Thursday, July 29, 2010

Jeff Bezos Founder of Amazon Delivers a Powerful Message at this Year's Princeton Graduation



His words are memorable! "I took the less safe path to follow my passion and I am proud of that choice."

Just eight years out of Princeton at age 30, Jeff and his wife, took the leap into the unknown.

Leaving secure jobs at a Wall Street Law firm, Jeff and his wife decided to follow his passion to realize his BIG DREAM of building the world's largest online bookstore.

In 15 years. his bookstore of 'limitless proportions' has exceeded all expectations. In 2009, his firm generated $24.5 Billion in sales.

Of 452 goals his company has set for this year, 360 involve directly affecting the customer experience. The word revenue is only mentioned 8 times!

His portable Kindle reader had access to 460, 000 books in 2009 and his goal is to have every book ever printed in any langauge all available in less than 60 seconds.

The video above ( made available by the School of Engineering and Applied Science at Princeton) is introduced by Universtiy President Shirley M. Tilgman.

Jeff urges his audience to temper their cleverness with making conscious choices to be kind to others.

In this commencement address, Jeff asks some key questions to his audience of some of the young and brightest minds in our country:

"Will inertia be your guide, or will you follow your passion?"

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

"Will you be clever at the expense of others or will you be kind?"

Enjoy this most inspirational speech.

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