From Bill Gates to Jeff Bezos: Thoughts on consumers

Image: Leon Neal / Pool via Reuters

Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.  
—Bill Gates
American entrepreneur

A customer is the most important visitor on our premises. He is not dependent on us. We are dependent on him. He is not an interruption in our work. He is the purpose of it. He is not an outsider in our business. He is part of it. We are not doing him a favour by serving him. He is doing us a favour by giving us an opportunity to do so.
—Mahatma Gandhi
Freedom fighter

We see our customers as invited guests to a party, and we are the hosts. It’s our job every day to make every important aspect of the customer experience a little bit better.
—Jeff Bezos
American entrepreneur

The consumer isn’t a moron; she is your wife.
—David Ogilvy
British advertising tycoon

Don’t find customers for your products, find products for your customers.
—Seth Godin
American author

Do what you do so well that they will want to see it again and bring their friends.
—Walt Disney
American film producer

If you don’t optimise for the consumer on the internet, you’re dead.
—Dara Khosrowshahi
Iranian-American business executive

Get closer than ever to your customers. So close, in fact, that you tell them what they need well before they realise it themselves.
—Steve Jobs
American entrepreneur

Consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production; and the interest of the producer ought to be attended to, only so far as it may be necessary for promoting that of the consumer.
—Adam Smith
Scottish economist

In ecommerce, your prices have to be better because the consumer has to take a leap of faith in your product.
—Ashton Kutcher
American actor and entrepreneur

All the social things the consumer has gotten used to are being applied to business.
—Ram Shriram
Indian-American businessman

A brand is no longer what we tell the consumer it is—it is what consumers tell each other it is.
—Scott Cook
American businessman