Dave Clark's Departure Shows Amazon Is Subject to the Same Forces as the Rest Of Us
Dave Clark's Departure Shows Amazon Is Subject to the Same Forces as the Rest Of Us
While there are a lot of things that Amazon has given us, even it can't get away from the fact that the most important thing to the company is not its leadership principles or systems, it's the talent of the people running them.
All the AI in the world is going to optimize an existing system, but it's not going to invent something revolutionary in a changing world.
That's going to come from people.
And Andy Jassy has a big challenge. You certainly don't choose a CEO to have them leave in two years, under any scenario. Particularly someone who helped build the organization which runs a lot of your infrastructure.
Amazon certainly has a lot of talent, but it remains to be seen if there is enough transformational talent to remain relevant to the next generation of consumers.
Which leaves me with more questions than answers:
- Why aren't they being bolder about attacking Google's advertising business? Amazon is known for eCommerce search, but beyond? No one even attempts to attack Google's fortress.
- Google's advertising business is an infinite playground, but Amazon's is more finite. People come to Amazon to buy. People come to Google to get answers to questions. Answers are inifite, products are finite. How far can Amazon's advertising business reasonably expand without disrupting its own retail business?
- How will Amazon solve the distribution problem that they have with Buy With Prime? Buy With Prime's primary goal is to leverage its crown jewel to capture untapped off-Amazon eCommerce margin. But why is the average D2C brand going to trade its independence for a bit of fulfillment speed it could get elsewhere too?
- Can Amazon solve its on-Amazon growth problem? Simply put, the average small Shopify seller is growing faster than the average small Amazon seller.
and most importantly:
- Who is left at Amazon even wrestling with these big questions??
