"What Matters More Than Your Talents"

Cleverness is a gift, kindness is a choice. Gifts are easy — they’re given after all. Choices can be hard.

• How will you use your gifts? What choices will you make?


• Will inertia be your guide, or will you follow your passions?


• Will you follow dogma, or will you be original?


• Will you choose a life of ease, or a life of service and adventure?


• Will you wilt under criticism, or will you follow your convictions?


• Will you bluff it out when you’re wrong, or will you

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“Jeff, one day you’ll understand that it’s harder to be kind than clever.”

When it’s tough, will you give up, or will you be relentless?

What I want to talk to you about today is the difference between gifts and choices. Cleverness is a gift, kindness is a choice. Gifts are easy — they’re given after all. Choices can be hard. You can seduce yourself with your gifts if you’re not careful, and if you do, it’ll probably be to the detriment of your choices.

“Jeff, one day you’ll understand that it’s harder to be kind than clever.”

When you are 80 years old, and in a quiet moment of reflection narrating for only yourself the most personal version of your life story, the telling that will be most compact and meaningful will be the series of choices you have made. In the end, we are our choices.

How will you use your gifts? What choices will you make?Will inertia be your guide, or will you follow your passions?Will you follow dogma, or will you be original?Will you choose a life of ease, or a life of service and adventure?Will you wilt under criticism, or will you follow your convictions?Will you bluff it out when you’re wrong, or will you... See more

I got the idea to start Amazon 16 years ago. I came across the fact that Web usage was growing at 2,300 percent per year. I’d never seen or heard of anything that grew that fast, and the idea of building an online bookstore with millions of titles — something that simply couldn’t exist in the physical world — was very exciting to me.