Billionaire Bezos teaches Vietnamese entrepreneurs: “Don’t do business, be obsessed with customers”

DNHN - Ranked the world’s fourth-richest person (Forbes, August 2025) with an estimated fortune of $241 billion, billionaire Jeff Bezos created the Amazon legend.

A brand that not only transformed global consumer habits but also redefined how people approach entrepreneurship and management.

His story is an essential source of inspiration for Vietnamese entrepreneurs aspiring to reach the global stage.

Jeff Bezos: How the trillion-dollar empire Amazon was born

Starting in an old garage in Seattle, where Bezos and his wife drafted the business plan in the car, Amazon began as an online bookstore. Yet from the outset, Bezos harbored a bigger ambition: reshaping global commerce. Leaving behind a lucrative Wall Street career, he staked everything on an idea few believed in.

He foresaw the explosive potential of the internet, which at the time was growing at 2,300% per year. Leaving D.E. Shaw, one of New York’s most prestigious investment funds, he entered a game almost no one thought could be won. Amazon was born amid skepticism and grew up in storms.

The dot-com bubble in 2000 wiped out more than 90% of Amazon’s market value, forcing massive layoffs. The media mocked it as “Amazon.bomb.” Yet Bezos chose to rise. He repeated one simple truth: “Never stop being obsessed with customers.”

Alongside this came his “Day One” philosophy, the eternal startup spirit: always hungry, flexible, willing to innovate, and never complacent. The opposite of Day One is Day Two: stagnation, bureaucracy, and decline. For Bezos, Amazon must always remain Day One—even now, as one of the world’s most powerful corporations.

This mindset enabled Amazon’s constant expansion: from books to every consumer product, from e-commerce to cloud computing (Amazon Web Services), from entertainment to space (Blue Origin). All of it stemmed from a relentless obsession with customers and the belief that innovation must never stop.

Bezos also advanced a striking idea about organization: efficiency comes not from scale, but from smart structure. His “two-pizza team” rule had nothing to do with food—it meant teams should be small enough to be fed with two pizzas. Small teams decide faster, have fewer layers, less bureaucracy, clear accountability, and greater agility.

In a hyper-competitive world where conditions change by the hour, small and lean teams are the ones capable of making a real impact. Thanks to this structure, Amazon launched game-changing innovations like Kindle, Prime, and AWS.

Behind these strategies was a disciplined lifestyle. Bezos prioritized important decisions in the morning, keeping his focus on long-term goals. He was willing to accept nearly 20 years of losses, believing a sustainable market position mattered more than quarterly earnings. For him, “If you know it’s going to work, it’s not really an experiment.” Without risking failure, you never achieve a breakthrough.

Strategic moves like launching AWS or building a global logistics network were the product of conviction and boldness beyond conventional limits.

The formula for success from the master of e-commerce

Bezos became one of the world’s richest not because he was simply good at selling, but because he built an ecosystem operating on three principles: long-term vision, customer obsession, and continuous innovation.

“Don’t just do business, be obsessed with customers” was not a slogan but the foundation of the Amazon empire. For Bezos, obsession did not mean merely satisfying customers, but putting them at the center of every decision—products, operations, technology, and organizational design.

He demanded that Amazon anticipate customers’ needs before they even realized them, and he accepted short-term losses in exchange for long-term loyalty. Amazon continuously improved, shortening checkout steps by seconds, building its own logistics to ensure 1–2 day delivery worldwide. Every change was driven by one principle: eliminate friction between customers and purchase.

Even the smallest negative feedback was treated as a “red alert” to improve products, services, and processes.

Lessons for Vietnamese entrepreneurs

Vietnamese entrepreneurs can apply this mindset by shifting focus from selling to truly serving customers proactively, personally, and empathetically. Instead of competing on price, ask: “Is my customer genuinely happy with this experience?” Then act daily to answer that question.

Customer obsession should be embedded in corporate culture: from leadership to logistics, every part of the business must serve the customer’s experience. This is the path to loyalty and the lever that allows Vietnamese brands to expand globally.

Bezos’s story is not just personal inspiration; it is a compass for the new era. It reminds businesses to always keep the “Day One” spirit alive: never complacent, always reinventing.

In an age of instant results, Bezos chose the opposite path: long-term vision, willingness to accept short-term losses, and building enduring strength. This is a lesson for Vietnamese enterprises navigating global markets: quick profit is not always sustainable success.

Most importantly, Bezos reframes how businesses should view risk: don’t fear experiments—embrace mistakes to create breakthroughs. For him, failure is not an end but the foundation for bold new steps.

Through it all, one truth never changes: obsession with customers. Not merely serving them, but winning them with superior experience, trust, and understanding—not discounts. Bezos didn’t build Amazon to win price wars; he built it to be the first and forever choice of customers.

Jeff Bezos is more than a billionaire; he is a symbol of turning adversity into strength, ideas into empires, and every day into Day One.

For Vietnam’s rising brands, his message is clear: “Where you start doesn’t matter. What matters is daring to dream, daring to act, and never giving up.” With that spirit, Vietnamese entrepreneurs can write and rewrite their future, not only for their own companies but for a generation of global Vietnamese brands.

Dr. Nguyễn Thúy Lan

Vietnamese version: Tỷ phú Bezos dạy doanh nhân Việt: "Đừng kinh doanh, hãy ám ảnh vì khách hàng"