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

by Colin Bryar

Even if our assumptions were correct, the program would take years to pay off; not a single person in the leadership team other than Jeff was pushing for Prime to launch in 2004; it was the holiday season, which meant we were already really busy! This very nearly became one of those scenarios when a company takes the seductive but ultimately wrong path of staying the course, making a serious error of omission as a result. The “institutional no” is a big reason why Amazon could have made an error of omission in this case. Jeff and other Amazon leaders often talk about the “institutional no” and its counterpart, the “institutional yes.” The institutional no refers to the tendency for well-meaning people within large organizations to say no to new ideas. The errors caused by the institutional no are typically errors of omission, that is, something a company doesn’t do versus something it does. Staying the current course offers managers comfort and certainty—even if the price of that short-term certainty is instability and value destruction later on.