Amazon Narratives: Memos, Working Backwards from Release, More

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a16z

Business, Software Eating The World, Culture, Innovation, Disruption, Entrepreneurship, Science, Technology

4.2 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 8 February 2021

⏱️ 64 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

with @billcarr89 @cbryar @smc90 When you hear stories about Amazon's famous "invention machine", we often hear about things like: Memos, six pages exactly and no powerpoints at al! Or, the idea of "work backwards from the press release". But what's lost is the how, as well as the broader narrative of how all companies and leaders, not just Amazon and Bezos, can define their ways as they scale. After all, Amazon was once a small startup, too. So in this episode -- the very first podcast for the new book Working Backwards: Insights, Stories, and Secrets from Inside Amazon -- the authors share firsthand observations and experiences from being in "the room" where it happens, from AWS, Kindle, and Prime to more importantly, the leadership principles, decision making practices, and operational processes that got Amazon there. Can other startups do the same?

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi everyone welcome to the six and z podcast I'm son all and today I have another
0:05.6	one of our special exclusive first looks at a new book episode and it is both
0:10.9	a very timely and evergreen topic because a new book coming out this week is titled
0:16.7	Working Backwards, Insights, Stories and Secrets from Inside Amazon. In, authors Colin Breyer and Bill Carr who
0:25.0	between them have a combined 27 years of experience in the company where Bill was
0:30.4	vice president of digital media founded and led Amazon Music, Amazon Video,
0:34.4	Amazon Studios for a decade and where Colin started out in the software group was the technical
0:39.2	vice president and then notably was one of Jeff Bezos's earliest shadows,
0:43.6	a legendary program there.
0:45.0	Fun fact, the first shadow before that, I believe,
0:47.6	was Andy Jesse, president and CEO of Amazon Web Services
0:51.8	and now to be CEO of all of Amazon. The book actually shares the origin story of
0:56.3	AWS among other businesses there which we touch on briefly. Though as a reminder
1:01.1	none of the following is investment advice be be sure to see A6 and Z.com
1:04.6	slash disclosures for more information.
1:06.9	But in any case, our focus today is really on what is the Amazon way, and can other companies really adopt certain best practices too? In fact, as fast-growing
1:16.8	companies establish and find their way, how do they define and scale their culture processes
1:21.4	and more? We actually spend most of the episode
1:23.8	digging in detail into two operational practices in particular the infamous
1:28.8	memos instead of PowerPoints and working backwards from a press release and FAQs given the presence of
1:35.1	those two topics in tech folklore and lots of misunderstandings as well.
1:39.4	So I actually probe for the origin stories, the specific details of how they do and don't work, and other nuances
	...

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