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Jeff Bezos says he's flattered by Warren Buffett's compliments and reads 'all his books'

Rick Wilking | Reuters. It's not always the early bird who gets the worm.

Warren Buffett said earlier this month that Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is "the most remarkable business person of our age."

At Amazon's shareholders meeting on Tuesday, an investor reminded Bezos of that comment and asked how he comes up with new ideas.

"Warren's remarks are very meaningful to me because he's a hero to me," Bezos said at the Seattle event. "I read all his books."

Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway (BRK-A) doesn't have much in common with Amazon. Berkshire tends to buy up big stakes in industrial, food and financial companies with easy-to-understand business models. He's explicitly stayed away from Internet businesses and has publicly acknowledged missing them.

However, Buffett and Bezos are closely linked in other ways. Amazon is the fourth-largest U.S. company by market capitalization with a value of $464 billion, and Berkshire is two spots behind at $407.4 billion. Berkshire is the most valuable non-tech company in the U.S.

Buffett is the third-richest person in the world with a net worth of $88 billion, and Bezos is fourth at $84 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

In response to the questioner, Bezos said he looks for inventions that are going to be better for customers and that are going to be big.

Watch: What Bezos' fortune looks like

"We don't need to make sure it works, but if it works can it be big?" he said.

Bezos was also asked why he's taking Berkshire's approach in not splitting Amazon's (AMZN) stock, which is now priced at close to $1,000.

Bezos said he has no plans to do it now, "but we do review that on a regular basis."

Amazon did split its stock three times in the late 1990s.

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