Working Backwards: Insights, Stories, and Secrets from Inside Amazon

by Colin Bryar

“Our culture is four things: customer obsession instead of competitor obsession; willingness to think long term, with a longer investment horizon than most of our peers; eagerness to invent, which of course goes hand in hand with failure; and then, finally, taking professional pride in operational excellence.”

Amazon motto, “Work hard, have fun, make history.”

“We need to plant many seeds,” he would say, “because we don’t know which one of those seeds will grow into a mighty oak.”

customer obsession, innovation, frugality, personal ownership, bias for action, and high standards.