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How Amazon Built a Culture of Innovation by Working Backwards

To say that Amazon is an unusual organization seems like an understatement. The company has been able to scale its culture of innovation, challenging all business conventions.

By Gustavo Razzetti

September 8, 2021

Mapping Amazon’s long, hard, and smart working culture with the Culture Design Canvas

Behind every successful organization, there’s a strong culture. And that’s precisely the case of Amazon: its working backwards culture has helped dramatically scale innovation and growth while staying true to the leadership principles initially defined by Jeff Bezos.

Even though he has recently stepped down as CEO, Bezos will continue to shape Amazon’s culture. His customer obsession and "Start with the customer and work backwards" philosophy has kept the 25-year-old “startup” in good shape – and will continue to do so in the years to come.  

Amazon’s culture is anything but perfect – no workplace is.  

The company’s success has drawn criticism. Examples range from Bezos’ extreme wealth to an aggressive environment taking a physical toll on employees or Amazon not paying income taxes for many years.

The attacks are not just driven by unhappy employees, but also by business pundits who believe Amazon’s business model is unsustainable.

Time and again, Amazon has proved the critics wrong.

This in-depth The Atlantic article sums it up: “In contrast to the dysfunction and cynicism that define the times, Amazon is the embodiment of competence, the rare institution that routinely works.”

In this post, I will share all the key building blocks of Amazon’s working backwards culture using the Culture Design Canvas – and why codifying your company culture matters.

To understand Amazon’s culture, you first need to understand the company’s unique business model and philosophy.

A Working Backwards Culture: the Secret to Scaling Innovation at Amazon

To say that Amazon is an unusual organization seems like an understatement. The company has been able to scale its culture of innovation, challenging all business conventions.

While most organizations try to stay focused, Amazon has successfully diversified its business in every direction. Instead of industry expertise, Amazon is leveraging innovation and operational excellence into every business it touches.

“What is Amazon, aside from a listing on Nasdaq? This is a flummoxing question. The company is named for the world’s most voluminous river, but it also has tributaries shooting out in all directions.

Retailer hardly captures the company now that it’s also a movie studio, an artificial intelligence developer, a device manufacturer, and a web-services provider. But to describe it as a conglomerate isn’t quite right either, given that so many of its businesses are tightly integrated or eventually will be.

When I posed the question to Amazonians, I got the sense that they considered the company to be a paradigm—a distinctive approach to making decisions, a set of values, the Jeff Bezos view of the world extended through some 600,000 employees” – Franklin Foer, The Atlantic

It wasn’t just a vision but a mindset that helped Amazon reach an annual revenue of 221.6 billion dollars.

Bezos loves the word relentless—it appears again and again in his annual letters to shareholders. He seemed determined to beat any competitor. However, his focus was not on other companies but people.

Being relentlessly customer-focused helped Amazon reach its success status.

With more than 600 million items for sale and more than 3 million vendors selling them, Amazon has a 54% market share of product searches. In other words: Amazon, not Google, is the most popular e-commerce search engine globally. When it comes to data, most global corporations rely on Amazon’s servers ¬– even the CIA.

Ben Thompson, the founder of Stratechery, a website that dissects Silicon Valley companies, describes Amazon’s master plan as providing logistics “for basically everyone and everything.” The goal is to collect a “tax” on every transaction – from premium cable channels to superior placement in its search.

Amazon crossed a trillion-dollar valuation – the second company after Apple – but Jeff Bezos kept the same mindset as when he started in a garage in Seattle.

There’s a huge difference between “think like a startup” and actually acting as one. Amazon operates with a “Day 1” mentality – a culture and an operating model that puts the customer at the center of everything, just as if it were its first day in business.

Day 1 is about being constantly curious, nimble, and experimental. It means being brave enough to fail. By applying a trial-and-error approach, you can better surprise and delight customers in the future.

“We need to plant many seeds because we don’t know which one of those seeds will grow into a mighty oak.” – Jeff Bezos.

Contrast this to a “Day 2” mentality: as a company grows over time, it starts to emphasize operational excellence. As it scales, not only do decision-making and speed slow down, but innovation and agility also suffer. The focus shifts towards internal challenges rather than external customer-centric innovation.

Jeff Bezos's philosophy regarding Amazon has always been “Grow Big Fast.” Amazon never stopped innovating and continued to disrupt its own business: from delivering products by using drones to using AI for inventory management.

Keeping an entrepreneurial mentality alive takes a toll on the organization. Amazon’s high-performance and demanding culture has been described as “purposeful Darwinism” by a former human resources director.

Jeff Bezos famously said, “You can work long, hard or smart, but at Amazon.com you can’t choose two out of three.”

Unsurprisingly, this aggressive mentality has permeated all aspects of Amazon’s culture – from goal-setting to performance management.

Being Amazonian is clearly not for everyone.

As author Marcus Buckingham told Fox Business:  “The wonderful thing about Amazon’s culture is that it is repulsive. It is strong enough to repel those who don’t fit.”

Amazon has a certain approach to getting the most out of their people that only works well for some people.

Jeff Bezos has denied all the accusations on several occasions. He usually avoids making comments about Amazon’s inhumane workplace culture. The company's success comes at a cost that the founder is not willing to acknowledge.  

As Franklin Foer wrote, “When Bezos creates the terms for his business, or society, he’s no more capable of dispassion than anyone else. To live in the world of his creation is to live in a world of his biases and predilections.”

Let’s jump into Amazon’s Culture Design Canvas and discuss the key principles and practices that define what it takes to be “Amazonian.”

Amazon Culture Design Canvas: The Core

Mapping your company culture using the Culture Design Canvas is a process of discovery and understanding.

As Jeff Bezos said, “You can write down your company culture, but when you do so, you’re discovering it, uncovering it – not creating it.”

Robin Andrulevich was tasked to map Amazon’s culture. What she thought would be a two-month project ended up taking nine months to complete.

Mapping the essence of a complex culture like Amazon is not easy. Robin had to capture the different perspectives and elements to codify Amazon’s culture.

Amazon's significant innovations since 2004 have one very Amazonian thing in common: they were created through a process called Working Backwards. It is so central to its success that Colin Bryar and Bill Carr named their book after it.

Working Backwards is a systematic way to vet ideas and create new products. It starts by defining the end customer experience, then iteratively working backwards from that point until the team achieves clarity of thought around what to build.

It’s like Design Thinking, but backwards. It starts with the impact the solution will create on the user/ customer.

Amazon’s Company Purpose

Amazon doesn’t have a purpose, but a mission that’s inner-focused rather than outer-focused.

“We aim to be Earth's most customer-centric company. Our mission is to continually raise the bar of the customer experience by using the internet and technology to help consumers find, discover and buy anything, and empower businesses and content creators to maximize their success.”

Although the last part addresses how it helps others (“maximize their success”), it’s still self-serving rather than showcasing why the company exists and the impact it creates on others (employees, society, community, etc.)

Amazon's Core Values

Amazon has a long list of core values that are called Leadership Principles.

This set of core values explains what the company demands from every employee – all are expected to be leaders.

Originally, Amazon had 10 Leadership Principles that defined its unique way of thinking and working. Over time, some were updated and more were added. These values are used in job interviews, taught in orientations, and assessed in performance reviews.

Currently, Amazon has 14 Leadership Principles:

1. Customer Obsession. Leaders start with the customer and work backwards. Although leaders pay attention to competition, they obsess over customers.

2. Ownership. Leaders are owners. They don’t sacrifice long-term value for short-term results. They never say, “that’s not my job.”

3. Invent and simplify. Leaders demand and expect innovation from their teams. They always find ways to simplify things. Leaders are externally aware; they are not limited by “not invented here.”

4. Are right, a lot. Leaders have good judgment and strong instincts. They seek diverse perspectives and work to disconfirm their beliefs.

5. Learn and be curious. Leaders are never done learning. They are curious about new possibilities and act to explore them.

6. Hire and develop the best. Leaders raise the performance bar. With every hire and promotion, they recognize exceptional talent. Leaders develop and take seriously their role in coaching people.

7. Insist on the highest standards. Leaders have relentlessly high standards that some might find unreasonable high. They are continually raising the bar to deliver high-quality products, services, and processes. Leaders ensure mistakes are fixed, not sent down the line.

8. Think big. Thinking small is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Leaders communicate a bold direction that inspires bold results. They think different and look for new ways to serve customers.

9. Bias for action. Speed matters. Many decisions are reversible and do not need extensive study. Leaders value calculated risk-taking.

10. Frugality. Accomplish more with less. Constraints breed resourcefulness, self-sufficiency, and invention. There are no extra points for increasing budgets or spending more.

11. Earn trust. Leaders listen attentively, speak candidly, and treat others with respect. They are self-critical, even when it feels uncomfortable. Leaders do not believe their or their team’s body odor smells of perfume.

12. Dive deep. Leaders operate at all levels, stay connected to the details, audit frequently, and are skeptical when metrics and anecdotes differ.

13. Have backbone. disagree and commit. Leaders are obligated to respectfully challenge decisions when they disagree. Leaders have conviction and are tenacious. They don’t compromise for the sake of social cohesion.

14. Deliver results. Leaders focus on the key inputs for their business and deliver them with the right quality and in a timely fashion.

Amazon's cultural priorities

Amazon’s culture is all about the big picture: the company measures things based on the systemic impact, not just short-term or individual results.

Bezos has joked about Amazon’s investment in Hollywood: “When we win a Golden Globe, it helps us sell more shoes.”

Amazon’s top three even over statement priorities are:

Long-term value creation even over short-term results (a year is definitely short-term in Amazon’s playbook).

Speed even over perfection

High performance even over harmony

Behaviors that are rewarded and punished at Amazon

One of Bezos’s most conspicuous traits is consistency. He understands that culture is about the behaviors you consistently reward or punish.

Bezos attached the 1997 shareholder letter to every letter afterward, as a constant reminder to himself and all stakeholders. Amazon’s success depends on relentlessly focusing on customers, creating long-term value over short-term corporate profit, and making many bold bets.

“This is Day 1 for the Internet,” Bezos wrote on the first shareholder letter, “and, if we execute well, for Amazon.com.”

Amazon punishes/ doesn’t welcome:

  • Giving up
  • Day 2 mentality
  • Bureaucracy
  • Complacency

Amazon rewards/ welcomes:

  • Overall company performance (not individual or team-specific results)
  • Speed
  • Relentlessness
  • Autonomy or the virtues of wandering: “Wandering is an essential counterbalance to efficiency,” Bezos wrote. Once the vision has been articulated, intellectual autonomy encourages innovation and growth.
  • Constraints: At Amazon, limitations are seen as a source of creativity. To quote a senior executive: “One of the only ways out of a tight box is to invent your way out.”
  • Boldness: Amazon Inc.’s employees are encouraged to take risks, such as considering new ideas to do business.

Amazon’s Workplace Emotional Culture

How Amazon promotes psychological safety

Amazon is not exactly known as a warm, caring company. It has an aggressive type of culture that’s competitive and unforgiving. Cold data and tough processes dominate everything.

The company encourages people to be candid, speak up, and address conflict in the open. This approach might work for extroverts and louder voices, but it’s definitely challenging for introverts, women, and minority groups.

Openness and honesty are the norm

Politics are not welcome and people can’t hide behind others. Knowledge and mistakes are shared in the open. Frank conversations are the foundation of day-to-day business. However, many employees feel Amazon has a low level of psychological safety to express their opinions openly.

"Tell me even more candidly," says the nameplate of Bezos' office.

Avoid group thinking

Bezos encourages people to fight conformity and resist conventional thinking – he prefers constructive conflict over harmony. Amazon’s founder likes to challenge others – and to be challenged by his colleagues. However, criticism and disputes should be factually substantiated.

Bezos believes that truth springs forth when ideas and perspectives are banged against each other, sometimes violently.

Respectfully challenge others

One of Amazon’s Leadership Principles states that leaders are “obligated to respectfully challenge decisions when they disagree, even when doing so is uncomfortable or exhausting.”

Employees understand this obligation. As John Rossman wrote in The Amazon Way, “Employees have learned that disagreeing with senior executives is actually beneficial to their careers at Amazon.”

Amazon is not so concerned about employee morale

Instead, the company attracts world-class talent and provides a culture of freedom and responsibility like Netflix does.  

Experimenting is welcomed

Amazon encourages a trial-and-error approach. Jeff Bezos said: “Failure and invention are inseparable twins.” You can’t have learning without making mistakes.

The Amazon Web Services platform was initially launched for internal needs. An unexpected visit from a couple of engineers sparked the “what if we turn it into a revenue-generating service?” question.

AWS is now one of the most profitable Amazon services.

Intellectual humility

A thin line divides Amazon’s Leadership Principles. On the one hand, leaders are supposed to “be right, a lot.” On the other hand, intellectual humility is rewarded. Leaders are never done learning; they seek diverse perspectives to challenge their own beliefs.

According to James Thomson, a manager at Amazon Marketplace, “At most companies, executives like to show how much they know. At Amazon, the focus is on asking the right question. Leadership is trained to poke holes in data.”

Diversity seems problematic

At Amazon, when top executives hear the word diversity, they interpret it to mean “the lowering of standards.” Amazon is a meritocracy based on data, but who decides what gets counted?

The company's challenging and harsh approach to dealing with conflict in the open might not be the best fit for everyone. Also, rigidity might limit career growth opportunities. For example, if all VP meetings happen at 7 a.m., how many mothers can manage it?

Amazon’s meritocracy culture might be an obstacle for diversity. When confronted by CNBC about the lack of diversity among its S-Team (the leadership team), Jeff Bezos dismissed the complaint. Ironically, the latest addition to the S-Team was another white male.

Like most large corporations, Amazon has many employee resource groups such as GLAmazon, an official employee affinity group for gay and lesbian employees, Black Employees Network, and Women in Technology.

However, as I have observed consulting with corporations, without structural changes, ERGs have limited ability to drive actual change.

Amazon’s Culture of Feedback

There’s been a lot of controversy around Amazon’s feedback practices. Many employees believe that its aggressive culture has weaponized feedback, turning it into torture rather than a gift.

The “Anytime Feedback”

This tool enables employees to praise or criticize their coworkers while tracking the performance of employees against set KPIs. The manager knows who sent the message, but the subject of the praise or criticism does not.

According to a report in The New York Times, this tool fuels competition between employees that could be seen as either healthy or cruel. Some Amazon employees have said the tool leads to colleagues teaming up against individuals to bury them.

Over and over, several Amazon spokespersons have denied the claims.  

Organization-Level Review

Once a year, Amazon managers debate the ratings of their subordinates and decide who needs to be fired. This practice is similar to Netflix’s Keeper Test, in which those who are not A-performers are offered a severance package so they can be replaced with a star employee.

Amazon employs a performance appraisal method called stack ranking – or “rank-and-yank” - where employees are ranked and the worst-performing ones are fired. This system is linked to toxic workplace cultures like Microsoft before Satya Nadella.

Every leader is expected to do some team cleansing. Allegedly, some managers at  Amazon throw a “sacrificial lamb” under the bus in order to protect more valuable team members.

Performance Improvement Plan

Amazon uses a Performance Improvement Plan (PIP) – a 3-month period during which underperforming employees are expected to improve and meet the company standards. Those who fail to improve are fired.

In most companies, this process is a self-fulfilled prophecy. In the majority of the cases, people will be fired regardless of whether or not their performance improves.

Consistent with its approach to conflict management, Amazon believes that everyone should be able to defend their point of view. However, insiders say the overly aggressive environment is not conducive to turning around unfair situations.

Connections program

This internal climate survey measures engagement and job satisfaction. Once again, it seems there’s a disconnect between what management sees and what people observe.

Jeff Bezos recently bragged about the employee survey results: 95% of people would recommend working there to a friend. However, Amazon workers pushed back on the narrative. Many employees believe the results are far from reality.

Several Amazon employees told Recode that many do not answer Connections questions honestly because they fear their responses are not truly anonymous – they fear retaliation. Others shared that their managers pressured them to answer questions favorably.

Amazon’s Rituals

It’s no surprise that, as part of being an aggressive type of culture, Amazon doesn’t have many team rituals. Here’s a list of a few rituals people practice.

Rite of passage

New hires go through a challenging multi-month immersion process to learn how to become an Amazonian. Over time, following meetings, decision-making, and feedback practices becomes second nature.

Press Release

Jeff Bezos requires Amazon’s leaders to perform this powerful ritual before launching anything. When John Rossman joined the company, he was required to write a press release for Amazon Marketplace six months before launching the new business.

The press release is not meant for the public, but to illustrate, motivate, and align his internal team.

"Writing ideas and proposals in complete narratives results in better ideas, more clarity on the ideas, and better conversation on the ideas," Rossman wrote in Think Like Amazon.

Each future press release should follow four rules, according to Rossman:

• Set the release in the future

• Start with the customer

• Articulate audacious and clear goals

• Describe the hurdles you’ve overcome

The empty chair

“Your brand is what other people say about you when you’re not in the room” – Jeff Bezos

Bezos uses the symbol of the empty chair to remind executives that the customer always has a seat at the Amazon table. Customers need to know their voices are heard. This ritual reminds everyone of Amazon’s customer obsession.

Superpowers

Performance reviews at Amazon ask employees to name their “superpower.” It’s a great reminder of each member’s contribution to the team.

Amazon’s Culture Design Canvas: The Functional Side

How Teams Make Decisions at Amazon

There are two types of decisions:

To achieve high velocity, Bezos categorizes all decisions into two types:

Type 1 decisions are consequential and (nearly) irreversible. “Type 1 decisions are one-way doors. If you walk through and don’t like what you see on the other side, you can’t get back to where you were before,” Bezos wrote in a 2016 shareholder letter.

Type 1 decisions should be made slowly and methodically, with great deliberation and consultation to ensure a high-quality decision.

Type 2 decisions refer to those that are changeable or reversible – they’re two-way doors. If you’ve made a suboptimal decision, you don’t have to live with the consequences for that long. “You can reopen the door and go back through,” as Bezos wrote.

These decisions can and should be made quickly by high-judgment individuals or small groups. Leaders at Amazon delegate Type 2 decisions to their subordinates.

Speed:

High-velocity is a competitive advantage in today’s world.

In one of his Letter to shareholders, Jeff Bezos explains how Amazon deals with this challenge: “Our senior team is determined to keep our decision-making velocity high. Speed matters in business – plus a high-velocity decision-making environment is more fun too.”

Amazon’s founder acknowledges that his team doesn’t have all the answers. The company culture is based on the idea that decision-making is a not-so-perfect process. Making effective decisions is not about eliminating all risks, but making the right choice with imperfect information.

Bezos believes that most decisions should probably be made with around 70% of the information we wish we had. Waiting for 90% will only slow you down. Acting quickly also requires recognizing issues and course-correcting – to prevent an imperfect decision from turning into a really bad one.

Disagree and commit:

It’s okay to acknowledge that not everyone might be okay with a decision. What’s not okay is not standing behind a call once it’s made.

Amazon uses the “disagree and commit” approach.

Disagreement is helpful, but, at some point, will people gamble with you on it? Will they disagree and commit? No one can predict the outcome of a decision for sure. However, when everyone commits, the odds are on your side.

Leaders should also be prepared to practice this principle themselves, as Bezos did in greenlighting that Amazon Studios original program, even if he originally didn’t buy into the idea.

Bar Raiser Hiring Approach:

Amazon understands that managers cannot just rely on the interviewer’s gut feeling when hiring new people. The Bar Raiser is the name of both a process and the group of individuals who participate in it – every new hire should raise the bar.

Amazon Bar Raisers receive special training. They are not the hiring manager or recruiter, but seasoned employees who can provide a fresh perspective. Bar Raisers are granted full authority to veto any hire – even overriding the hiring manager.

The process prioritizes raising the bar over filling a position.

Once the hiring manager selects a candidate, an in-house interview loop is put in place. Several Bar Raisers are selected – usually five to seven – to conduct thorough and structured interviews. Careful notes are taken, including verbatim, that will be shared when the group gets together to make a final recommendation.

Amazon's Meetings Culture

The two-pizza rule

Amazon has a simple rule to limit the number of attendees at meetings. Jeff Bezos believes ideal meetings are those where two pizzas are enough to feed all participants.

Bezos believes that when a meeting has too many attendees, it becomes a productivity killer. The larger the group, the harder it becomes to gather insights and move fast.

PowerPoints are forbidden

The problem is not presentations, per se, but rather that most presenters and decks are boring. They are not designed for participation, but to share stuff.

Jeff Bezos famously banned PowerPoint decks from Amazon executive meetings. In his 2018 annual letter, he explains why – and, most importantly, why its replacement – the memo – provides more value to participants.

The memo

This document provides a “narrative structure” that’s more compelling than PowerPoint bullet points. The six-page memo has real sentences, verbs, and nouns. It provides readers a clearer perspective, including the background and all the information to make a smart decision.

Writing demands a more linear type of reasoning and thinking. As John Rossman explains wrote on Think Like Amazon, “If you can’t write it out, then you’re not ready to defend it.

Silent meetings

Bezos believes that executives are very good at interrupting. Silent meetings provide a “study hall” atmosphere. During the first 15 or 20 minutes, executives review the 6-page memo in silence. They take notes, write questions, and reflect on the material before engaging in a conversation.

Also, executives usually don’t read materials before a meeting. This practice provides a space for reflection and ensures everyone’s on the same page.

Amazon's Key Norms & Rules

Bezos built Amazon to be an anti-bureaucracy company. That approach manifests in fewer, simpler rules that promote autonomy and define the Amazon way without controlling people.

Working Backwards

This is Amazon’s core principle, as I explained above – the rule of all rules.

“Good intentions don’t work. Mechanisms do”

Rather than relying on inspirational mottos like “try harder” Amazon operates under the idea that recurring mistakes are a system problem, not a people’s issue.

The company relentlessly focuses on improving the underlying conditions that created the problem. Performance is the result of following the “Amazon way.”

The PR/FAQ framework

Writing a Press Release and Frequently Asked Questions are mandatory before any team starts working on a new project. The purpose is to obsessively focus on the customer:

Why will this new product be compelling enough for customers to take action and buy it?

A common question asked by executives is, "so what?" If the PR doesn't describe a product that is definitely better (faster, easier, cheaper) than what already exists, then it’s not worth building.

The PR gives the reader the highlights of the customer experience. The FAQ provides all the key details of the customer experience – and how expensive and challenging it will be to build the product or service.

The PR/FAQ process creates a framework for rapidly iterating. It’s not unusual for an Amazon team to write at least ten drafts of it.

Autonomous teams

CIO Rick Dalzell came up with a model to define how successful and agile teams should operate at Amazon. Autonomous teams are small (less than 10 people), shouldn’t need to coordinate with other teams, and should be monitored in real-time, be self-funding, and act like business owners.

When the original team model fell short, Amazon evolved into a better approach: single-threaded leader (STL) teams.

When innovation is one of the many tasks for a team, innovation is squeezed into their work schedule – usually with bad results. As Amazon's SVP of devices, Dave Limp, said, "The best way to fail at inventing something is by making it somebody's part-time job."

A single-threaded leader can manage a small team or lead something as significant as Amazon Echo. They have the freedom and autonomy to assess opportunities, prioritize actions, define roles and responsibilities, and fill open positions.

Autonomous teams must have a well-defined purpose and be approved in advance by the S-Team.

Insane rules for Amazon warehouse employees

This unwritten rule seems to be more pervasive than Amazon executives want to admit. Multiple private investigations and journalist exposés have uncovered the crazy rules warehouse employees and drivers have to follow. I heard it, too, from the people I interviewed for this analysis.

Employees must work long, back to back hourswithout catching a break. They’re only allowed to have two 30-minute breaks per day, including bathroom breaks. Even worse, people are expected to work crazy shifts, especially during the holiday season.

Summarizing Amazon’s Culture Design Canvas

Amazon's “Working Backwards” unique organizational culture has both fans and detractors. What seems an aggressive, high-performance culture for some is dubbed “purposeful Darwinism” to others.

Pushy, aggressive cultures are usually perceived as outdated. However, both Amazon and Netflix prove this belief wrong.

When discussing the different types of culture – to define current and desired – with our clients or workshop participants, this question always comes up: Is there a right culture? How much is too much?

I think that both Amazon and Netflix take high performance to the extreme.

The purpose of sharing Amazon’s culture is neither to encourage you to attack it, nor to copy it.

Rather than trying to be like Amazon (or not), focus on the lessons you can apply to your organization.

Do you want to codify your current culture and uncover what’s possible? Reach out, and let’s talk about how we can help you map and assess your culture – and design the future state.

Upgrade Your Culture Design Skills

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Review other Examples of Thriving Company Cultures

Key Sources Used for Mapping Amazon’s Culture

Interviews with current and former employees

Jeff Bezos letters to shareholders

Working Backwards by Colin Bryar and Bill Carr

Think Like Amazon by John Rossman

When Jeff Bezos's 2-Pizza Teams Fell Short, He Turned to the Brilliant Model Amazon Uses Today

Inside Amazon - New York Times

The Future Startup Dossier: Amazon

There’s a Website Just for Upset Amazon Employees to Post Reviews, and its Organizers Want a Union.

Amazon employees say you should be skeptical of Jeff Bezos’s worker satisfaction stat

Elements of Amazon’s Day 1 Culture

Jeff Bezos requires Amazon’s leaders to perform this powerful ritual before launching anything

Jeff Bezos’ Master Plan

Amazon Must Be Stopped

Life at Amazon – not for everyone

Andy Jassy officially takes over as Amazon CEO from Jeff Bezos

15 Insane Rules Amazon Warehouse Employees Have to Follow

Article by Gustavo Razzetti, CEO of Fearless Culture

Gustavo facilitates courageous conversations that drive culture transformation. He is a sought-after speaker, culture consultant, and best-selling author of the book Remote, Not Distant.

Razzetti is also the creator of the Culture Design Canvas – a visual and practical method for intentionally designing workplace culture. His insights were featured in Psychology Today, The New York Times, Forbes, and BBC.

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