“If this is a decision based on opinions, then my opinion wins,” said Jeff. “However, data beats opinion. So bring data.” Jeff follows this policy faithfully; on one occasion, he argued that Amazon customers would never answer questions from potential customers about a product. Just too much friction, he thought. The product team didn’t try to change Jeff’s opinion with rhetoric and argument; instead, they e-mailed product questions to a thousand Amazon customers who had recently purchased a product and tracked the responses.
