Why Amazon.com's Jeff Bezos is a leader

In the current issue of Fast Company, Amazon.com's CEO Jeff Bezos is asked how he justifies his company's big investment in its Kindle portable e-book reader even though it accounted for only $136 million of the company's $19 billion revenues last year. Bezos replies: "We want to plant seeds that grow into big trees, and that may take five to seven years. You also have to be willing to repeatedly fail -- and to be misunderstood for long periods of time."

At a time when so many major companies and even entire industries are collapsing because of the failure of their so-called leaders to invest in the long run, Amazon stands out as a rare exception.