“Our core competencies did not extend to either end of the value chain. Steve did not let this get in the way. In one of our meetings, he said that a typical company that wanted to grow would take stock of its existing capabilities and ask, “What can we do next with our skill set?” He emphasized that Amazon’s approach was always to start from the customer and work backwards. We would figure out what the customers’ needs were and then ask ourselves, “Do we have the skills necessary to build something that meets those needs? If not, how can we build or acquire them?” Once we determined what was necessary to create value for our customers and to differentiate ourselves from our competitors, we didn’t let our lack of ability deter us from achieving this important end result—our own device.”