company most of you know as Amazon is the one that sends you your online orders in the brown boxes with the smile on the side. That’s where we started, and retail remains our largest business by far, accounting for over 80% of our total revenue. The very nature of that business is getting products to customers. Those operations need to be close to customers, and we can’t outsource these jobs to China or anywhere else. To fulfill our promises to customers in this country, we need American workers to get products to American customers. When customers shop on Amazon, they are helping to create jobs in their local communities. As a result, Amazon directly employs a million people, many of them entry-level and paid by the hour. We don’t just employ highly educated computer scientists and MBAs in Seattle and Silicon Valley. We hire and train hundreds of thousands of people in states across the country such as West Virginia, Tennessee, Kansas, and Idaho. These employees are package stowers, mechanics, and plant managers. For many, it’s their first job. For some, these jobs are a stepping stone to other careers, and we are proud to help them with that. We are spending more than $700 million to give more than 100.000 Amazon employees access to training programs in fields such as healthcare, transportation, machine learning, and cloud computing. That program is called Career Choice, and we pay 95% of tuition and fees toward a certificate or diploma for in-demand, high-paying fields, regardless of whether it’s relevant to a career at Amazon.

Patricia Soto, one of our associates, is a Career Choice success story. Patricia always wanted to pursue a career in the medical field to help care for others, but with only a high school diploma and facing the costs of post-secondary education, she wasn’t sure she’d be able to accomplish that goal. After earning her medical certification through Career Choice, Patricia left Amazon to start her new career as a medical assistant at Sutter Gould Medical Foundation, supporting a pulmonary medicine doctor. Career Choice has given Patricia and so many others a shot at a second career that once seemed out of reach.

Amazon has invested more than $270 billion in the U.S. over the last decade. Beyond our own workforce, Amazon’s investments have created nearly 700.000 indirect jobs in fields like construction, building services, and hospitality. Our hiring and investments have brought much-needed jobs and added hundreds of millions of dollars in economic activity to areas like Fall River, Massachusetts, California’s Inland Empire, and Rust Belt states like Ohio. During the COVID-19 crisis, we hired an additional 175.000 employees, including many laid off from other jobs during the economic shutdown. We spent more than $4 billion in the second quarter alone to get essential products to customers and keep our employees safe during the COVID-19 crisis. And a dedicated team of Amazon employees from across the company has created a program to regularly test our workers for COVID-19. We look forward to sharing our learnings with other interested companies and government partners.

The global retail market we compete in is strikingly large and extraordinarily competitive. Amazon accounts for less than 1% of the $25 trillion global retail market and less than 4% of retail in the U.S. Unlike industries that are winner-take-all, there’s room in retail for many winners. For example, more than 80 retailers in the U.S. alone earn over $1 billion in annual revenue. Like any retailer, we know that the success of our store depends entirely on customers’ satisfaction with their experience in our store. Every day, Amazon competes against large, established players like Target, Costco, Kroger, and, of course, Walmart—a company more than twice Amazon’s size. And while we have always focused on producing a great customer experience for retail sales done primarily online, sales initiated online are now an even larger growth area for other stores. Walmart’s online sales grew 74% in the first quarter. And customers are increasingly flocking to services invented by other stores that Amazon still can’t match at the scale of other large companies, like curbside pickup and in-store returns. The COVID-19 pandemic has put a spotlight on these trends, which have been growing for years. In recent months, curbside pickup of online orders has increased over 200%, in part due to COVID-19 concerns. We also face new competition from the likes of Shopify and Instacart—companies that enable traditionally physical stores to put up a full online store almost instantaneously and to deliver products directly to customers in new and innovative ways—and a growing list of omnichannel business models. Like almost every other segment of our economy, technology is used everywhere in retail and has only made retail more competitive, whether online, in physical stores, or in the various combinations of the two that make up most stores today. And we and all other stores are acutely aware that, regardless of how the best features of “online” and “physical” stores are combined, we are all competing for and serving the same customers. The range of retail competitors and related services is constantly changing, and the only real constant in retail is customers’ desire for lower prices, better selection, and convenience.

It’s also important to understand that Amazon’s success depends overwhelmingly on the success of the thousands of small and medium-sized businesses that also sell their products in Amazon’s stores. Back in 1999. we took what at the time was the unprecedented step of welcoming third-party sellers into our stores and enabling them to offer their products right alongside our own. Internally, this was extremely controversial, with many disagreeing and some predicting this would be the beginning of a long, losing battle. We didn’t have to invite third-party sellers into the store. We could have kept this valuable real estate for ourselves. But we committed to the idea that over the long term it would increase selection for customers, and that more satisfied customers would be great for both third-party sellers and for Amazon. And that’s what happened. Within a year of adding those sellers, third-party sales accounted for 5% of unit sales, and it quickly became clear that customers loved the convenience of being able to shop for the best products and to see prices from different sellers all in the same store. These small and medium-sized third-party businesses now add significantly more product selection to Amazon’s stores than Amazon’s own retail operation. Third-party sales now account for approximately 60% of physical product sales on Amazon, and those sales are growing faster than Amazon’s own retail sales. We guessed that it wasn’t a zero sum game. And we were right—the whole pie did grow, third-party sellers did very well and are growing fast, and that has been great for customers and for Amazon.

There are now 1.7 million small and medium-sized businesses around the world selling in Amazon’s stores. More than 200.000 entrepreneurs worldwide surpassed $100.000 in sales in our stores in 2019. On top of that, we estimate that third-party businesses selling in Amazon’s stores have created over 2.2 million new jobs around the world.

One of those sellers is Sherri Yukel, who wanted to change careers to be home more for her children. She started handcrafting gifts and party supplies for friends as a hobby, and eventually began selling her products on Amazon. Today, Sherri’s company employs nearly 80 people and has a global customer base. Another is Christine Krogue, a stay-at-home mother of five in Salt Lake City. Christine started a business selling baby clothes through her own website before taking a chance on Amazon. She has since seen her sales more than double, and she’s been able to expand her product line and hire a team of part-time employees. Selling on Amazon has allowed Sherri and Christine to grow their own businesses and satisfy customers on their own terms.

And it is striking to remember how recent all of this is. We did not start out as the largest marketplace—eBay was many times our size. It was only by focusing on supporting sellers and giving them the best tools we could invent that we were able to succeed and eventually surpass eBay. One such tool is Fulfillment by Amazon, which enables our third-party sellers to stow their inventory in our fulfillment centers, and we take on all logistics, customer service, and product returns. By dramatically simplifying all of those challenging aspects of the selling experience in a cost-effective way, we have helped many thousands of sellers grow their businesses on Amazon. Our success may help explain the wide proliferation of marketplaces of all types and sizes around the world. This includes U.S. companies like Walmart, eBay, Etsy, and Target, as well as retailers based overseas but selling globally, such as Alibaba and Rakuten. These marketplaces further intensify competition within retail.

The trust customers put in us every day has allowed Amazon to create more jobs in the United States over the past decade than any other company—hundreds of thousands of jobs across 42 states. Amazon employees make a minimum of $15 an hour, more than double the federal minimum wage (which we have urged Congress to increase). We’ve challenged other large retailers to match our $15 minimum wage. Target did so recently, and just last week so did Best Buy. We welcome them, and they remain the only ones to have done so. We do not skimp on benefits, either. Our full-time hourly employees receive the same benefits as our salaried headquarters employees, including comprehensive health insurance starting on the first day of employment, a 401(k) retirement plan, and parental leave, including 20 weeks of paid maternity leave. I encourage you to benchmark our pay and benefits against any of our retail competitors.

More than 80% of Amazon shares are owned by outsiders, and over the last 26 years—starting from zero—we’ve created more than $1 trillion of wealth for those outside shareholders. Who are those shareowners? They are pension funds: fire, police, and school teacher pension funds. Others are 401(k)s—mutual funds that own pieces of Amazon. University endowments, too, and the list goes on. Many people will retire better because of the wealth we’ve created for so many, and we’re enormously proud of this.

At Amazon, customer obsession has made us what we are, and allowed us to do ever greater things. I know what Amazon could do when we were 10 people. I know what we could do when we were 1.000 people, and when we were 10.000 people. And I know what we can do today when we’re nearly a million. I love garage entrepreneurs—I was one. But, just like the world needs small companies, it also needs large ones. There are things small companies simply can’t do. I don’t care how good an entrepreneur you are, you’re not going to build an all-fiber Boeing 787 in your garage.

Our scale allows us to make a meaningful impact on important societal issues. The Climate Pledge is a commitment made by Amazon and joined by other companies to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement 10 years early and be net zero carbon by 2040. We plan to meet the pledge, in part, by purchasing 100.000 electric delivery vans from Rivian—a Michigan-based producer of electric vehicles. Amazon aims to have 10.000 of Rivian’s new electric vans on the road as early as 2022. and all 100.000 vehicles on the road by 2030. Globally, Amazon operates 91 solar and wind projects that have the capacity to generate over 2.900 MW and deliver more than 7.6 million MWh of energy annually—enough to power more than 680.000 U.S. homes. Amazon is also investing $100 million in global reforestation projects through the Right Now Climate Fund, including $10 million Amazon committed in April to conserve, restore, and support sustainable forestry, wildlife and nature-based solutions across the Appalachian Mountains—funding two innovative projects in collaboration with The Nature Conservancy. Four global companies—Verizon, Reckitt Benckiser, Infosys, and Oak View Group—recently signed The Climate Pledge, and we continue to encourage others to join us in this fight. Together, we will use our size and scale to address the climate crisis right away. And last month, Amazon introduced The Climate Pledge Fund, started with $2 billion in funding from Amazon. The Fund will support the development of sustainable technologies and services that in turn will enable Amazon and other companies to meet The Climate Pledge. The Fund will invest in visionary entrepreneurs and innovators who are building products and services to help companies reduce their carbon impact and operate more sustainably.

We recently opened the largest homeless shelter in Washington state—and it’s located inside one of our newest headquarters buildings in downtown Seattle. The shelter is for Mary’s Place, an incredible Seattle-based nonprofit. The shelter, part of Amazon’s $100 million investment in Mary’s Place, spans eight floors and can accommodate up to 200 family members each night. It has its own health clinic and provides critical tools and services to help families fighting homelessness get back on their feet. And there is dedicated space for Amazon to provide weekly pro-bono legal clinics offering counsel on credit and debt issues, personal injury, housing and tenant rights. Since 2018. Amazon’s legal team has supported hundreds of Mary’s Place guests and volunteered more than 1.000 pro-bono hours.

Amazon Future Engineer is a global childhood-to-career program designed to inspire, educate, and prepare thousands of children and young adults from underrepresented and underserved communities to pursue a computer science career. The program funds computer science coursework and professional teacher development for hundreds of elementary schools, introductory and AP Computer Science classes for more than 2.000 schools in underserved communities across the country, and 100 four-year, $40.000 college scholarships to computer science students from low-income backgrounds. Those scholarship recipients also receive guaranteed internships at Amazon. There is a diversity pipeline problem in tech, and this has an outsized impact on the Black community. We want to invest in building out the next generation of technical talent for the industry and expanding the opportunities for underrepresented minorities. We also want to accelerate this change right now. To find the best talent for technical and non-technical roles, we actively partner with historically Black colleges and universities on our recruiting, internship, and upskilling initiatives.

Let me close by saying that I believe Amazon should be scrutinized. We should scrutinize all large institutions, whether they’re companies, government agencies, or non-profits. Our responsibility is to make sure we pass such scrutiny with flying colors.

It’s not a coincidence that Amazon was born in this country. More than any other place on Earth, new companies can start, grow, and thrive here in the U.S. Our country embraces resourcefulness and self-reliance, and it embraces builders who start from scratch. We nurture entrepreneurs and start-ups with stable rule of law, the finest university system in the world, the freedom of democracy, and a deeply accepted culture of risk-taking. Of course, this great nation of ours is far from perfect. Even as we remember Congressman John Lewis and honor his legacy, we’re in the middle of a much-needed race reckoning. We also face the challenges of climate change and income inequality, and we’re stumbling through the crisis of a global pandemic. Still, the rest of the world would love even the tiniest sip of the elixir we have here in the U.S. Immigrants like my dad see what a treasure this country is—they have perspective and can often see it even more clearly than those of us who were lucky enough to be born here. It’s still Day One for this country, and even in the face of today’s humbling challenges, I have never been more optimistic about our future.

I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today and am happy to take your questions.

来源时间：2020/8/3   发布时间：2020/7/30

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