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

by Colin Bryar

“We have an unshakeable conviction that the long-term interests of shareowners are perfectly aligned with the interests of customers.”2 In other words, while it’s true that shareholder value stems from growth in profit, Amazon believes that long-term growth is best produced by putting the customer first.

Jeff described Amazon this way: “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.”

14 Leadership Principles, as well as a broad set of explicit, practical methodologies, that constantly reinforce its cultural goals. These include: the Bar Raiser hiring process that ensures that the company continues to acquire top talent; a bias for separable teams run by leaders with a singular focus that optimizes for speed of delivery and innovation; the use of written narratives instead of slide decks to ensure that deep understanding of complex issues drives well-informed decisions; a relentless focus on input metrics to ensure that teams work on activities that propel the business. And finally there is the product development process that gives this book its name: working backwards from the desired customer experience. Many

The customer is also at the center of how we analyze and manage performance metrics. Our emphasis is on what we call controllable input metrics, rather than output metrics. Controllable input metrics (e.g., reducing internal costs so you can affordably lower product prices, adding new items for sale on the website, or reducing standard delivery time) measure the set of activities that, if done well, will yield the desired results, or output metrics (such as monthly revenue and stock price). We detail these metrics as well as how to discover and track them in chapter six.

Amazon’s Leadership Principles6 Customer Obsession. Leaders start with the customer and work backwards. They work vigorously to earn and keep customer trust. Although leaders pay attention to competitors, they obsess over customers. Ownership. Leaders are owners. They think long term and don’t sacrifice long-term value for short-term results. They act on behalf of the entire company, beyond just their own team. They never say, “that’s not my job.” Invent and Simplify. Leaders expect and require innovation and invention from their teams and always find ways to simplify. They are externally aware, look for new ideas from everywhere, and are not limited by “not invented here.” As we do new things, we accept that we may be misunderstood for long periods of time. Are Right, A Lot. Leaders are right a lot. They have strong judgment and good instincts. They seek diverse perspectives and work to disconfirm their beliefs. Learn and Be Curious. Leaders are never done learning and always seek to improve themselves. They are curious about new possibilities and act to explore them. Hire and Develop the Best. Leaders raise the performance bar with every hire and promotion. They recognize exceptional talent, and willingly move them throughout the organization. Leaders develop leaders and take seriously their role in coaching others. We work on behalf of our people to invent mechanisms for development like Career Choice. Insist on the Highest Standards. Leaders have relentlessly high stan...

The method that Amazon interviewers use for drilling down goes by the acronym STAR (Situation, Task, Action, Result): “What was the situation?” “What were you tasked with?” “What actions did you take?” “What was the result?”

Why coordination increases and productivity decreases as organizations grow. How Amazon combated this tendency by shifting to “separable teams with single-threaded leadership.” Why creating an organization of such teams can take time, especially in a large enterprise. How to untangle dependencies so teams can work independently. “The best way to fail at inventing something is by making it somebody’s part-time job.”1

The answer lies in an Amazon innovation called “single-threaded leadership,” in which a single person, unencumbered by competing responsibilities, owns a single major initiative and heads up a separable, largely autonomous team to deliver its goals. In this chapter we’ll explain what these terms mean, how they came to be, and why they lie at the heart of the Amazon approach to innovation and high-velocity decision-making.

In my tenure at Amazon I heard him say many times that if we wanted Amazon to be a place where builders can build, we needed to eliminate communication, not encourage it.

Amazon’s SVP of Devices, Dave Limp, summed up nicely what might happen next: “The best way to fail at inventing something is by making it somebody’s part-time job.”6

The reason writing a good 4 page memo is harder than “writing” a 20 page powerpoint is because the narrative structure of a good memo forces better thought and better understanding of what’s more important than what, and how things are related. Powerpoint-style presentations somehow give permission to gloss over ideas, flatten out any sense of relative importance, and ignore the interconnectedness of ideas.3