Andy Jassy Proves His Jeff-Bot Status With First Shareholder Letter

Almost 5,000 words, Andy? Seriously?

I still believe one of the enduring legacies of Amazon will be its leadership principles and training. Few companies work like this and actually have any principles at all for "how" innovation happens.

Amazon does.

The biggest?

Don't give new projects to mature teams. New projects can't compete with mature ones.

Amazon's principle of single-threaded teams with an accountable owner is a simple yet effective idea. That coupled with the idea to innovate/move fast and give these teams broad latitude on "two-way door" decisions that can be reversed if they prove wrong, is one of the core tenets that Amazon does so well.

Andy Jassy understands this. So many companies don't understand it.

I can't tell you how many >$100M+ companies who don't have an established eCommerce business have simply given eCommerce to their traditional management team and said "figure it out amongst yourselves."

No ownership.

No talent.

No bandwidth.

No goalposts.

These projects don't have a chance in hell. Then IT gets these "requirements" from half-invested business leaders and you wonder why IT is struggling with it -- who btw also has no revenue accountability.

It's very popular in Product world to start with "why". We like to have a reason. In new initiatives, I tend to think that's the wrong place to start.

Always start with "who". Your core talent will define the direction of an initiative. Given them responsibility, clear the deck, and get out of the way.

Don't give this team a "why". tbh, the why is obvious for most brands. Even if you have the why, that's not enough.

You need the who. Try this exercise within your company. Pick any initiative that everyone knows will be important in 3-5 years. Can you name the SINGLE accountable owner?

Employees can ask this, but they are often not successful.

You know who actually needs to ask this more than anyone?

Boards of Directors.

This holds weak CEOs accountable for understanding how a real plan can be put together for something important.

More on the podcast - not this Monday but the following one :)