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

by Colin Bryar

There were times when we had heated debates about what products to build and how we should build them. Should we focus on books, music, or video? Should we build a subscription service, make it free with advertisements, let people buy à la carte, or all of the above? Should we build our own devices or partner with manufacturers? Should we acquire companies to accelerate our entry into digital? Throughout the organization, leaders, including some members of the board of directors, questioned why we should invest so much time, effort, and money on digital media. For as you’ll see, the skills required to succeed in digital media are quite different from what’s needed to excel at delivering physical goods sold online. But we (the leaders and members of the digital media team) were persistent, always ready to reinvent our approach, change our tactics, and iterate on our strategy. We were guided by an unwavering long-term goal—to create a large digital media business that invested in new services (and devices) that consumers loved—and by Jeff’s ever-present reminder that no matter what we did, we had to constantly push to figure out the right experience for our customers. It would take several years for our digital effort to gain a foothold and become a meaningful business.