Amazon founder Jeff Bezos claims the number one question he gets asked is, “What will the next five to ten years look like?” Everyone wants Bezos to be clairvoyant about what lies ahead. And in fairness to all those who ask the question, Bezos is the right person to be a forecaster—after all, he saw something in selling books from his garage that few, if any, could have imagined.

But Bezos thinks the question is wrong. He believes everyone should instead ask:

“What will be the same in the next five to ten years? What won’t change?”

Here are his thoughts on what won’t change:

“I very frequently get the question, ‘What’s going to change in the next ten years?’ And that is a very interesting question; it’s a very common one. I almost never get the question, ‘What’s not going to change in the next ten years?’ And I submit to you that that second question is actually the more important of the two, because you can build a business strategy around the things that are stable in time.

In our retail business, we know that customers want low prices, and I know that’s going to be true ten years from now. They want fast delivery; they want vast selection. It’s impossible to imagine a future ten years from now where a customer comes up and says, ‘Jeff, I love Amazon, I just wish the prices were a little higher,’ or, ‘I love Amazon, I just wish you’d deliver a little more slowly.’ Impossible.

And so the effort we put into those things—spinning those things up—we know the energy we put into it today will still be paying off dividends for our customers ten years from now. When you have something that you know is true, even over the long term, you can afford to put a lot of energy into it.”

What Bezos is explaining is what Daniel Burrus wrote about in his book Flash Foresight. Burrus describes "hard trends" as future certainties—things we know will happen whether we want them to or not.

Burrus emphasizes that identifying and understanding these hard trends is crucial for businesses to thrive and innovate. By focusing on what will remain constant, companies can develop strategies that are resilient and future-proof. This allows them to allocate resources effectively and build on their strengths, ensuring long-term success regardless of market fluctuations.

For instance, the relentless advancement of technology, the increasing importance of data and analytics, and the growing demand for sustainability are all hard trends businesses can capitalize on. By aligning their operations and goals with these inevitable shifts, companies can stay ahead of the competition and continue delivering value to their customers.

No matter the industry we work in, there are hard trends. Once we understand those, we can then work on what will change.

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