How Amazon Innovates
Good writing is good thinking, even for the world’s most powerful tech company
In 2014, Stephenie Landry was finishing up her one-year stint as technical adviser to Jeff Wilke, who oversees Amazon’s worldwide consumer business, which is a mentor program that allows high potential executives to shadow a senior leader and learn firsthand. Her next assignment would define her career.
At most companies, an up-and-comer like Landry might be given a division to run or work on a big acquisition deal. Amazon, however, is a different kind of place. Landry wrote a memo outlining plans for a new service she’d been thinking about, Prime Now, which today offers one-hour delivery to customers in over 50 cities across nine countries.
It’s no secret that Amazon is one of the world’s most innovative companies. Starting out as a niche service selling books online, it’s now not only a dominant retailer but a pioneer of new categories like cloud computing and smart speakers. The key to its success is not any one process, but how it integrates a customer obsession deep within its culture and practice.
Starting With the Customer and Working Back
At the heart of how Amazon innovates is its six-page memo, which is required at the start of every new…
