Thank you so much. I’m John, and it’s always awesome to talk to groups like this. I’m from Seattle, and given the current times, I self-quarantined myself in the corner, but I was pulled into the middle of things.
I was at Amazon a long time ago, from early 2002 through late 2005. I ran two businesses there: I launched the Amazon Marketplace, which today accounts for over 58% of all units shipped and sold, with over three million sellers. I also ran Enterprise Services, managing eCommerce infrastructure for brands like Target, Toys "R" Us, and Marks & Spencer.
Today, I want to share a few key lessons from my time at Amazon—lessons that have shaped how I approach leadership, business, and innovation.
Lesson 1: Leadership Principles Matter
Amazon has 14 leadership principles. The most famous is customer obsession, but it’s just one of them. When I was there, they weren’t codified, but we practiced them daily. Every decision we made was grounded in principles, asking ourselves: Why are we making this decision? and How does it apply in other situations?
Even in the early 2000s, when Amazon was struggling to survive, we never compromised our brand or our culture for short-term gains. This commitment led to the formalization of the 14 principles, which have helped Amazon maintain speed, agility, and accountability at a scale few other companies achieve.
Jeff Bezos’ biggest concern for Amazon isn’t government interference or competition—it’s bureaucracy. He fears Amazon becoming slow, losing accountability, and ceasing to be fun.
Lesson 2: Customer Obsession is More Than Just a Buzzword
Amazon didn’t just say they cared about customers—they chose the word obsession. It’s an extreme word, deliberately chosen. When you meet someone obsessed with something, it’s weird. They spend time, attention, and resources in ways others don’t understand.
Amazon embraces that. They are willing to be misunderstood, often for long periods, in order to do what they believe is right for customers.
For example, in the Marketplace business, Amazon wasn’t just responsible for discovery, buying, and payments. Third-party sellers handled delivery, customer service, and returns. But we took a different approach—we said that customer trust was our most important asset. We made selling on Amazon complex because we wanted strict controls to ensure trust, even though it made things harder for sellers.
That mindset—thinking beyond your immediate product or service and taking responsibility for the broader customer experience—is what allows companies to grow in unexpected ways.
Lesson 3: The Culture of Metrics
Amazon is a culture of metrics. Every week, we had metrics meetings. On Monday, small teams met. By Friday, we had worldwide meetings. And on Monday, it started again.
Some key takeaways:
- We spent as much time debating how to measure something as we did designing the product or service.
- We knew our product would never be perfect at launch, so we focused on instrumentation—getting the right data to iterate toward perfection.
- Metrics are never done. Every issue, every incident was an opportunity to ask: Did we have the right metrics?
- Metrics are a verb, not a noun. Every metric had an owner, and that person drove action. When they spoke, we all worked for them, regardless of hierarchy.
Amazon operates on outcomes, not job titles.
Lesson 4: Durable Customer Needs
When asked how Amazon decides what to innovate on, Bezos once explained his philosophy of durable customer needs. He said:
"A customer will never want a higher price."
"A customer will never want less selection."
"A customer will never want slower delivery."
For 25 years, Amazon’s retail business has been focused on these three areas: lower prices, greater selection, and faster delivery.
If you can identify your industry’s durable customer needs, you create clear swim lanes for innovation. Even when experiments fail, they align with core customer needs, so you still learn and improve.
Lesson 5: Writing Drives Clarity
Amazon is a culture of writing. Every idea, every proposal is written out and debated before execution. This forces two things:
- Deliberate decision-making: The best strategy isn’t just choosing what to do—it’s clearly defining what not to do.
- Team clarity: When you write out ideas fully—whether as narratives, future press releases, or FAQs—teams make better decisions because they understand the mission.
It’s a go slow to go fast approach, but it ensures alignment and better execution.
Lesson 6: The Origins of AWS
In 2003, Amazon had a rough holiday season. The website kept crashing. At the time, every team managed its own infrastructure—forecasting, provisioning, and operations.
After that disastrous season, we centralized infrastructure. Internal teams were given interfaces to manage servers. But here’s the key realization:
Internal customers are too nice. We all want to get along. But external customers? They are never satisfied.
So we externalized infrastructure, creating AWS. This forced us to build something truly competitive, and in the process, we stumbled upon one of Amazon’s biggest businesses.
The lesson? Identify your core capabilities, then ask: What would it take to offer this as a world-class service? Even if you don’t externalize it, this mindset will push you to improve.
Lesson 7: The Two-Pizza Team
Amazon’s belief in small teams helps fight bureaucracy. One model they use is the two-pizza team—a team small enough that two pizzas can feed them.
Each two-pizza team:
- Owns a core service (e.g., image processing, payments, forecasting).
- Handles everything: product definition, execution, adoption, and metrics.
- When they grow too big, they split into two smaller teams.
This creates Lego blocks of business capabilities, enabling long-term ownership and continuous improvement.
Final Thoughts
Amazon is a special place, largely because of its 14 leadership principles. They are not just posters on the wall—they guide hiring, decision-making, and culture.
My challenge to you: How do you create consistency in how you think and make decisions? Your culture should be strong enough to attract the right talent—and repel the wrong talent.
Culture should have a smell. It should be definable. It shouldn’t be for everyone.
Thank you for inviting me. I hope I’ve shared some useful insights from my time at Amazon.