How a $120 Billion Company Thinks Like a Startup | Matt Garman, CEO of Amazon Web Services
Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais
Dr. Michael Gervais
4.7 • 1.7K Ratings
🗓️ 5 November 2025
⏱️ 63 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
What if your biggest competitive advantage isn’t how technologically advanced you are — but how psychologically agile your teams are?
On today’s episode, we sit down with Matt Garman — CEO of Amazon Web Services — to dig into the leadership frameworks behind one of the world’s most innovative companies. We cover his “one-way vs. two-way doors” decision model, why “minimum lovable product” beats perfectionism, and how to push autonomy down while keeping trust and security high.
We also explore what’s really slowing AI adoption (and why replacing junior employees with AI is a terrible idea), why documents beat slide decks for high-stakes calls, and the long-view energy bets—including nuclear—that AWS believes will shape innovation and sustainability. Along the way, Matt shares the personal side of leading at speed: family dinners, golf as a reset, and the “support then challenge” cadence that helps teams sustain pace without burning out.
What you’ll learn:
- How to use the “one-way vs. two-way doors” framework to make faster, smarter decisions
- Why optimism (not naïveté) is a core competitive advantage for innovators
- The key to shipping a minimum lovable product customers actually want
- The real frictions in AI adoption—and why replacing juniors with AI backfires
- Why long-horizon energy bets (including nuclear) matter for innovation and sustainability
If you’re leading in a fast-moving world—or want to—this conversation offers practical frameworks and a shot of grounded optimism to help your team move faster, smarter, and with more heart.
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Transcript
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| 1:28.8 | The cost of going slow is just so high. |
| 1:31.1 | The business that we're in, innovation and technology moves so fast that you have to get |
| 1:34.9 | to a product offering that's great for customers. |
| 1:37.2 | But if you wait until it's perfect, three more people are going to launch ahead of you |
| 1:40.2 | because the world is moving so fast. |
| 1:42.5 | What if your biggest competitive advantage isn't how technologically advanced you are, but how psychologically agile your teams are? If you have somebody that thinks small, they offer it'll deliver to the thing that they think about. And if you have somebody that thinks big and says, hey, look, we can do this other thing that seems unachievable. Even if you get 95% of the way there, it's a pretty good outcome. We want people who are going to go do something, not just sit around and think about it. Welcome back. We're welcome to the Finding Mastery podcast where we dive into the minds of the world's greatest thinkers and doers. I'm your host, Dr. Michael Jerva, by trade and training a high performance psychologist. The idea behind these conversations is simple. It's to sit with the extraordinaries and learn, to really learn how they work from the inside |
| 2:20.7 | up. |
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