[{"_1":2,"_3":-5,"_4":-5},"loaderData",{"_5":6,"_7":8},"actionData","errors","root",{"_139":-5,"_140":-5,"_141":142,"_143":144,"_145":146},"routes/clips.$id.$slug",{"_9":10,"_11":12},"clip",{"_13":14,"_15":16,"_17":-5,"_18":19,"_20":-5,"_21":22,"_23":24,"_25":26,"_27":28,"_29":30,"_31":32,"_33":34,"_35":36,"_37":38,"_39":40,"_41":-5,"_42":-5,"_43":-5,"_44":45,"_46":-5,"_47":48,"_49":50,"_51":-5},"canonicalUrl","https://howleaderslead.com/clips/2890/how-to-start-big-projects-with-clarity","id",2890,"title","How to start big projects with clarity","subtitle","transcript","WEBVTT\n\n1\n00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.160\nBefore we write code, we do these working backwards documents.\n\n2\n00:00:05.160 --> 00:00:06.520\nThere are two main documents.\n\n3\n00:00:06.520 --> 00:00:11.360\nOne is a press release and the other is a frequently asked questions document.\n\n4\n00:00:11.360 --> 00:00:15.840\nAnd the press release is designed to make sure that we try to write a\n\n5\n00:00:15.840 --> 00:00:19.120\nforeword on the press release and what we want to announce the day we launched\n\n6\n00:00:19.120 --> 00:00:21.280\nthis product that we're thinking about building.\n\n7\n00:00:21.280 --> 00:00:26.200\nAnd what it makes you do is it makes you really think about what are you\n\n8\n00:00:26.200 --> 00:00:27.200\nproviding?\n\n9\n00:00:27.200 --> 00:00:30.480\nHow's it differentiated from what's out there today?\n\n10\n00:00:30.480 --> 00:00:32.960\nAnd why will it be remarkable when you launch it?\n\n11\n00:00:32.960 --> 00:00:37.200\nBecause we've all been a part of products, or at least I have, where you get to\n\n12\n00:00:37.200 --> 00:00:37.280\nthe\n\n13\n00:00:37.280 --> 00:00:41.200\nvery end and you go to announce it and you think like, why do we think anyone\n\n14\n00:00:41.200 --> 00:00:41.360\nwas\n\n15\n00:00:41.360 --> 00:00:42.320\ngoing to care about this?\n\n16\n00:00:42.320 --> 00:00:43.680\nLike, what's remarkable about this?\n\n17\n00:00:43.680 --> 00:00:47.440\nSo it really forces you to have something that you believe matters.\n\n18\n00:00:47.440 --> 00:00:52.320\nAnd then I think the frequently asked questions document is really useful\n\n19\n00:00:52.320 --> 00:00:53.680\nbecause\n\n20\n00:00:53.680 --> 00:00:58.480\nwe force people to figure out ahead of time how they're going to build the\n\n21\n00:00:58.480 --> 00:00:59.440\nproduct and why.\n\n22\n00:00:59.440 --> 00:01:03.440\nSo it's who you build the product for, what's their problem you're trying to\n\n23\n00:01:03.440 --> 00:01:04.320\nsolve, how does\n\n24\n00:01:04.320 --> 00:01:08.480\nthis really solve the problem, why does where you're drawing the line at launch\n\n25\n00:01:08.480 --> 00:01:09.760\nfor V1,\n\n26\n00:01:09.760 --> 00:01:13.540\nwhy is it enough functionality that people will care about, what are people\n\n27\n00:01:13.540 --> 00:01:14.080\ngoing to be most\n\n28\n00:01:14.080 --> 00:01:18.360\ndisappointed about when you launch V1, what are they going to be saying, you\n\n29\n00:01:18.360 --> 00:01:19.120\nknow, doesn't work\n\n30\n00:01:19.120 --> 00:01:23.520\nin the product and are we okay launching it before we get those pieces?\n\n31\n00:01:23.520 --> 00:01:27.360\nHow are we going to price it and what dimensions, what will people love most\n\n32\n00:01:27.360 --> 00:01:28.000\nabout it, what will\n\n33\n00:01:28.000 --> 00:01:33.520\npeople dislike, how does it compare to what's out there competitive, what's the\n\n34\n00:01:33.520 --> 00:01:34.080\narchitecture\n\n35\n00:01:34.080 --> 00:01:38.400\nyou're going to build and why, all the questions that force you to really think\n\n36\n00:01:38.400 --> 00:01:39.280\nthrough the product\n\n37\n00:01:39.280 --> 00:01:43.130\nso that when we get through the working backwards set of documents, which takes\n\n38\n00:01:43.130 --> 00:01:43.840\nus typically\n\n39\n00:01:44.480 --> 00:01:48.620\ntwo, three, four drafts of that, by that time we don't have to check in with\n\n40\n00:01:48.620 --> 00:01:49.520\nthe team again,\n\n41\n00:01:49.520 --> 00:01:52.400\nlike they know what they're building, they know there's a dynamic set of\n\n42\n00:01:52.400 --> 00:01:53.360\ndocuments so they keep\n\n43\n00:01:53.360 --> 00:01:56.730\nupdating them as they learn more as they're building the product but it\n\n44\n00:01:56.730 --> 00:01:58.160\nactually it takes kind of a\n\n45\n00:01:58.160 --> 00:02:04.000\nhalf step back to allow teams to move two steps faster and so and I think we\n\n46\n00:02:04.000 --> 00:02:05.440\nhit the mark not all\n\n47\n00:02:05.440 --> 00:02:09.730\nthe time but much more frequently with customers than I think other processes\n\n48\n00:02:09.730 --> 00:02:10.160\ndo.\n","pretty_transcript","start_time",1919223,"end_time",2049659,"keywords","Clarity, customer experience, working backward document, press release, FAQ, product development, operations","slug","how-to-start-big-projects-with-clarity","origin","cms","mux_playback_id","WG6HP02uVuim6Yrv3K9SXJx00G51O00N01ViZLPEAvZx4cY","mux_asset_id","vcP12MKQVasbHsW02VdRiAzZ4rWc5qdAPgm7kAgGwDn00","leader_id",227,"episode_id",379,"updated_at","2025-05-15T15:44:11.000000Z","meta_title","meta_description","og_image_media_id","web_url","https://www.howleaderslead.com/clips/2890/how-to-start-big-projects-with-clarity","og_image_url","leader",{"_13":36,"_103":104,"_105":106,"_107":108,"_25":109,"_110":111,"_62":112,"_59":112,"_113":114,"_69":115,"_39":116,"_117":-5,"_41":-5,"_42":-5,"_43":-5,"_118":119,"_91":120,"_44":121,"_122":123,"_124":125,"_46":-5,"_126":127,"_128":129,"_95":130,"_51":-5},"episode",{"_13":38,"_15":52,"_27":53,"_17":54,"_55":56,"_18":57,"_20":58,"_59":60,"_61":-5,"_62":60,"_63":-5,"_64":65,"_66":67,"_68":-5,"_69":-5,"_70":71,"_72":73,"_74":75,"_35":36,"_39":76,"_41":-5,"_42":-5,"_43":-5,"_77":78,"_79":80,"_81":82,"_83":84,"_85":-5,"_86":-5,"_87":88,"_89":90,"_91":-5,"_46":-5,"_92":93,"_94":-5,"_95":-5,"_51":-5},"og_image_media","Start with the customer and work backward","start-with-the-customer-and-work-backward","Learn strategies that help you put customers at the heart of how you work. Discover a framework to delegate decisions well. Plus, hear Andy’s takes on generative AI, post-pandemic work culture, and more.","summary","

It’s easy to say you care about customers. But how do you actually make decisions with them in mind?

In this episode, David sits down with Amazon CEO Andy Jassy for a behind-the-scenes look at how one of the world’s biggest companies keeps customer focus at the heart of everything, from product launches to leadership culture.

You’ll also learn:

The two documents you need before you launch anything big
What it’s like to shadow Jeff Bezos in every meeting
A simple framework to help you delegate the right decisions
Why Andy thinks AI will reinvent customer experience as we know it

","WEBVTT\n\n1\n00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.390\nThere is this very strong force inside the company that we're here to make\n\n2\n00:00:05.390 --> 00:00:05.680\ncustomers\n\n3\n00:00:05.680 --> 00:00:07.800\nlives easier and better every day.\n\n4\n00:00:07.800 --> 00:00:12.160\nAnd a lot of companies talk about it, not that many really live it.\n\n5\n00:00:12.160 --> 00:00:23.440\nAnd Amazon is a company that really lives it every day.\n\n6\n00:00:23.440 --> 00:00:26.790\nYou know, a lot of leaders say they put customers first, but today you're going\n\n7\n00:00:26.790 --> 00:00:27.400\nto see what\n\n8\n00:00:27.400 --> 00:00:31.600\nit really looks like when that mindset drives every decision.\n\n9\n00:00:31.600 --> 00:00:33.000\nWelcome to How Leaders Lead.\n\n10\n00:00:33.000 --> 00:00:36.910\nI'm David Novak and every week I have conversations with the very best leaders\n\n11\n00:00:36.910 --> 00:00:37.640\nin the world to\n\n12\n00:00:37.640 --> 00:00:40.440\nhelp you become the best leader you can be.\n\n13\n00:00:40.440 --> 00:00:44.000\nMy guest today is Andy Jassy, the CEO of Amazon.\n\n14\n00:00:44.000 --> 00:00:47.780\nHe's been with the company for 28 years and he's the guy who built and led\n\n15\n00:00:47.780 --> 00:00:48.400\nAmazon Web\n\n16\n00:00:48.400 --> 00:00:52.640\nServices before succeeding Jeff Bezos as CEO in 2021.\n\n17\n00:00:52.640 --> 00:00:57.560\nNow listen, it's not easy to lead one of the biggest companies in the world,\n\n18\n00:00:57.560 --> 00:00:58.160\nnot to mention\n\n19\n00:00:58.160 --> 00:01:01.200\nfollowing an iconic founder like Bezos.\n\n20\n00:01:01.200 --> 00:01:04.920\nBut as you'll see, Andy is more than up for the task.\n\n21\n00:01:04.920 --> 00:01:09.110\nHe's smart, he's curious and he's committed, not just to saying customers\n\n22\n00:01:09.110 --> 00:01:10.480\nmatter, but actually\n\n23\n00:01:10.480 --> 00:01:12.600\noperationalizing it.\n\n24\n00:01:12.600 --> 00:01:15.960\nAndy knows how to start with the customer and then work backwards.\n\n25\n00:01:15.960 --> 00:01:19.330\nAnd if you want to make better decisions and launch better products, you've got\n\n26\n00:01:19.330 --> 00:01:19.680\nto hear\n\n27\n00:01:19.680 --> 00:01:21.280\nthe strategies he shares.\n\n28\n00:01:21.280 --> 00:01:25.900\nPlus, he's got some bold takes on AI and post-bandemic work that are definitely\n\n29\n00:01:25.900 --> 00:01:26.720\ngoing to get your\n\n30\n00:01:26.720 --> 00:01:28.000\nwheels turning.\n\n31\n00:01:28.000 --> 00:01:40.560\nSo here's my conversation with my good friend and soon to be yours, Andy Jassy.\n\n32\n00:01:40.560 --> 00:01:44.600\nI got to ask you this, what was the last thing you bought on Amazon Prime?\n\n33\n00:01:44.600 --> 00:01:52.120\nI buy so much on Amazon Prime, probably either Razer Blades or Bio10.\n\n34\n00:01:52.120 --> 00:01:55.840\nI buy so many of my everyday essentials from Amazon just because the selection\n\n35\n00:01:55.840 --> 00:01:56.440\nis so broad\n\n36\n00:01:56.440 --> 00:01:58.840\nand the delivery is so fast and so convenient.\n\n37\n00:01:58.840 --> 00:02:00.680\nSo it's probably the last two.\n\n38\n00:02:00.680 --> 00:02:05.730\nYeah, well, I tell you what, my household is continually bombarded by Amazon\n\n39\n00:02:05.730 --> 00:02:06.440\nand we love\n\n40\n00:02:06.440 --> 00:02:07.440\nit.\n\n41\n00:02:07.440 --> 00:02:08.440\nIt's such a great service.\n\n42\n00:02:08.440 --> 00:02:09.440\nBless you, David.\n\n43\n00:02:09.440 --> 00:02:10.440\nThank you.\n\n44\n00:02:10.440 --> 00:02:11.440\nBless me and everybody else in the world.\n\n45\n00:02:11.440 --> 00:02:18.160\nYou know, everyone, Andy knows about Amazon, but not everyone knows your whole\n\n46\n00:02:18.160 --> 00:02:19.120\nstory.\n\n47\n00:02:19.120 --> 00:02:22.560\nAnd so I'd like to take you back to just to the beginning.\n\n48\n00:02:22.560 --> 00:02:25.940\nWhat's the story from your childhood that's really shaped the kind of leader\n\n49\n00:02:25.940 --> 00:02:26.560\nthat you are\n\n50\n00:02:26.560 --> 00:02:27.560\ntoday?\n\n51\n00:02:27.560 --> 00:02:31.480\nA lot of my childhood was dominated by sports.\n\n52\n00:02:31.480 --> 00:02:33.520\nI played competitive tennis.\n\n53\n00:02:33.520 --> 00:02:37.360\nI played that junior national circuit and I played soccer.\n\n54\n00:02:37.360 --> 00:02:43.280\nAnd I would say on the tennis side, it was actually kind of a hard way to grow\n\n55\n00:02:43.280 --> 00:02:43.840\nup.\n\n56\n00:02:43.840 --> 00:02:45.960\nIt's such a intense sport.\n\n57\n00:02:45.960 --> 00:02:49.520\nIt's so individual focused when you lose.\n\n58\n00:02:49.520 --> 00:02:51.680\nThere's nobody to blame but yourself.\n\n59\n00:02:51.680 --> 00:02:54.800\nWhen you win, there's no one to really celebrate with but yourself and growing\n\n60\n00:02:54.800 --> 00:02:55.360\nup in the east\n\n61\n00:02:55.360 --> 00:03:01.200\ncoast, I also felt like the parental environment around tennis was very intense\n\n62\n00:03:01.200 --> 00:03:01.520\n.\n\n63\n00:03:01.520 --> 00:03:04.930\nBut you know, tennis taught me a lot of lessons that have really helped me\n\n64\n00:03:04.930 --> 00:03:06.000\nlater in my life.\n\n65\n00:03:06.000 --> 00:03:11.490\nIt taught me what hard work looks like and what happens when you don't work\n\n66\n00:03:11.490 --> 00:03:12.240\nhard.\n\n67\n00:03:12.240 --> 00:03:15.680\nIt taught me really how to be focused in the moment.\n\n68\n00:03:15.680 --> 00:03:21.090\nYou know, when you get to competitive levels in tennis, all the matches are won\n\n69\n00:03:21.090 --> 00:03:21.680\nby like\n\n70\n00:03:21.680 --> 00:03:23.720\n15 to 20 points during the match.\n\n71\n00:03:23.720 --> 00:03:28.380\nSo you just have to have the ability to be laser focused in the moments that\n\n72\n00:03:28.380 --> 00:03:28.920\nmatter.\n\n73\n00:03:28.920 --> 00:03:31.480\nIt taught me how to move on.\n\n74\n00:03:31.480 --> 00:03:36.700\nYou know, when you can play a tennis tournament and you can have the best win\n\n75\n00:03:36.700 --> 00:03:37.600\nof your year\n\n76\n00:03:37.600 --> 00:03:42.040\nat 9 a.m. and then go out at 2 p.m. and play another match and it's all gone.\n\n77\n00:03:42.040 --> 00:03:45.660\nSo you have to be able to move on from success really quickly and from failure\n\n78\n00:03:45.660 --> 00:03:46.640\nvery quickly.\n\n79\n00:03:46.640 --> 00:03:49.930\nBecause the other thing is when you play tennis at a competitive level, you\n\n80\n00:03:49.930 --> 00:03:50.600\nrarely win the\n\n81\n00:03:50.600 --> 00:03:51.600\ntournament.\n\n82\n00:03:51.600 --> 00:03:56.400\nSo it means you actually lose almost every single time that you play.\n\n83\n00:03:56.400 --> 00:04:04.190\nYou know, and then it did teach me as well that you have to find a way to be\n\n84\n00:04:04.190 --> 00:04:05.120\ngood to\n\n85\n00:04:05.120 --> 00:04:07.120\nyourself even when things go wrong.\n\n86\n00:04:07.120 --> 00:04:12.120\nYou know, like we all plan so hard and work so hard and no matter what happens\n\n87\n00:04:12.120 --> 00:04:12.920\nsometimes,\n\n88\n00:04:12.920 --> 00:04:14.760\nit just doesn't work out.\n\n89\n00:04:14.760 --> 00:04:18.860\nAnd if you're competitive and have high standards, you have to live with that\n\n90\n00:04:18.860 --> 00:04:20.000\nand then you have\n\n91\n00:04:20.000 --> 00:04:22.760\nto find a way to give yourself a little bit of a break.\n\n92\n00:04:22.760 --> 00:04:26.100\nAnd you know, I learned those things I would say from tennis which have been\n\n93\n00:04:26.100 --> 00:04:26.720\nhelpful.\n\n94\n00:04:26.720 --> 00:04:31.270\nAnd you know, I would say that one lesson I would say from my soccer life,\n\n95\n00:04:31.270 --> 00:04:31.760\nwhich really\n\n96\n00:04:31.760 --> 00:04:37.480\ninvolved my dad who's probably the person on this planet that I most respect.\n\n97\n00:04:37.480 --> 00:04:41.160\nAnd you know, as a kid, I really kind of worship my dad.\n\n98\n00:04:41.160 --> 00:04:42.160\nI still do.\n\n99\n00:04:42.160 --> 00:04:48.380\nBut I remember I went to a soccer game, my younger brothers and I was driving\n\n100\n00:04:48.380 --> 00:04:48.960\nmy dad\n\n101\n00:04:48.960 --> 00:04:50.460\ncrazy.\n\n102\n00:04:50.460 --> 00:04:51.460\nAnd just being antsy.\n\n103\n00:04:51.460 --> 00:04:55.280\nAnd he said, well, why don't you go run a mile around the track?\n\n104\n00:04:55.280 --> 00:04:59.160\nThe field was inside of a quarter mile track.\n\n105\n00:04:59.160 --> 00:05:03.320\nAnd so I went and I ran it really slowly, but I ran it and I got back and I\n\n106\n00:05:03.320 --> 00:05:03.880\nsaid to\n\n107\n00:05:03.880 --> 00:05:05.720\nmy dad, I said, see, I did it.\n\n108\n00:05:05.720 --> 00:05:08.840\nAnd he said, if you're going to run like that, why bother running?\n\n109\n00:05:08.840 --> 00:05:11.680\nLike, if you're going to do something, do it.\n\n110\n00:05:11.680 --> 00:05:16.080\nAnd he doesn't really remember that story, but that story always stuck with me\n\n111\n00:05:16.080 --> 00:05:16.520\nthat if\n\n112\n00:05:16.520 --> 00:05:21.120\nyou're going to do something, whatever it is, do it and do it to your fullest\n\n113\n00:05:21.120 --> 00:05:21.660\nor don't\n\n114\n00:05:21.660 --> 00:05:22.660\ndo it.\n\n115\n00:05:22.660 --> 00:05:24.420\nAnd so those were good lessons for me.\n\n116\n00:05:24.420 --> 00:05:26.420\nThat was a great story.\n\n117\n00:05:26.420 --> 00:05:31.700\nAnd Andy, I understand that you actually wanted to be a sports caster early on.\n\n118\n00:05:31.700 --> 00:05:32.700\nI did.\n\n119\n00:05:32.700 --> 00:05:36.380\nYou know, I loved, you know, I watched the movie, Broadcast News.\n\n120\n00:05:36.380 --> 00:05:37.980\nHave you ever seen that movie?\n\n121\n00:05:37.980 --> 00:05:38.980\nAbsolutely.\n\n122\n00:05:38.980 --> 00:05:39.980\nThat gave me the bug for TV.\n\n123\n00:05:39.980 --> 00:05:43.210\nAnd then I got an opportunity to work as an intern between my sophomore and\n\n124\n00:05:43.210 --> 00:05:43.660\nJune years\n\n125\n00:05:43.660 --> 00:05:48.050\nin college, which I then did for three years working for a startup morning show\n\n126\n00:05:48.050 --> 00:05:48.480\nin New\n\n127\n00:05:48.480 --> 00:05:50.080\nYork called Good Day New York.\n\n128\n00:05:50.080 --> 00:05:53.490\nI started about a month and a half before it went to air and I just, I loved\n\n129\n00:05:53.490 --> 00:05:54.200\neverything\n\n130\n00:05:54.200 --> 00:05:55.200\nabout it.\n\n131\n00:05:55.200 --> 00:05:57.440\nI loved the rush of live TV.\n\n132\n00:05:57.440 --> 00:06:03.040\nI love just the imperfections of live TV and the things that go wrong are often\n\n133\n00:06:03.040 --> 00:06:03.540\nsome\n\n134\n00:06:03.540 --> 00:06:05.200\nof the most amusing moments.\n\n135\n00:06:05.200 --> 00:06:08.040\nSo I, you know, I thought I wanted to be a sports caster.\n\n136\n00:06:08.040 --> 00:06:13.840\nI sent my reel to, I don't know, 80 markets around the country, small markets.\n\n137\n00:06:13.840 --> 00:06:15.780\nI only got two offers.\n\n138\n00:06:15.780 --> 00:06:19.100\nThey were in places I just couldn't bring myself to move to.\n\n139\n00:06:19.100 --> 00:06:23.920\nAnd I went and worked at ABC Sports initially as a production assistant.\n\n140\n00:06:23.920 --> 00:06:27.640\nAnd back then when there were way fewer places to be that were broadcasting\n\n141\n00:06:27.640 --> 00:06:28.440\nlive sports,\n\n142\n00:06:28.440 --> 00:06:32.320\nthat was kind of the end of my sports cast and career was moving to production.\n\n143\n00:06:32.320 --> 00:06:34.960\nWell, how'd you land at Amazon?\n\n144\n00:06:34.960 --> 00:06:40.240\nI went from doing this, you know, working at ABC Sports to working at a direct\n\n145\n00:06:40.240 --> 00:06:41.040\nmarketing\n\n146\n00:06:41.040 --> 00:06:45.360\ncompany that a couple of Procter and Gamble guys spun out.\n\n147\n00:06:45.360 --> 00:06:47.640\nIt was really a great general management experience.\n\n148\n00:06:47.640 --> 00:06:52.440\nThey did direct marketing of continuity series, collectibles.\n\n149\n00:06:52.440 --> 00:06:54.160\nAnd I learned a lot doing that.\n\n150\n00:06:54.160 --> 00:06:58.110\nAnd then I got a little bit bored with the subject matter and I tried a couple\n\n151\n00:06:58.110 --> 00:06:58.400\nof my\n\n152\n00:06:58.400 --> 00:07:02.450\nown businesses that I would say went middling, but it, they weren't what I\n\n153\n00:07:02.450 --> 00:07:03.560\nwanted to do long\n\n154\n00:07:03.560 --> 00:07:04.880\nterm.\n\n155\n00:07:04.880 --> 00:07:10.170\nSo I went back to business school and when I was at business school, I thought\n\n156\n00:07:10.170 --> 00:07:10.760\nthat I\n\n157\n00:07:10.760 --> 00:07:12.600\nwould probably start my own business again.\n\n158\n00:07:12.600 --> 00:07:14.120\nThat's really what I wanted to do.\n\n159\n00:07:14.120 --> 00:07:18.920\nAnd I had written this field study with a few friends from school on building a\n\n160\n00:07:18.920 --> 00:07:19.400\nmusic\n\n161\n00:07:19.400 --> 00:07:23.800\nmanagement slash label company that we called Kate Shakers.\n\n162\n00:07:23.800 --> 00:07:27.360\nWe had a band that we were managing at the time in Boston called Tutan Shoo and\n\n163\n00:07:27.360 --> 00:07:27.680\nthat\n\n164\n00:07:27.680 --> 00:07:29.200\nwas going to be the first band in this thing.\n\n165\n00:07:29.200 --> 00:07:35.060\nI was going to do one of my partners and his wife very appropriately said, we\n\n166\n00:07:35.060 --> 00:07:35.680\n're not spending\n\n167\n00:07:35.680 --> 00:07:37.400\nall this money and going into debt.\n\n168\n00:07:37.400 --> 00:07:40.800\nSo you can start like a music label company with Andy.\n\n169\n00:07:40.800 --> 00:07:43.560\nSo he, he decided not to do it.\n\n170\n00:07:43.560 --> 00:07:46.930\nAnd then I decided I would probably go work at a company, try and pay back some\n\n171\n00:07:46.930 --> 00:07:47.360\ndebt and\n\n172\n00:07:47.360 --> 00:07:48.640\nI could learn a lot.\n\n173\n00:07:48.640 --> 00:07:50.040\nAnd I, you know, it's funny.\n\n174\n00:07:50.040 --> 00:07:55.960\nI went to the Bay Area for a last round interview at a technology company.\n\n175\n00:07:55.960 --> 00:07:58.680\nI took a red eye back to Boston.\n\n176\n00:07:58.680 --> 00:08:03.280\nI hardly ever checked my answering machine, but my wife was at, and then my fan\n\n177\n00:08:03.280 --> 00:08:03.880\nsay was\n\n178\n00:08:03.880 --> 00:08:04.880\nat work.\n\n179\n00:08:04.880 --> 00:08:09.120\nSo I checked it and there was this woman who came on and said, look, I found\n\n180\n00:08:09.120 --> 00:08:09.920\nyour resume\n\n181\n00:08:09.920 --> 00:08:11.440\nin the resume book.\n\n182\n00:08:11.440 --> 00:08:13.640\nI have a cancellation at 9 a.m.\n\n183\n00:08:13.640 --> 00:08:14.640\nI'm not going to fill it.\n\n184\n00:08:14.640 --> 00:08:15.840\nYou can come or you can not come.\n\n185\n00:08:15.840 --> 00:08:16.840\nIt's your call.\n\n186\n00:08:16.840 --> 00:08:17.840\nIt was this woman from Amazon.\n\n187\n00:08:17.840 --> 00:08:20.040\nI didn't even really know Amazon at that time.\n\n188\n00:08:20.040 --> 00:08:26.320\nThis was probably, this was March of 1997.\n\n189\n00:08:26.320 --> 00:08:28.840\nBut I was leaving that morning at 11.\n\n190\n00:08:28.840 --> 00:08:31.800\nI was driving with my friend to go see a concert in New York and then go on\n\n191\n00:08:31.800 --> 00:08:32.640\nspring break.\n\n192\n00:08:32.640 --> 00:08:33.640\nSo I had this window.\n\n193\n00:08:33.640 --> 00:08:35.440\nI said, oh, I'll go to the interview.\n\n194\n00:08:35.440 --> 00:08:36.440\nI went to the interview.\n\n195\n00:08:36.440 --> 00:08:38.160\nI loved the person I met.\n\n196\n00:08:38.160 --> 00:08:40.200\nI got asked to come to Seattle.\n\n197\n00:08:40.200 --> 00:08:42.600\nI really liked the people I met in Seattle.\n\n198\n00:08:42.600 --> 00:08:47.840\nAnd my then fiance now wife, we had met on the East Coast, but she really, she\n\n199\n00:08:47.840 --> 00:08:48.320\n's from\n\n200\n00:08:48.320 --> 00:08:52.320\nLA and she wanted to live closer to her family for a couple of years.\n\n201\n00:08:52.320 --> 00:08:56.280\nAnd our plan was, which we, we wrote, we agreed on a napkin and a bar.\n\n202\n00:08:56.280 --> 00:08:59.570\nThat we would be in on the West Coast for two to three years and then moved\n\n203\n00:08:59.570 --> 00:09:00.060\nback to New\n\n204\n00:09:00.060 --> 00:09:01.060\nYork City.\n\n205\n00:09:01.060 --> 00:09:02.060\nThat was our plan.\n\n206\n00:09:02.060 --> 00:09:07.720\nAnd so I got this job at Amazon and I was really excited about the idea of it.\n\n207\n00:09:07.720 --> 00:09:08.720\nI didn't, nobody knew.\n\n208\n00:09:08.720 --> 00:09:11.620\nAnyone who tells you they knew Amazon was going to turn into what Amazon turned\n\n209\n00:09:11.620 --> 00:09:11.920\ninto.\n\n210\n00:09:11.920 --> 00:09:13.680\nIt was just lying to you.\n\n211\n00:09:13.680 --> 00:09:14.840\nNobody knew.\n\n212\n00:09:14.840 --> 00:09:18.700\nBut I did figure that if it didn't work out, it did seem the internet was going\n\n213\n00:09:18.700 --> 00:09:18.960\nto be a\n\n214\n00:09:18.960 --> 00:09:19.960\nbig deal.\n\n215\n00:09:19.960 --> 00:09:22.000\nAnd it did seem that e-commerce was going to be a big deal.\n\n216\n00:09:22.000 --> 00:09:26.450\nSo I would have interesting experience to take back to New York and that was\n\n217\n00:09:26.450 --> 00:09:26.960\nalmost\n\n218\n00:09:26.960 --> 00:09:27.960\n28 years ago.\n\n219\n00:09:27.960 --> 00:09:35.520\nAnd I started here the three days after the last final exam of business school.\n\n220\n00:09:35.520 --> 00:09:37.680\nAnd I've been here for almost 28 years at this point.\n\n221\n00:09:37.680 --> 00:09:41.200\nGot to ask you, did you frame that napkin at the bar?\n\n222\n00:09:41.200 --> 00:09:44.120\nI wish I'd kept the napkin, but I don't have a napkin.\n\n223\n00:09:44.120 --> 00:09:47.330\nAnd my wife has argued that the statute of limitations on that napkin have\n\n224\n00:09:47.330 --> 00:09:47.920\nexpired.\n\n225\n00:09:47.920 --> 00:09:49.080\nSo I'm here.\n\n226\n00:09:49.080 --> 00:09:54.470\nYou know, you've had quite a journey that you've gone from this aspiring sports\n\n227\n00:09:54.470 --> 00:09:55.000\ngaster\n\n228\n00:09:55.000 --> 00:09:58.920\nin the world of sports to the CEO of Amazon.\n\n229\n00:09:58.920 --> 00:10:04.760\nWhat do you think you did differently, Andy, as you approached your career and\n\n230\n00:10:04.760 --> 00:10:05.760\nyou climbed\n\n231\n00:10:05.760 --> 00:10:08.880\nso rapidly within Amazon?\n\n232\n00:10:08.880 --> 00:10:11.080\nWhat advice could you offer up on how to do that?\n\n233\n00:10:11.080 --> 00:10:18.280\nWell, first of all, I feel like my journey or adventure was a lot of luck.\n\n234\n00:10:18.280 --> 00:10:22.720\nAnd I think maybe one of the things I did best was not overthink it.\n\n235\n00:10:22.720 --> 00:10:27.080\nYou know, I have a 21 year old son and a 24 year old daughter.\n\n236\n00:10:27.080 --> 00:10:31.140\nAnd one of the things I see with they and their peers is that they all feel\n\n237\n00:10:31.140 --> 00:10:31.640\nlike they\n\n238\n00:10:31.640 --> 00:10:35.920\nhave to know what they want to do for their life at that age.\n\n239\n00:10:35.920 --> 00:10:37.920\nAnd I really don't believe that's true.\n\n240\n00:10:37.920 --> 00:10:41.040\nYou know, I mean, I mean, look at the path.\n\n241\n00:10:41.040 --> 00:10:44.810\nI wanted to be a sports gaster and then I did sports production, then I was a\n\n242\n00:10:44.810 --> 00:10:45.120\nproduct\n\n243\n00:10:45.120 --> 00:10:49.800\nmanager, you know, then I started two businesses in between, you know, during\n\n244\n00:10:49.800 --> 00:10:50.520\nthat whole interim\n\n245\n00:10:50.520 --> 00:10:54.880\nbefore I went to business school, I tried, I worked at a retail golf store.\n\n246\n00:10:54.880 --> 00:10:57.800\nI coached my, my high school soccer team.\n\n247\n00:10:57.800 --> 00:11:00.080\nI tried investment banking.\n\n248\n00:11:00.080 --> 00:11:02.600\nI tried sales and ad specialty companies.\n\n249\n00:11:02.600 --> 00:11:04.760\nI tried a lot of things.\n\n250\n00:11:04.760 --> 00:11:09.560\nAnd I think that early on, it's just as important to learn what you don't want\n\n251\n00:11:09.560 --> 00:11:10.080\nto do\n\n252\n00:11:10.080 --> 00:11:12.910\nis what you want to do because it actually helps you figure out what you want\n\n253\n00:11:12.910 --> 00:11:13.280\nto do.\n\n254\n00:11:13.280 --> 00:11:17.500\nAnd I went to business school in part thinking when I was doing recruiting at\n\n255\n00:11:17.500 --> 00:11:17.720\nthe end of\n\n256\n00:11:17.720 --> 00:11:19.600\ncollege, I was doing sports casting.\n\n257\n00:11:19.600 --> 00:11:22.150\nSo I didn't do any of the recruiting and I didn't take any of the classes that\n\n258\n00:11:22.150 --> 00:11:22.480\nwould\n\n259\n00:11:22.480 --> 00:11:27.030\nallow me to maybe be an investment banker or do consumer packaged goods or lots\n\n260\n00:11:27.030 --> 00:11:27.840\nof things.\n\n261\n00:11:27.840 --> 00:11:31.900\nI got done with business school and realized after finding the try and all the\n\n262\n00:11:31.900 --> 00:11:32.560\nold things\n\n263\n00:11:32.560 --> 00:11:35.430\nthat I did and didn't like them that I actually wanted to go back and do\n\n264\n00:11:35.430 --> 00:11:36.840\nsomething entrepreneurial.\n\n265\n00:11:36.840 --> 00:11:42.720\nSo I do feel like one of the lucky parts for me was that I tried lots of things\n\n266\n00:11:42.720 --> 00:11:42.920\nand was\n\n267\n00:11:42.920 --> 00:11:46.760\nable to sort for myself what appealed to me and what didn't.\n\n268\n00:11:46.760 --> 00:11:53.660\nI think your attitude is an embarrassing amount of your success or lack thereof\n\n269\n00:11:53.660 --> 00:11:53.720\n.\n\n270\n00:11:53.720 --> 00:11:55.120\nAre you reliable?\n\n271\n00:11:55.120 --> 00:11:56.120\nDo you say what you do?\n\n272\n00:11:56.120 --> 00:11:57.760\nDo you do what you said you were going to do?\n\n273\n00:11:57.760 --> 00:11:59.280\nDo you work hard?\n\n274\n00:11:59.280 --> 00:12:01.600\nDo you like being on teams?\n\n275\n00:12:01.600 --> 00:12:02.920\nAre you trustworthy?\n\n276\n00:12:02.920 --> 00:12:04.440\nAre you a good learner?\n\n277\n00:12:04.440 --> 00:12:08.670\nI feel like those are things that you can control and it's actually amazing to\n\n278\n00:12:08.670 --> 00:12:09.000\nme how\n\n279\n00:12:09.000 --> 00:12:13.200\noften people don't control it but you really can completely control those\n\n280\n00:12:13.200 --> 00:12:13.920\nthings and I\n\n281\n00:12:13.920 --> 00:12:17.720\nfeel like I worked hard those things over time.\n\n282\n00:12:17.720 --> 00:12:21.520\nHey everyone, it's Kula from How Leaders Lead and if you've watched our podcast\n\n283\n00:12:21.520 --> 00:12:21.720\nfor\n\n284\n00:12:21.720 --> 00:12:25.580\nany number of episodes you probably know that a common theme from all of the\n\n285\n00:12:25.580 --> 00:12:26.280\ngreat leaders\n\n286\n00:12:26.280 --> 00:12:29.440\nwe interview is that they are active learners.\n\n287\n00:12:29.440 --> 00:12:33.360\nThey had this commitment to continuing to learn and grow so that they don't say\n\n288\n00:12:33.360 --> 00:12:33.480\na\n\n289\n00:12:33.480 --> 00:12:38.030\nstatement and so that they continue to see success in their leadership and in\n\n290\n00:12:38.030 --> 00:12:38.720\ntheir life.\n\n291\n00:12:38.720 --> 00:12:42.830\nThis theme of active learning is so important and it's what David's latest book\n\n292\n00:12:42.830 --> 00:12:43.600\n, How Leaders\n\n293\n00:12:43.600 --> 00:12:45.440\nLearn is all about.\n\n294\n00:12:45.440 --> 00:12:49.020\nIt's all about helping you develop that skill of active learning so that you\n\n295\n00:12:49.020 --> 00:12:49.840\ntoo can continue\n\n296\n00:12:49.840 --> 00:12:53.000\nto see success in your leadership and in your life.\n\n297\n00:12:53.000 --> 00:12:54.560\nThe book is really entertaining.\n\n298\n00:12:54.560 --> 00:12:58.380\nIt pulls stories from some of our greatest podcast guests and pairs those\n\n299\n00:12:58.380 --> 00:12:59.160\nstories with\n\n300\n00:12:59.160 --> 00:13:03.370\ninsights that you can incorporate into your leadership and into your life right\n\n301\n00:13:03.370 --> 00:13:03.880\naway.\n\n302\n00:13:03.880 --> 00:13:08.040\nGrab how leaders learn on Amazon or wherever books are sold and I think you're\n\n303\n00:13:08.040 --> 00:13:08.360\nreally going\n\n304\n00:13:08.360 --> 00:13:09.360\nto love it.\n\n305\n00:13:09.360 --> 00:13:12.710\nYou feel David's personality through the pages and through history telling and\n\n306\n00:13:12.710 --> 00:13:13.280\nit's a really\n\n307\n00:13:13.280 --> 00:13:16.520\npowerful way to level up your leadership.\n\n308\n00:13:16.520 --> 00:13:19.220\nYou mentioned earlier one of the reasons why you like tennis is that or you\n\n309\n00:13:19.220 --> 00:13:19.840\nlearned a lot\n\n310\n00:13:19.840 --> 00:13:21.600\nfrom tennis is that you don't always win.\n\n311\n00:13:21.600 --> 00:13:26.200\nYou got to get pick yourself back up and as you look back on your career at\n\n312\n00:13:26.200 --> 00:13:27.040\nAmazon was there\n\n313\n00:13:27.040 --> 00:13:30.790\na particular time where you really had to pick yourself back up after you,\n\n314\n00:13:30.790 --> 00:13:31.440\nsomething\n\n315\n00:13:31.440 --> 00:13:35.920\ndidn't go your way and could you tell us that story and what you learned from\n\n316\n00:13:35.920 --> 00:13:36.200\nit?\n\n317\n00:13:36.200 --> 00:13:39.900\nWell, I could probably fill your whole podcast, David, with stories of things\n\n318\n00:13:39.900 --> 00:13:40.440\nthat didn't\n\n319\n00:13:40.440 --> 00:13:44.160\ngo well or times I failed.\n\n320\n00:13:44.160 --> 00:13:48.830\nActually I will say for whatever it's worth that every most significant\n\n321\n00:13:48.830 --> 00:13:50.160\nlearning I've had\n\n322\n00:13:50.160 --> 00:13:52.400\nhas been after something that didn't work out.\n\n323\n00:13:52.400 --> 00:13:57.560\nI just think that if you're self-reflective it's just an incredible opportunity\n\n324\n00:13:57.560 --> 00:13:58.560\nto self-assess\n\n325\n00:13:58.560 --> 00:14:00.160\nand figure out what you want to change.\n\n326\n00:14:00.160 --> 00:14:06.480\nI've had many experiences that were embarrassing but I'll tell you one of them.\n\n327\n00:14:06.480 --> 00:14:14.170\nWhen I was, this was probably 2001 and I was co-running marketing for Amazon\n\n328\n00:14:14.170 --> 00:14:15.440\nwith another\n\n329\n00:14:15.440 --> 00:14:19.400\nperson and we used to do these operating planning reviews that were very long\n\n330\n00:14:19.400 --> 00:14:20.760\nPowerPoint presentations.\n\n331\n00:14:20.760 --> 00:14:24.240\nWe don't do PowerPoint anymore in the company but back then we did.\n\n332\n00:14:24.240 --> 00:14:30.480\nWe had this deck that this co-marketing leader and I did that was like 140\n\n333\n00:14:30.480 --> 00:14:31.360\npages.\n\n334\n00:14:31.360 --> 00:14:32.920\nIt was really long deck.\n\n335\n00:14:32.920 --> 00:14:36.860\nI owned presenting the first 70 pages and we worked really hard on this\n\n336\n00:14:36.860 --> 00:14:38.240\npresentation.\n\n337\n00:14:38.240 --> 00:14:42.880\nIt was in front of the senior leadership team and I get maybe three slides in.\n\n338\n00:14:42.880 --> 00:14:48.310\nI'm talking about customer attention and Jeff Bezos who was our founder and was\n\n339\n00:14:48.310 --> 00:14:48.960\nour CEO\n\n340\n00:14:48.960 --> 00:14:54.520\nat the time interrupted me and said, \"All the numbers on this page are wrong.\"\n\n341\n00:14:54.520 --> 00:14:59.920\nYou're not expecting that.\n\n342\n00:14:59.920 --> 00:15:02.360\nI said, \"Well, why do you think they're wrong?\"\n\n343\n00:15:02.360 --> 00:15:05.160\nHe started to go through the first set of numbers.\n\n344\n00:15:05.160 --> 00:15:09.500\nYou know that feeling when somebody is going through it and you're realizing\n\n345\n00:15:09.500 --> 00:15:10.320\nstep by step\n\n346\n00:15:10.320 --> 00:15:11.640\nthat they're right?\n\n347\n00:15:11.640 --> 00:15:14.160\nHe's not all the way through it yet.\n\n348\n00:15:14.160 --> 00:15:17.720\nI realized as he's saying that somehow the numbers are all wrong.\n\n349\n00:15:17.720 --> 00:15:20.040\nI said, \"Well, actually you're right.\n\n350\n00:15:20.040 --> 00:15:21.040\nThese numbers are wrong.\"\n\n351\n00:15:21.040 --> 00:15:22.400\nThen there was a slong pause.\n\n352\n00:15:22.400 --> 00:15:27.240\nHe said, \"Why should I trust one other thing you say this entire presentation?\"\n\n353\n00:15:27.240 --> 00:15:31.650\nI said, \"Well, I hope you do because we have 137 pages left in this\n\n354\n00:15:31.650 --> 00:15:32.880\npresentation.\n\n355\n00:15:32.880 --> 00:15:37.960\nIt's going to be really long, a few hours for you if you don't.\"\n\n356\n00:15:37.960 --> 00:15:41.720\nI would say that the presentation did not go well.\n\n357\n00:15:41.720 --> 00:15:46.880\nI don't think we cover ourselves in glory, particularly me.\n\n358\n00:15:46.880 --> 00:15:54.860\nIt's funny, in many ways, that experience was very seminal for me because it\n\n359\n00:15:54.860 --> 00:15:55.720\nwas one\n\n360\n00:15:55.720 --> 00:15:58.200\nof my worst fears realized.\n\n361\n00:15:58.200 --> 00:16:03.110\nOne of the things I had to get over in my career was whenever I got in front of\n\n362\n00:16:03.110 --> 00:16:03.440\nnew\n\n363\n00:16:03.440 --> 00:16:07.980\naudiences who I felt like didn't know me well, I too often felt like it was a\n\n364\n00:16:07.980 --> 00:16:08.240\npast\n\n365\n00:16:08.240 --> 00:16:12.000\nfail referendum on my competence.\n\n366\n00:16:12.000 --> 00:16:16.780\nThe thing I almost always feared most at work was going into a big meeting and\n\n367\n00:16:16.780 --> 00:16:17.240\nbeing\n\n368\n00:16:17.240 --> 00:16:22.920\nexposed is not knowing what I was talking about or being wrong or not worthy.\n\n369\n00:16:22.920 --> 00:16:26.880\nHere it was, really my worst fear realized.\n\n370\n00:16:26.880 --> 00:16:29.240\nI got through the presentation anyway.\n\n371\n00:16:29.240 --> 00:16:31.320\nI regained my composure.\n\n372\n00:16:31.320 --> 00:16:34.720\nIt was not a great presentation, but it was not a catastrophe.\n\n373\n00:16:34.720 --> 00:16:38.880\nI felt like afterwards, if that's the worst that happens when you get something\n\n374\n00:16:38.880 --> 00:16:39.080\nreally\n\n375\n00:16:39.080 --> 00:16:42.640\nwrong and get called out for it publicly, I can deal with it.\n\n376\n00:16:42.640 --> 00:16:45.080\nIt was actually in a weird way of confidence building.\n\n377\n00:16:45.080 --> 00:16:47.080\nI'll tell you what, I'm press wise.\n\n378\n00:16:47.080 --> 00:16:50.640\nHe said, \"Hey, look, you might not have those first whatever pages didn't go so\n\n379\n00:16:50.640 --> 00:16:51.080\nwell, but\n\n380\n00:16:51.080 --> 00:16:53.520\nwe got a lot more, so hopefully it's right.\"\n\n381\n00:16:53.520 --> 00:16:55.160\nThat's like some courage there.\n\n382\n00:16:55.160 --> 00:16:57.720\nI give him credit for hanging in there.\n\n383\n00:16:57.720 --> 00:16:58.720\nWe did.\n\n384\n00:16:58.720 --> 00:16:59.720\nYou know what he did?\n\n385\n00:16:59.720 --> 00:17:02.320\nActually, everybody was very respectful the rest of the way.\n\n386\n00:17:02.320 --> 00:17:03.880\nWho knows if they were paying attention?\n\n387\n00:17:03.880 --> 00:17:05.600\nIt seemed like they were.\n\n388\n00:17:05.600 --> 00:17:08.160\nYou know, Amazon has this unique and it's now renowned.\n\n389\n00:17:08.160 --> 00:17:10.200\nIt's called a CEO shadow role.\n\n390\n00:17:10.200 --> 00:17:14.120\nYou were tapped to be the first one under Jeff Bezos.\n\n391\n00:17:14.120 --> 00:17:18.680\nHow did that role shape the leader that you've become?\n\n392\n00:17:18.680 --> 00:17:22.080\nIt's unlike any role I've ever done or will do in the future.\n\n393\n00:17:22.080 --> 00:17:23.960\nIt was funny.\n\n394\n00:17:23.960 --> 00:17:29.750\nInterestingly, inside the company, when I was asked to do the role, everybody I\n\n395\n00:17:29.750 --> 00:17:30.600\nrespected\n\n396\n00:17:30.600 --> 00:17:32.760\ntold me not to do it.\n\n397\n00:17:32.760 --> 00:17:36.080\nThey said, \"You're too senior to do that role.\n\n398\n00:17:36.080 --> 00:17:40.360\nIt's like a glorified briefcase holder.\n\n399\n00:17:40.360 --> 00:17:43.560\nIt's such a left turn in your career.\"\n\n400\n00:17:43.560 --> 00:17:48.470\nThe only person who told me to do it was the person I was co-running marketing\n\n401\n00:17:48.470 --> 00:17:48.840\nwith.\n\n402\n00:17:48.840 --> 00:17:51.660\nNow some of it may have been that he wanted to run marketing himself, but the\n\n403\n00:17:51.660 --> 00:17:52.040\nthing he\n\n404\n00:17:52.040 --> 00:17:56.060\ntold me that at least I believed him on was that he had done the same role in\n\n405\n00:17:56.060 --> 00:17:56.640\nthe British\n\n406\n00:17:56.640 --> 00:18:00.920\nNavy and that he'd found it incredible learning experience.\n\n407\n00:18:00.920 --> 00:18:05.680\nJeff very graciously offered me the ability to shape what the role would be\n\n408\n00:18:05.680 --> 00:18:06.520\nwith him.\n\n409\n00:18:06.520 --> 00:18:09.120\nWe made it like a chief of staff role.\n\n410\n00:18:09.120 --> 00:18:14.240\nThen the idea for him was it was a way to extend his bandwidth.\n\n411\n00:18:14.240 --> 00:18:16.440\nWe would be in all the same meetings together.\n\n412\n00:18:16.440 --> 00:18:18.200\nBy the way, including his one-on-ones.\n\n413\n00:18:18.200 --> 00:18:20.600\nHe would often say to me, \"Why is nobody telling me anything?\"\n\n414\n00:18:20.600 --> 00:18:25.960\nI would say, \"Well, it's not really a one-on-one because I'm in the meeting.\"\n\n415\n00:18:25.960 --> 00:18:29.690\nIt was a way for him to extend his bandwidth with somebody who'd been at the\n\n416\n00:18:29.690 --> 00:18:30.440\ncompany for\n\n417\n00:18:30.440 --> 00:18:31.440\na while.\n\n418\n00:18:31.440 --> 00:18:35.040\nFor me, I just was able to soak up everything.\n\n419\n00:18:35.040 --> 00:18:40.400\nJeff is one of the most amazing business leaders in this generation.\n\n420\n00:18:40.400 --> 00:18:42.440\nAll his leaders were also quite good.\n\n421\n00:18:42.440 --> 00:18:48.790\nI got to learn just how they led and a lot of things that I wanted to emulate,\n\n422\n00:18:48.790 --> 00:18:49.560\nsome things\n\n423\n00:18:49.560 --> 00:18:52.480\nthat maybe I wanted to avoid.\n\n424\n00:18:52.480 --> 00:18:57.210\nWhat I learned though in the role, apart from just observing, is just I always\n\n425\n00:18:57.210 --> 00:18:57.920\nwas amazed\n\n426\n00:18:57.920 --> 00:19:01.400\nat the way that Jeff was able to context shift.\n\n427\n00:19:01.400 --> 00:19:05.230\nIt was a different form of what I was talking about earlier in being in the\n\n428\n00:19:05.230 --> 00:19:06.200\nmoment in tennis\n\n429\n00:19:06.200 --> 00:19:09.200\nand those 10 to 15 points.\n\n430\n00:19:09.200 --> 00:19:13.080\nThe breadth of what we do at Amazon is quite broad.\n\n431\n00:19:13.080 --> 00:19:18.620\nHe was amazing at going from one meeting, working on things in our fulfillment\n\n432\n00:19:18.620 --> 00:19:19.360\nnetwork,\n\n433\n00:19:19.360 --> 00:19:24.090\nto going to the next meeting, inventing technology that could help with\n\n434\n00:19:24.090 --> 00:19:25.760\ndiscovery in our retail\n\n435\n00:19:25.760 --> 00:19:26.760\nbusiness.\n\n436\n00:19:26.760 --> 00:19:31.320\nIt was really good at turning it on and turning it off and moving to the next\n\n437\n00:19:31.320 --> 00:19:32.400\ntopic and being\n\n438\n00:19:32.400 --> 00:19:37.680\nin that topic and not allowing the last meetings to distract him.\n\n439\n00:19:37.680 --> 00:19:42.460\nHe also was quite good at asking people for more than they thought they were\n\n440\n00:19:42.460 --> 00:19:43.200\ncapable of\n\n441\n00:19:43.200 --> 00:19:44.760\ndoing.\n\n442\n00:19:44.760 --> 00:19:48.980\nThat was a really interesting learning experience too, just because as a leader\n\n443\n00:19:48.980 --> 00:19:50.000\n, you often don't\n\n444\n00:19:50.000 --> 00:19:54.560\nwant to over-ask because you feel like people might turn you off if you ask for\n\n445\n00:19:54.560 --> 00:19:55.240\nthings that\n\n446\n00:19:55.240 --> 00:19:56.240\naren't realistic.\n\n447\n00:19:56.240 --> 00:20:00.560\nThey had a really good balance of how to ask for more than what the team\n\n448\n00:20:00.560 --> 00:20:01.640\nbelieved they could\n\n449\n00:20:01.640 --> 00:20:05.200\ndo but not so much that it was incredible.\n\n450\n00:20:05.200 --> 00:20:06.840\nThat was really interesting to me.\n\n451\n00:20:06.840 --> 00:20:11.470\nI felt like I had really high standards heading into that job that I felt like\n\n452\n00:20:11.470 --> 00:20:12.120\na strength\n\n453\n00:20:12.120 --> 00:20:16.890\nof mine and I realized that my standards weren't high enough after doing that\n\n454\n00:20:16.890 --> 00:20:17.400\njob.\n\n455\n00:20:17.400 --> 00:20:21.480\nI just learned a lot in the role and I was very lucky to do it.\n\n456\n00:20:21.480 --> 00:20:24.760\nIt really did shape a lot of my leadership career.\n\n457\n00:20:24.760 --> 00:20:29.680\nYou recall a time when Bezos asked you something to do something that you didn\n\n458\n00:20:29.680 --> 00:20:30.280\n't know you were\n\n459\n00:20:30.280 --> 00:20:33.400\nreally capable of doing and pushed you to the next level?\n\n460\n00:20:33.400 --> 00:20:35.960\nI mean many times.\n\n461\n00:20:35.960 --> 00:20:40.970\nIn the early stages of AWS, which coming out of that shadow job, that's what I\n\n462\n00:20:40.970 --> 00:20:41.480\nwent to\n\n463\n00:20:41.480 --> 00:20:45.340\ngo do is to work with a team of people to build, to write a vision document,\n\n464\n00:20:45.340 --> 00:20:46.080\nsee if there was\n\n465\n00:20:46.080 --> 00:20:47.480\nsomething there.\n\n466\n00:20:47.480 --> 00:20:53.430\nWhen we were defining the first set of services, he pushed the team and me to\n\n467\n00:20:53.430 --> 00:20:54.480\nthink bigger\n\n468\n00:20:54.480 --> 00:20:56.560\nthan we were already thinking.\n\n469\n00:20:56.560 --> 00:21:00.610\nI remember in the early days of AWS too, when we actually had the services\n\n470\n00:21:00.610 --> 00:21:01.520\nbuilt and we\n\n471\n00:21:01.520 --> 00:21:06.000\nwere trying to attract enterprises, startups used AWS from the very start.\n\n472\n00:21:06.000 --> 00:21:12.770\nA lot of the big startups the last 15 years, Instagram, Dropbox, Airbnb, Stripe\n\n473\n00:21:12.770 --> 00:21:13.560\n, a lot of\n\n474\n00:21:13.560 --> 00:21:15.400\nthese startups built on top of AWS.\n\n475\n00:21:15.400 --> 00:21:19.950\nBut when we started getting enterprises and government agencies using AWS to\n\n476\n00:21:19.950 --> 00:21:20.680\njust change\n\n477\n00:21:20.680 --> 00:21:23.000\nthe trajectory of the business.\n\n478\n00:21:23.000 --> 00:21:27.680\nI remember in the early days enterprises really liked to match up title for\n\n479\n00:21:27.680 --> 00:21:28.360\ntitle.\n\n480\n00:21:28.360 --> 00:21:31.510\nSo a lot of these enterprise CEOs, which they were going to do a big deal with\n\n481\n00:21:31.510 --> 00:21:31.920\nus, wanted\n\n482\n00:21:31.920 --> 00:21:33.600\nto talk to Jeff.\n\n483\n00:21:33.600 --> 00:21:35.920\nAnd I would say to Jeff, I really need your help.\n\n484\n00:21:35.920 --> 00:21:40.240\nI really need you to come and talk to this enterprise and this enterprise.\n\n485\n00:21:40.240 --> 00:21:42.680\nAnd he just refused to do it.\n\n486\n00:21:42.680 --> 00:21:46.520\nAnd I remember sitting in a conference room with him, talking to him about it\n\n487\n00:21:46.520 --> 00:21:46.920\nwhen we\n\n488\n00:21:46.920 --> 00:21:52.110\nwere about to try and approach Netflix, who became our first really big all-in\n\n489\n00:21:52.110 --> 00:21:52.960\nAWS customer.\n\n490\n00:21:52.960 --> 00:21:55.680\nAnd I was really kind of pleading with him to do it.\n\n491\n00:21:55.680 --> 00:21:56.760\nAnd he said, you know what?\n\n492\n00:21:56.760 --> 00:21:57.920\nHe said, you can do it.\n\n493\n00:21:57.920 --> 00:22:00.880\nHe said, and good luck with it.\n\n494\n00:22:00.880 --> 00:22:01.880\nAnd actually it was great.\n\n495\n00:22:01.880 --> 00:22:05.760\nI mean, it was just what I needed at the time.\n\n496\n00:22:05.760 --> 00:22:10.490\nAnd just knowing that there wasn't an alternative made me have to figure out\n\n497\n00:22:10.490 --> 00:22:13.120\nhow to step up\n\n498\n00:22:13.120 --> 00:22:17.240\non those spots and be the right partner for those enterprise CEOs.\n\n499\n00:22:17.240 --> 00:22:23.060\nAnd it would never have scaled given the breadth of Jeff's job as CEO of Amazon\n\n500\n00:22:23.060 --> 00:22:23.760\nif he had to\n\n501\n00:22:23.760 --> 00:22:25.440\nbe in the middle of those conversations.\n\n502\n00:22:25.440 --> 00:22:26.840\nSo he was right about that.\n\n503\n00:22:26.840 --> 00:22:30.440\nBut I wasn't sure at that time that people would accept it.\n\n504\n00:22:30.440 --> 00:22:31.960\nIt was great, the push.\n\n505\n00:22:31.960 --> 00:22:35.020\nWell, they accepted enough to where you build over a hundred billion dollar\n\n506\n00:22:35.020 --> 00:22:35.640\nbusiness.\n\n507\n00:22:35.640 --> 00:22:37.240\nThey seem to work out all right.\n\n508\n00:22:37.240 --> 00:22:40.720\nMaybe he's pretty wise and staying out of that meeting.\n\n509\n00:22:40.720 --> 00:22:41.720\nThat's fantastic.\n\n510\n00:22:41.720 --> 00:22:47.660\nYou know, when Jeff, you know, tapped you to be a successor, that had to come\n\n511\n00:22:47.660 --> 00:22:48.160\nwith a\n\n512\n00:22:48.160 --> 00:22:52.190\nlot of pressure since he's such an iconic leader, not only in business, but in\n\n513\n00:22:52.190 --> 00:22:52.720\nbusiness\n\n514\n00:22:52.720 --> 00:22:53.720\nhistory.\n\n515\n00:22:53.720 --> 00:23:00.430\nYou know, what's the biggest challenge stepping into the CEO role in a position\n\n516\n00:23:00.430 --> 00:23:01.280\nlike that\n\n517\n00:23:01.280 --> 00:23:02.280\nthat you were in?\n\n518\n00:23:02.280 --> 00:23:03.280\nAnd how did you navigate it?\n\n519\n00:23:03.280 --> 00:23:04.280\nHow did you think about it?\n\n520\n00:23:04.280 --> 00:23:06.000\nWell, you know, it's funny David.\n\n521\n00:23:06.000 --> 00:23:11.430\nI never really thought much about it before because I loved what I was doing\n\n522\n00:23:11.430 --> 00:23:13.480\nrunning AWS.\n\n523\n00:23:13.480 --> 00:23:17.880\nAnd I also just didn't think Jeff was ever going to step away from it.\n\n524\n00:23:17.880 --> 00:23:20.860\nAnd so I really, like some people said, oh, you must have thought about it for\n\n525\n00:23:20.860 --> 00:23:21.200\na lot of\n\n526\n00:23:21.200 --> 00:23:22.200\nyears.\n\n527\n00:23:22.200 --> 00:23:23.680\nI really didn't until he told me.\n\n528\n00:23:23.680 --> 00:23:26.480\nAnd I was not expecting it.\n\n529\n00:23:26.480 --> 00:23:29.410\nAs I was thinking about it, I had a few months in between when it was announced\n\n530\n00:23:29.410 --> 00:23:29.960\nand then when\n\n531\n00:23:29.960 --> 00:23:35.080\nthe transition happened, AWS is maybe sixth or seventh of the size of Amazon\n\n532\n00:23:35.080 --> 00:23:35.840\nand Amazon\n\n533\n00:23:35.840 --> 00:23:36.840\nin general.\n\n534\n00:23:36.840 --> 00:23:41.790\nAnd I remember when AWS was a tenth of the size of what it was at that moment\n\n535\n00:23:41.790 --> 00:23:42.640\nand didn't\n\n536\n00:23:42.640 --> 00:23:44.200\nseem that different to me.\n\n537\n00:23:44.200 --> 00:23:48.380\nSo I thought maybe it might not be that different and turns out the job is\n\n538\n00:23:48.380 --> 00:23:49.760\nreally different.\n\n539\n00:23:49.760 --> 00:23:53.900\nYou know, it's, if you're going to run one of these significant businesses, AWS\n\n540\n00:23:53.900 --> 00:23:54.240\nbeing\n\n541\n00:23:54.240 --> 00:23:58.850\none of them, you have to massively delegate to, you know, to be successful, but\n\n542\n00:23:58.850 --> 00:23:59.360\nyou can\n\n543\n00:23:59.360 --> 00:24:02.120\nstill be in the weekly rhythms of the business.\n\n544\n00:24:02.120 --> 00:24:05.930\nLike I still go to the weekly business review or the weekly ops review or the\n\n545\n00:24:05.930 --> 00:24:06.600\nweekly sales\n\n546\n00:24:06.600 --> 00:24:08.000\nreview.\n\n547\n00:24:08.000 --> 00:24:12.150\nWhen you have 25 businesses across the company, you can't be in the weekly\n\n548\n00:24:12.150 --> 00:24:13.000\nrhythms of the\n\n549\n00:24:13.000 --> 00:24:14.000\nbusiness.\n\n550\n00:24:14.000 --> 00:24:17.600\nIt doesn't scale for the, for the businesses or for you or the company.\n\n551\n00:24:17.600 --> 00:24:21.260\nSo you have to build completely different mechanisms in what you're going to\n\n552\n00:24:21.260 --> 00:24:21.760\nspend your\n\n553\n00:24:21.760 --> 00:24:26.400\ntime on and how you're going to audit and inspect and add value.\n\n554\n00:24:26.400 --> 00:24:27.960\nSo that was different.\n\n555\n00:24:27.960 --> 00:24:32.560\nI think a second thing was, you know, I, all the people that were going to\n\n556\n00:24:32.560 --> 00:24:34.560\nreport to me,\n\n557\n00:24:34.560 --> 00:24:37.990\nI knew them all because I was on the senior leadership team with them for many\n\n558\n00:24:37.990 --> 00:24:38.600\nyears.\n\n559\n00:24:38.600 --> 00:24:41.440\nAnd I had good relationships with virtually all of them.\n\n560\n00:24:41.440 --> 00:24:45.640\nAnd so I just didn't think it was going to be that big a deal moving into the\n\n561\n00:24:45.640 --> 00:24:46.800\nnew job.\n\n562\n00:24:46.800 --> 00:24:49.800\nBut what happened was every single relationship reset.\n\n563\n00:24:49.800 --> 00:24:51.440\nI didn't expect that.\n\n564\n00:24:51.440 --> 00:24:53.880\nSome reset really quickly.\n\n565\n00:24:53.880 --> 00:24:56.440\nSome took a little longer reset and some never reset.\n\n566\n00:24:56.440 --> 00:24:59.380\nYou know, and the ones that didn't reset, you know, both sides have to move on\n\n567\n00:24:59.380 --> 00:24:59.880\nfrom that.\n\n568\n00:24:59.880 --> 00:25:02.080\nBut I didn't expect that.\n\n569\n00:25:02.080 --> 00:25:07.820\nYou know, and then I would say, you know, if you're going to, I think anytime\n\n570\n00:25:07.820 --> 00:25:08.680\nyou become\n\n571\n00:25:08.680 --> 00:25:14.500\nthe CEO of a company, there are, you know, predecessors and, you know, people\n\n572\n00:25:14.500 --> 00:25:15.240\nare going\n\n573\n00:25:15.240 --> 00:25:16.960\nto always want to compare.\n\n574\n00:25:16.960 --> 00:25:20.990\nAnd, you know, and, and I was succeeding to your point, maybe the most iconic\n\n575\n00:25:20.990 --> 00:25:21.560\nbusiness\n\n576\n00:25:21.560 --> 00:25:23.640\nleader of our generation.\n\n577\n00:25:23.640 --> 00:25:28.760\nYou know, I think that a lot of people told me before I did the job, you just\n\n578\n00:25:28.760 --> 00:25:29.400\nhave to\n\n579\n00:25:29.400 --> 00:25:30.920\nbe you.\n\n580\n00:25:30.920 --> 00:25:33.920\nAnd that sounded a little bit cliche to me.\n\n581\n00:25:33.920 --> 00:25:36.720\nIt's kind of easier to say it than do it.\n\n582\n00:25:36.720 --> 00:25:40.840\nBut, you know, I realized over time that was really true.\n\n583\n00:25:40.840 --> 00:25:43.840\nYou have to play to whatever your own strengths are.\n\n584\n00:25:43.840 --> 00:25:47.940\nAnd you can't try to be, you can learn from whoever you've worked with in the\n\n585\n00:25:47.940 --> 00:25:48.480\npast, but\n\n586\n00:25:48.480 --> 00:25:49.800\nyou can't be that person.\n\n587\n00:25:49.800 --> 00:25:51.680\nYou got to be who you are.\n\n588\n00:25:51.680 --> 00:25:58.210\nI had the circumstance in 2022 on the backside of the pandemic where we had all\n\n589\n00:25:58.210 --> 00:25:58.960\nsorts of\n\n590\n00:25:58.960 --> 00:26:04.030\nchallenges, particularly as, you know, we, we took a fulfillment network that\n\n591\n00:26:04.030 --> 00:26:04.480\nwe built\n\n592\n00:26:04.480 --> 00:26:08.520\nthe first 25 years of Amazon and doubled it in 18 months.\n\n593\n00:26:08.520 --> 00:26:12.400\nAnd then built out a last mile transportation network, the size of the UPS in\n\n594\n00:26:12.400 --> 00:26:14.040\nabout 20 months.\n\n595\n00:26:14.040 --> 00:26:17.720\nSo it turned out that we had a really different fulfillment network that we did\n\n596\n00:26:17.720 --> 00:26:18.320\nbefore.\n\n597\n00:26:18.320 --> 00:26:22.160\nIt took us a while to figure out how to connect it right and get the cost\n\n598\n00:26:22.160 --> 00:26:23.440\nstructure right.\n\n599\n00:26:23.440 --> 00:26:26.640\nAnd while that was happening, our cost to serve was too high.\n\n600\n00:26:26.640 --> 00:26:31.590\nAnd you know, when you end up with something like that in the explosion of AI\n\n601\n00:26:31.590 --> 00:26:32.040\nwith kind\n\n602\n00:26:32.040 --> 00:26:37.520\nof big business altering situations, it has a way of forcing you quickly to\n\n603\n00:26:37.520 --> 00:26:38.320\nfigure out\n\n604\n00:26:38.320 --> 00:26:42.100\nwho you are as a leader and how you're going to lead as a team together and\n\n605\n00:26:42.100 --> 00:26:42.840\nmove on with\n\n606\n00:26:42.840 --> 00:26:43.840\nit.\n\n607\n00:26:43.840 --> 00:26:46.120\nWhat was the biggest thing you learned about yourself in that period?\n\n608\n00:26:46.120 --> 00:26:49.800\nA little bit of just learning again to trust yourself.\n\n609\n00:26:49.800 --> 00:26:55.440\nYou know, I kind of feel like at almost every leadership level, when you step\n\n610\n00:26:55.440 --> 00:26:56.760\nup, if, you\n\n611\n00:26:56.760 --> 00:27:00.280\nknow, if you have some humility and you have some respect for what you don't\n\n612\n00:27:00.280 --> 00:27:00.840\nknow and what\n\n613\n00:27:00.840 --> 00:27:06.640\nyou have to learn, you can also sometimes have maybe too much respect for it.\n\n614\n00:27:06.640 --> 00:27:12.600\nAnd if you know, you're encountering areas that you haven't been in before with\n\n615\n00:27:12.600 --> 00:27:12.920\nreally\n\n616\n00:27:12.920 --> 00:27:17.350\ngreat leaders who are really deep in that area, and you can kind of, you know,\n\n617\n00:27:17.350 --> 00:27:18.160\nat times you\n\n618\n00:27:18.160 --> 00:27:20.440\ncan delegate too much or you can have instincts.\n\n619\n00:27:20.440 --> 00:27:25.260\nA certain things seem like you want to change or maybe a bit awry and you don't\n\n620\n00:27:25.260 --> 00:27:26.200\ntrust yourself\n\n621\n00:27:26.200 --> 00:27:29.760\nenough to really speak up and call it out.\n\n622\n00:27:29.760 --> 00:27:33.110\nAnd you know, I just think during that time, there were some things that seemed\n\n623\n00:27:33.110 --> 00:27:33.480\na little\n\n624\n00:27:33.480 --> 00:27:39.400\nbit off to me that a lot of people were telling me we're okay.\n\n625\n00:27:39.400 --> 00:27:42.520\nThat just turned out that we needed to be moving on faster.\n\n626\n00:27:42.520 --> 00:27:45.800\nSo just it was a good reminder that you just have to trust your own instincts\n\n627\n00:27:45.800 --> 00:27:46.280\nand your\n\n628\n00:27:46.280 --> 00:27:47.280\nguts sometimes.\n\n629\n00:27:47.280 --> 00:27:50.780\nAnd you know, even if you're wrong, people will show you why you're wrong and\n\n630\n00:27:50.780 --> 00:27:52.240\nit's okay.\n\n631\n00:27:52.240 --> 00:27:55.000\nYou know, the PGA Championship is this weekend.\n\n632\n00:27:55.000 --> 00:27:59.710\nAnd after his historic win at Augusta National, all eyes are on Rory McElroy as\n\n633\n00:27:59.710 --> 00:28:00.480\nhe buys for\n\n634\n00:28:00.480 --> 00:28:01.680\nanother major.\n\n635\n00:28:01.680 --> 00:28:06.010\nGo all in with Rory this week and catch my conversation with him last year,\n\n636\n00:28:06.010 --> 00:28:06.640\nwhere he shared\n\n637\n00:28:06.640 --> 00:28:09.520\nhis incredible insight about goal setting.\n\n638\n00:28:09.520 --> 00:28:13.680\nMy attitude towards goal setting is a little different.\n\n639\n00:28:13.680 --> 00:28:18.680\nI think people, you can make these grand, ambitious plans.\n\n640\n00:28:18.680 --> 00:28:22.870\nBut if you don't have a structure or a system to work within, someone said once\n\n641\n00:28:22.870 --> 00:28:23.440\nthat you\n\n642\n00:28:23.440 --> 00:28:28.440\ndon't rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems.\n\n643\n00:28:28.440 --> 00:28:33.570\nSo if you have good systems in place, so for me, that would be okay, I want to\n\n644\n00:28:33.570 --> 00:28:34.100\nbe the\n\n645\n00:28:34.100 --> 00:28:37.540\nbest player in the world or I want to win the Masters one day.\n\n646\n00:28:37.540 --> 00:28:40.020\nFor example, okay, that's great.\n\n647\n00:28:40.020 --> 00:28:41.540\nBut how do you get there?\n\n648\n00:28:41.540 --> 00:28:42.540\nAnd it's all to do.\n\n649\n00:28:42.540 --> 00:28:44.100\nWhat does a practice day look like for me?\n\n650\n00:28:44.100 --> 00:28:47.110\nOkay, well, I want to be in the gym for two hours and I want to work in my\n\n651\n00:28:47.110 --> 00:28:47.680\nshort game\n\n652\n00:28:47.680 --> 00:28:50.420\nfor this amount of time and I want to do this and I want to do that.\n\n653\n00:28:50.420 --> 00:28:56.740\nSo my goals start to become more process driven rather than result driven.\n\n654\n00:28:56.740 --> 00:29:01.320\nSo if I can make my goals about the process and I can check the boxes while I'm\n\n655\n00:29:01.320 --> 00:29:02.180\npracticing\n\n656\n00:29:02.180 --> 00:29:06.740\nand while I'm doing the stuff I need to do, then hopefully one day the results\n\n657\n00:29:06.740 --> 00:29:07.300\nshould\n\n658\n00:29:07.300 --> 00:29:08.900\njust take care of itself.\n\n659\n00:29:08.900 --> 00:29:11.180\nThat's sort of my attitude towards goal setting.\n\n660\n00:29:11.180 --> 00:29:16.020\nBut you need to set the big goal to start, obviously, but then it's breaking it\n\n661\n00:29:16.020 --> 00:29:16.420\ndown\n\n662\n00:29:16.420 --> 00:29:21.100\ninto like into these little sections that I think is the real important stuff.\n\n663\n00:29:21.100 --> 00:29:25.850\nGo back and listen to my entire conversation with Rory, episode 187 here on How\n\n664\n00:29:25.850 --> 00:29:26.380\nLeaders\n\n665\n00:29:26.380 --> 00:29:27.380\nLead.\n\n666\n00:29:27.380 --> 00:29:30.020\nYou know, Andy, one of the things I was really impressed doing my research on\n\n667\n00:29:30.020 --> 00:29:30.500\nyou is just\n\n668\n00:29:30.500 --> 00:29:34.530\nI don't think I've ever seen anybody talk more about just having an obsession\n\n669\n00:29:34.530 --> 00:29:35.060\nfor the\n\n670\n00:29:35.060 --> 00:29:36.060\ncustomer.\n\n671\n00:29:36.060 --> 00:29:40.460\nYou are so passionate about that being the driving force.\n\n672\n00:29:40.460 --> 00:29:42.460\nCan you share a little bit about that?\n\n673\n00:29:42.460 --> 00:29:43.460\nYeah.\n\n674\n00:29:43.460 --> 00:29:46.990\nWell, you know, one, all of us have been customers of lots of different\n\n675\n00:29:46.990 --> 00:29:48.020\nbusinesses and I think\n\n676\n00:29:48.020 --> 00:29:53.260\nwe know what it's like to be treated poorly or like we don't matter and what it\n\n677\n00:29:53.260 --> 00:29:53.860\n's like\n\n678\n00:29:53.860 --> 00:29:55.140\nto be treated well.\n\n679\n00:29:55.140 --> 00:30:01.780\nYou know, maybe the biggest driving force of many in the Amazon culture is just\n\n680\n00:30:01.780 --> 00:30:02.580\nhow customer\n\n681\n00:30:02.580 --> 00:30:03.740\nfocus we are.\n\n682\n00:30:03.740 --> 00:30:08.450\nAnd you know, everything we do from the way we build products to the way we\n\n683\n00:30:08.450 --> 00:30:09.380\nconceive of\n\n684\n00:30:09.380 --> 00:30:14.910\nideas to how we make decisions on choices when we're going to air for customers\n\n685\n00:30:14.910 --> 00:30:15.500\nversus\n\n686\n00:30:15.500 --> 00:30:16.780\ntry to save money.\n\n687\n00:30:16.780 --> 00:30:21.940\nWe always try to shade and air on the side of doing right by customers.\n\n688\n00:30:21.940 --> 00:30:26.790\nAnd there is this very strong force inside the company that we're here to make\n\n689\n00:30:26.790 --> 00:30:27.580\ncustomers\n\n690\n00:30:27.580 --> 00:30:29.540\nlives easier and better every day.\n\n691\n00:30:29.540 --> 00:30:34.060\nAnd a lot of companies talk about it, not that many really live it.\n\n692\n00:30:34.060 --> 00:30:37.020\nAnd Amazon is a company that really lives it every day.\n\n693\n00:30:37.020 --> 00:30:42.180\nAnd that is very motivating and very inspirational if you've been customers of\n\n694\n00:30:42.180 --> 00:30:43.100\ncompanies.\n\n695\n00:30:43.100 --> 00:30:44.100\nAnd I love it.\n\n696\n00:30:44.100 --> 00:30:47.610\nI think actually if I look at one of the interesting things when I was working\n\n697\n00:30:47.610 --> 00:30:50.380\non the AWS business,\n\n698\n00:30:50.380 --> 00:30:54.300\nI had never worked in the technology business or in the B2B business.\n\n699\n00:30:54.300 --> 00:30:57.140\nI'd always been a consumer person before that.\n\n700\n00:30:57.140 --> 00:31:01.710\nAnd when I was learning about the different companies there, most of the\n\n701\n00:31:01.710 --> 00:31:03.220\ntechnology companies\n\n702\n00:31:03.220 --> 00:31:05.220\ntend to be competitor focused.\n\n703\n00:31:05.220 --> 00:31:09.440\nThey look at what their competitors are doing and then they try to fast follow\n\n704\n00:31:09.440 --> 00:31:10.140\nand one up\n\n705\n00:31:10.140 --> 00:31:11.140\nthem.\n\n706\n00:31:11.140 --> 00:31:14.780\nAnd then there is one or two of them that I would say are product focused where\n\n707\n00:31:14.780 --> 00:31:14.820\nthey\n\n708\n00:31:14.820 --> 00:31:18.710\nsay, well, it's nice that you, Mr. and Mrs. customer, have an idea about this\n\n709\n00:31:18.710 --> 00:31:19.220\nproduct.\n\n710\n00:31:19.220 --> 00:31:20.540\nYou should leave it to the experts.\n\n711\n00:31:20.540 --> 00:31:22.300\nSo we know what we're doing.\n\n712\n00:31:22.300 --> 00:31:25.260\nAnd both those strategies, by the way, can be very successful strategies.\n\n713\n00:31:25.260 --> 00:31:27.220\nThey're just not ours.\n\n714\n00:31:27.220 --> 00:31:31.940\nOur strategy is to try to hear what customers are struggling with.\n\n715\n00:31:31.940 --> 00:31:35.180\nSometimes they can tell you specifically what they want you to fix.\n\n716\n00:31:35.180 --> 00:31:38.540\nOther times all they can do is tell you what's going wrong.\n\n717\n00:31:38.540 --> 00:31:42.580\nAnd then you got to read between the line and try to invent on their behalf.\n\n718\n00:31:42.580 --> 00:31:44.100\nAnd I love that mission.\n\n719\n00:31:44.100 --> 00:31:47.390\nAnd I think everybody here who's a builder loves that mission because we're\n\n720\n00:31:47.390 --> 00:31:48.020\nhere to make\n\n721\n00:31:48.020 --> 00:31:49.700\nlives better for customers.\n\n722\n00:31:49.700 --> 00:31:52.220\nAnd that's the big why for your organization.\n\n723\n00:31:52.220 --> 00:31:53.220\nYeah.\n\n724\n00:31:53.220 --> 00:31:57.940\nYou have this, I love this working backwards document that you do.\n\n725\n00:31:57.940 --> 00:31:59.860\nTalk a little bit about that.\n\n726\n00:31:59.860 --> 00:32:04.460\nBefore we write code, we do these working backwards documents.\n\n727\n00:32:04.460 --> 00:32:06.020\nThey're two main documents.\n\n728\n00:32:06.020 --> 00:32:10.740\nOne is a press release and the other is a frequently asked questions document.\n\n729\n00:32:10.740 --> 00:32:15.130\nAnd the press release is designed to make sure that we try to write a forward\n\n730\n00:32:15.130 --> 00:32:15.660\nbutton\n\n731\n00:32:15.660 --> 00:32:18.910\npress release on what we want to announce the day we launched this product that\n\n732\n00:32:18.910 --> 00:32:19.180\nwe're\n\n733\n00:32:19.180 --> 00:32:20.860\nthinking about building.\n\n734\n00:32:20.860 --> 00:32:25.590\nAnd what it makes you do is it makes you really think about what are you\n\n735\n00:32:25.590 --> 00:32:26.620\nproviding,\n\n736\n00:32:26.620 --> 00:32:30.660\nhow's it differentiated from what's out there today, and why will it be\n\n737\n00:32:30.660 --> 00:32:31.700\nremarkable when you\n\n738\n00:32:31.700 --> 00:32:32.700\nlaunch it?\n\n739\n00:32:32.700 --> 00:32:36.240\nBecause we've all been a part of products, or at least I have, where you get to\n\n740\n00:32:36.240 --> 00:32:36.780\nthe very\n\n741\n00:32:36.780 --> 00:32:40.280\nend and you go to announce it and you think, like, why did we think anyone was\n\n742\n00:32:40.280 --> 00:32:40.780\ngoing to\n\n743\n00:32:40.780 --> 00:32:41.780\ncare about this?\n\n744\n00:32:41.780 --> 00:32:43.060\nLike, what's remarkable about this?\n\n745\n00:32:43.060 --> 00:32:46.900\nIt really forces you to have something that you believe matters.\n\n746\n00:32:46.900 --> 00:32:52.380\nAnd then I think the frequently asked questions document is really useful\n\n747\n00:32:52.380 --> 00:32:53.620\nbecause we force\n\n748\n00:32:53.620 --> 00:32:58.340\npeople to figure out ahead of time how they're going to build the product and\n\n749\n00:32:58.340 --> 00:32:58.900\nwhy.\n\n750\n00:32:58.900 --> 00:33:02.820\nSo it's who you build the product for, what's their problem you're trying to\n\n751\n00:33:02.820 --> 00:33:03.380\nsolve, how\n\n752\n00:33:03.380 --> 00:33:07.280\ndoes this really solve the problem, why does where you're drawing the line at\n\n753\n00:33:07.280 --> 00:33:07.940\nlaunch for\n\n754\n00:33:07.940 --> 00:33:12.510\nV1, why is it enough functionality that people will care about, what are people\n\n755\n00:33:12.510 --> 00:33:12.980\ngoing to\n\n756\n00:33:12.980 --> 00:33:15.980\nbe most disappointed about when you launch V1?\n\n757\n00:33:15.980 --> 00:33:19.280\nWhat are they going to be saying, you know, doesn't work in the product and are\n\n758\n00:33:19.280 --> 00:33:20.540\nwe okay\n\n759\n00:33:20.540 --> 00:33:22.980\nlaunching it before we get those pieces?\n\n760\n00:33:22.980 --> 00:33:26.420\nHow are we going to price it and what dimensions, what will people love most\n\n761\n00:33:26.420 --> 00:33:27.180\nabout it, what\n\n762\n00:33:27.180 --> 00:33:32.440\nwill people dislike, how does it compare to what's out there competitive, what\n\n763\n00:33:32.440 --> 00:33:33.380\n's the architecture\n\n764\n00:33:33.380 --> 00:33:37.350\nyou're going to build and why, all the questions that force you to really think\n\n765\n00:33:37.350 --> 00:33:38.060\nthrough the\n\n766\n00:33:38.060 --> 00:33:41.640\nproduct so that when we get through the working backwards set of documents,\n\n767\n00:33:41.640 --> 00:33:42.500\nwhich takes us\n\n768\n00:33:42.500 --> 00:33:47.530\ntypically two, three, four drafts of that, by that time we don't have to check\n\n769\n00:33:47.530 --> 00:33:48.060\nin with\n\n770\n00:33:48.060 --> 00:33:51.030\nthe team again, like they know what they're building, they know there's a\n\n771\n00:33:51.030 --> 00:33:51.580\ndynamic set\n\n772\n00:33:51.580 --> 00:33:54.190\nof documents so they keep updating them as they learn more as they're building\n\n773\n00:33:54.190 --> 00:33:55.700\nthe product,\n\n774\n00:33:55.700 --> 00:34:00.420\nbut it actually it takes kind of a half step back to allow teams to move two\n\n775\n00:34:00.420 --> 00:34:01.380\nsteps faster\n\n776\n00:34:01.380 --> 00:34:06.510\nand so, and I think we hit the mark not all the time, but much more frequently\n\n777\n00:34:06.510 --> 00:34:07.420\nwith customers\n\n778\n00:34:07.420 --> 00:34:09.700\nthan I think other processes do.\n\n779\n00:34:09.700 --> 00:34:13.260\nI love that, that the way it really works future back like that, that's just\n\n780\n00:34:13.260 --> 00:34:13.940\nsuch a great\n\n781\n00:34:13.940 --> 00:34:14.940\ninsight.\n\n782\n00:34:14.940 --> 00:34:20.310\nI'd also like you to explain your one way and two way door approach that you\n\n783\n00:34:20.310 --> 00:34:21.020\nuse when\n\n784\n00:34:21.020 --> 00:34:22.580\nit comes to decision making.\n\n785\n00:34:22.580 --> 00:34:29.100\nYeah, we have this concept internally about two way and one way doors and if it\n\n786\n00:34:29.100 --> 00:34:29.700\n's a two\n\n787\n00:34:29.700 --> 00:34:34.820\nway door decision, it means that you can walk through that door and if you got\n\n788\n00:34:34.820 --> 00:34:35.580\nit wrong,\n\n789\n00:34:35.580 --> 00:34:39.660\nyou can walk right back through it and no harm.\n\n790\n00:34:39.660 --> 00:34:43.630\nOne way door decision is when you walk through that door and if you get it\n\n791\n00:34:43.630 --> 00:34:44.900\nwrong, it's really\n\n792\n00:34:44.900 --> 00:34:47.140\nhard to walk back.\n\n793\n00:34:47.140 --> 00:34:51.700\nAnd so the two way, what you really want or what we want at least, the two way\n\n794\n00:34:51.700 --> 00:34:52.060\ndoor\n\n795\n00:34:52.060 --> 00:34:56.600\ndecisions, which is the overwhelming majority decisions we make in business,\n\n796\n00:34:56.600 --> 00:34:57.100\nyou want to\n\n797\n00:34:57.100 --> 00:35:02.660\npush down to the people doing the actual work and the owners so that they don't\n\n798\n00:35:02.660 --> 00:35:03.180\nhave to\n\n799\n00:35:03.180 --> 00:35:06.520\ngo through a lot of meetings and a lot of approvals to get the two way door\n\n800\n00:35:06.520 --> 00:35:07.180\ndecisions\n\n801\n00:35:07.180 --> 00:35:09.620\ndone because if they get them wrong, they know they can walk back.\n\n802\n00:35:09.620 --> 00:35:13.620\nYou got to have the right metrics to make sure you recognize when you've gotten\n\n803\n00:35:13.620 --> 00:35:13.980\nsomething\n\n804\n00:35:13.980 --> 00:35:17.580\nwrong, but you want to push down those two way door decisions.\n\n805\n00:35:17.580 --> 00:35:20.420\nThe one way door decisions, you want to make more methodically.\n\n806\n00:35:20.420 --> 00:35:23.220\nNow they are the very small minority of decisions.\n\n807\n00:35:23.220 --> 00:35:27.360\nBut those you intentionally want to go methodically through it and make sure\n\n808\n00:35:27.360 --> 00:35:28.340\nyou've got the right\n\n809\n00:35:28.340 --> 00:35:32.020\nanswer because if you get it wrong, it's hard to go backwards.\n\n810\n00:35:32.020 --> 00:35:35.630\nSo it's a very useful construct for us to think about and you know, it's\n\n811\n00:35:35.630 --> 00:35:36.340\ninteresting\n\n812\n00:35:36.340 --> 00:35:43.500\nto me in part about that construct is both of those constructs assume that the\n\n813\n00:35:43.500 --> 00:35:43.900\ndoors\n\n814\n00:35:43.900 --> 00:35:47.060\nthat you want to walk through are open and unlocked.\n\n815\n00:35:47.060 --> 00:35:50.200\nAnd one of the interesting things when you think about invention, which we do a\n\n816\n00:35:50.200 --> 00:35:50.580\nlot of\n\n817\n00:35:50.580 --> 00:35:53.900\nand we spend a lot of our waking hours trying to invent here, it's kind of a\n\n818\n00:35:53.900 --> 00:35:54.500\nlittle bit\n\n819\n00:35:54.500 --> 00:35:59.310\nof the opposite where you're trying to figure out how you can unlock a door\n\n820\n00:35:59.310 --> 00:35:59.980\nthat seems like\n\n821\n00:35:59.980 --> 00:36:01.740\nit's been bolted shut for a while.\n\n822\n00:36:01.740 --> 00:36:05.660\nAnd so I think this concept of doors is very useful for us inside the company.\n\n823\n00:36:05.660 --> 00:36:06.660\nI love it.\n\n824\n00:36:06.660 --> 00:36:10.910\nAnd speaking of decisions, Amazon Prime is one of the greatest business success\n\n825\n00:36:10.910 --> 00:36:11.420\nstories\n\n826\n00:36:11.420 --> 00:36:12.420\nof all time.\n\n827\n00:36:12.420 --> 00:36:15.780\nYou know, looking back, what do you think has been the biggest strategic\n\n828\n00:36:15.780 --> 00:36:16.380\ndecision that\n\n829\n00:36:16.380 --> 00:36:20.240\nyou've made so far that has continued to, you know, have the kind of impact\n\n830\n00:36:20.240 --> 00:36:21.020\nthat's growing\n\n831\n00:36:21.020 --> 00:36:22.020\nthis business?\n\n832\n00:36:22.020 --> 00:36:23.460\nMaybe a few come to mind.\n\n833\n00:36:23.460 --> 00:36:31.850\nI think with our existing large businesses, you know, in our retail business,\n\n834\n00:36:31.850 --> 00:36:33.100\nthe decision\n\n835\n00:36:33.100 --> 00:36:39.580\nto not give in on the choice.\n\n836\n00:36:39.580 --> 00:36:43.860\nPeople thought it was a binary choice between being able to ship items really\n\n837\n00:36:43.860 --> 00:36:44.740\nquickly and\n\n838\n00:36:44.740 --> 00:36:47.420\nbeing able to lower your costs to serve.\n\n839\n00:36:47.420 --> 00:36:49.540\nAnd we just didn't believe that.\n\n840\n00:36:49.540 --> 00:36:53.050\nAnd the, you know, in that time I was mentioning earlier where our costs to\n\n841\n00:36:53.050 --> 00:36:54.020\nserve was too high\n\n842\n00:36:54.020 --> 00:36:57.980\nas we'd read on the network and expanded it dramatically, it really forced us\n\n843\n00:36:57.980 --> 00:36:58.740\nto challenge\n\n844\n00:36:58.740 --> 00:37:00.980\nour most closely held beliefs.\n\n845\n00:37:00.980 --> 00:37:06.680\nAnd we re-architected the network, especially in the US, to go from this flat\n\n846\n00:37:06.680 --> 00:37:08.100\nnational network\n\n847\n00:37:08.100 --> 00:37:12.650\nto this regionalized network where we were able to get items much closer to end\n\n848\n00:37:12.650 --> 00:37:13.220\nusers,\n\n849\n00:37:13.220 --> 00:37:18.440\nwhich meant shorter delivery times to customers, which they love, and shorter\n\n850\n00:37:18.440 --> 00:37:19.540\ndistances mean\n\n851\n00:37:19.540 --> 00:37:21.780\nlower costs and less energy consumed.\n\n852\n00:37:21.780 --> 00:37:26.690\nAnd so we, you know, I think we were able to prove to ourselves with a number\n\n853\n00:37:26.690 --> 00:37:27.900\nof inventions\n\n854\n00:37:27.900 --> 00:37:31.750\nin our retail business that we could both ship items to customers faster and\n\n855\n00:37:31.750 --> 00:37:32.620\nlower our costs\n\n856\n00:37:32.620 --> 00:37:33.860\nto serve.\n\n857\n00:37:33.860 --> 00:37:38.440\nI think at the same time in our other really large business in AWS, what's\n\n858\n00:37:38.440 --> 00:37:39.340\nhappened with\n\n859\n00:37:39.340 --> 00:37:45.000\nAI, particularly Gen. of AI, is Gen. of AI has, you know, I think it's going to\n\n860\n00:37:45.000 --> 00:37:45.500\nreinvent\n\n861\n00:37:45.500 --> 00:37:49.290\nevery customer experience that we know of today and some ones that we've only\n\n862\n00:37:49.290 --> 00:37:49.940\nfantasized\n\n863\n00:37:49.940 --> 00:37:50.940\nabout.\n\n864\n00:37:50.940 --> 00:37:56.660\nAnd I think we made a decision relatively early on that we were going to invest\n\n865\n00:37:56.660 --> 00:37:57.500\nvery, very\n\n866\n00:37:57.500 --> 00:38:00.140\nsubstantially in Gen. of AI.\n\n867\n00:38:00.140 --> 00:38:03.660\nAnd I think that, you know, in the short term, it means we're going to spend a\n\n868\n00:38:03.660 --> 00:38:04.380\nsignificant\n\n869\n00:38:04.380 --> 00:38:08.280\namount of capital and resource, but I think it's going to completely change our\n\n870\n00:38:08.280 --> 00:38:08.740\ncustomer\n\n871\n00:38:08.740 --> 00:38:12.380\nexperiences and who we are as a company in the medium to long term.\n\n872\n00:38:12.380 --> 00:38:17.990\nYou know, then I think there was a time in, you know, maybe in around the 2022\n\n873\n00:38:17.990 --> 00:38:18.860\ntimeframe,\n\n874\n00:38:18.860 --> 00:38:23.430\nearly '23, where, you know, at the time where we didn't have our costs to serve\n\n875\n00:38:23.430 --> 00:38:24.060\n, where we\n\n876\n00:38:24.060 --> 00:38:28.490\nneeded it, and we were struggling on some pieces in our retail business, where\n\n877\n00:38:28.490 --> 00:38:28.980\nI think\n\n878\n00:38:28.980 --> 00:38:33.320\na lot of people would say things to me like, \"I don't know why you don't only\n\n879\n00:38:33.320 --> 00:38:33.900\ndo retail\n\n880\n00:38:33.900 --> 00:38:37.060\nin AWS and shut everything else down.\"\n\n881\n00:38:37.060 --> 00:38:40.980\nAnd you know, I think that if your objective is to make customers lives easier\n\n882\n00:38:40.980 --> 00:38:41.540\nor better\n\n883\n00:38:41.540 --> 00:38:46.130\nevery day, there are so many customer experiences that customers want us to\n\n884\n00:38:46.130 --> 00:38:47.100\nhelp them with that\n\n885\n00:38:47.100 --> 00:38:51.400\nI think we can be a part of changing what's possible and that will be really\n\n886\n00:38:51.400 --> 00:38:52.500\ngood businesses\n\n887\n00:38:52.500 --> 00:38:58.420\nfor Amazon as well, and that you have to be thinking five to ten years out, not\n\n888\n00:38:58.420 --> 00:38:58.900\njust\n\n889\n00:38:58.900 --> 00:39:01.740\nat quarter at a time or one year out.\n\n890\n00:39:01.740 --> 00:39:06.620\nSo I think it was a really good decision for us to continue investing in areas\n\n891\n00:39:06.620 --> 00:39:07.340\nlike Prime\n\n892\n00:39:07.340 --> 00:39:11.430\nVideo and Kuiper, which is our low earth, urban satellite and some of the, you\n\n893\n00:39:11.430 --> 00:39:11.940\nknow,\n\n894\n00:39:11.940 --> 00:39:14.740\nhealthcare where I think we have a chance to really change the healthcare\n\n895\n00:39:14.740 --> 00:39:15.260\nexperience\n\n896\n00:39:15.260 --> 00:39:16.260\nin the U.S.\n\n897\n00:39:16.260 --> 00:39:21.750\nAnd I think the last thing would be, I don't think any of us know right now how\n\n898\n00:39:21.750 --> 00:39:22.260\nmuch the\n\n899\n00:39:22.260 --> 00:39:25.020\npandemic really screwed us up.\n\n900\n00:39:25.020 --> 00:39:28.840\nYou know, like I think it, I think it screwed up families, it screwed up\n\n901\n00:39:28.840 --> 00:39:30.140\nmarriages, screwed\n\n902\n00:39:30.140 --> 00:39:34.420\nup, you know, kids, screwed up companies.\n\n903\n00:39:34.420 --> 00:39:40.200\nAnd I just think that what happened during the pandemic was we were forced, you\n\n904\n00:39:40.200 --> 00:39:41.060\nknow,\n\n905\n00:39:41.060 --> 00:39:45.620\novernight to basically completely change the way we had to work.\n\n906\n00:39:45.620 --> 00:39:49.260\nAnd I think people really rallied and made it work.\n\n907\n00:39:49.260 --> 00:39:54.180\nBut I'm not, you know, I don't think it was the best long term change.\n\n908\n00:39:54.180 --> 00:39:59.340\nI think we did it over a short period of time, but a lot of things I think went\n\n909\n00:39:59.340 --> 00:40:00.620\nby the wayside\n\n910\n00:40:00.620 --> 00:40:05.530\nin what we all had to do in the emergency that turned out to be, to be hard to\n\n911\n00:40:05.530 --> 00:40:06.060\nkind of\n\n912\n00:40:06.060 --> 00:40:10.520\nget back to the spot that you believe you're behaving and acting best for\n\n913\n00:40:10.520 --> 00:40:11.380\ncustomers in\n\n914\n00:40:11.380 --> 00:40:12.380\nthe business.\n\n915\n00:40:12.380 --> 00:40:14.540\nAnd I think a lot of companies still haven't gotten back there.\n\n916\n00:40:14.540 --> 00:40:18.860\nI think standards got relaxed because everyone felt like they had to.\n\n917\n00:40:18.860 --> 00:40:21.980\nI think people got really disconnected from one another.\n\n918\n00:40:21.980 --> 00:40:26.580\nI think people kind of lost touch with the culture, with everybody being remote\n\n919\n00:40:26.580 --> 00:40:26.580\n.\n\n920\n00:40:26.580 --> 00:40:30.890\nI think if you're inventing, if you're not together, it's much harder to invent\n\n921\n00:40:30.890 --> 00:40:31.780\nwell.\n\n922\n00:40:31.780 --> 00:40:36.480\nIf you're not in person riffing on one another's ideas and, you know, staying\n\n923\n00:40:36.480 --> 00:40:37.420\nafter a messy\n\n924\n00:40:37.420 --> 00:40:41.100\nmeeting and figuring out the last 10%, which is always the part that actually\n\n925\n00:40:41.100 --> 00:40:41.620\nmakes the\n\n926\n00:40:41.620 --> 00:40:44.980\nidea really, you know, like real.\n\n927\n00:40:44.980 --> 00:40:49.710\nAnd so I think just some of the cultural things that we have been working on\n\n928\n00:40:49.710 --> 00:40:50.740\ntogether to make\n\n929\n00:40:50.740 --> 00:40:55.560\nsure that we are optimizing for customers and being able to invent on their\n\n930\n00:40:55.560 --> 00:40:56.340\nbehalf have\n\n931\n00:40:56.340 --> 00:40:57.580\nbeen really important for us too.\n\n932\n00:40:57.580 --> 00:41:00.300\nYou know, Andy, you spent so much fun and I want to have a little bit more with\n\n933\n00:41:00.300 --> 00:41:00.820\nmy lightning\n\n934\n00:41:00.820 --> 00:41:01.820\nround of questions.\n\n935\n00:41:01.820 --> 00:41:02.820\nAre you ready for this?\n\n936\n00:41:02.820 --> 00:41:03.820\nGo for it.\n\n937\n00:41:03.820 --> 00:41:04.820\nOkay.\n\n938\n00:41:04.820 --> 00:41:06.020\nThe three words that best describe you.\n\n939\n00:41:06.020 --> 00:41:10.860\nEntrepreneurial, curious and authentic.\n\n940\n00:41:10.860 --> 00:41:14.300\nIf you could be one person for a day beside yourself, who would it be?\n\n941\n00:41:14.300 --> 00:41:18.860\nLet me mark Messier, you know, who's the captain of the Rangers.\n\n942\n00:41:18.860 --> 00:41:21.460\nI'm a lifelong Rangers fan.\n\n943\n00:41:21.460 --> 00:41:25.700\nJust maybe one of the very best leaders of our generation.\n\n944\n00:41:25.700 --> 00:41:27.100\nThe captain for sure.\n\n945\n00:41:27.100 --> 00:41:28.340\nWhat's your biggest pet peeve?\n\n946\n00:41:28.340 --> 00:41:32.220\nMy biggest pet peeve is probably know it all's.\n\n947\n00:41:32.220 --> 00:41:37.880\nYou know, I feel like there's so much we all don't know and it's unnecessary to\n\n948\n00:41:37.880 --> 00:41:38.300\nact like\n\n949\n00:41:38.300 --> 00:41:39.300\nyou know everything.\n\n950\n00:41:39.300 --> 00:41:42.660\nAnd it's also a lot of times unfund to be with know it all's.\n\n951\n00:41:42.660 --> 00:41:44.020\nI know you love Buffalo wings.\n\n952\n00:41:44.020 --> 00:41:45.460\nWhere do you get the best Buffalo wings?\n\n953\n00:41:45.460 --> 00:41:50.420\nMy favorite Buffalo wings are vindictive wings here in Seattle.\n\n954\n00:41:50.420 --> 00:41:52.260\nThey are outstanding.\n\n955\n00:41:52.260 --> 00:41:53.740\nCrispy, great sauce.\n\n956\n00:41:53.740 --> 00:41:58.220\nIf you get to Seattle, come to vindictive wings at first Avenue.\n\n957\n00:41:58.220 --> 00:42:00.220\nOh, mom, I way that'd be great.\n\n958\n00:42:00.220 --> 00:42:01.500\nDo you have any nicknames?\n\n959\n00:42:01.500 --> 00:42:08.810\nA lot of people call me AJ, Jaz, Jaz or what's the one thing you do just for\n\n960\n00:42:08.810 --> 00:42:09.060\nyou?\n\n961\n00:42:09.060 --> 00:42:10.060\nPlaying golf.\n\n962\n00:42:10.060 --> 00:42:11.540\nI really enjoy playing golf.\n\n963\n00:42:11.540 --> 00:42:14.940\nIt really gets me outside of my day to day.\n\n964\n00:42:14.940 --> 00:42:19.280\nAnd I love being with people I've had the privilege to play with or\n\n965\n00:42:19.280 --> 00:42:20.660\nentertainment.\n\n966\n00:42:20.660 --> 00:42:25.780\nYou know, my wife and I like to do that together, but I really love music.\n\n967\n00:42:25.780 --> 00:42:27.420\nI really love movies.\n\n968\n00:42:27.420 --> 00:42:28.940\nI really love sports.\n\n969\n00:42:28.940 --> 00:42:33.940\nAnd so those I share with my family, but I love them myself.\n\n970\n00:42:33.940 --> 00:42:36.540\nIf I turned on the radio in your car, what would it be?\n\n971\n00:42:36.540 --> 00:42:41.230\nThere's a lot of band called The Bests from New Zealand, The Foo Fighters, Br\n\n972\n00:42:41.230 --> 00:42:42.940\nandy Carlisle.\n\n973\n00:42:42.940 --> 00:42:45.500\nThey'll probably be who's playing for me right now.\n\n974\n00:42:45.500 --> 00:42:46.460\nYou love your music.\n\n975\n00:42:46.460 --> 00:42:47.460\nI love it.\n\n976\n00:42:47.460 --> 00:42:49.460\nThat's why you have it.\n\n977\n00:42:49.460 --> 00:42:50.700\nYou riff the damnas on.\n\n978\n00:42:50.700 --> 00:42:52.460\nThat's what you do there.\n\n979\n00:42:52.460 --> 00:42:54.780\nWhat's something about you that few people would know?\n\n980\n00:42:54.780 --> 00:43:00.170\nWell, probably until this that I played tennis very seriously or that I tried\n\n981\n00:43:00.170 --> 00:43:01.220\nto be a sports\n\n982\n00:43:01.220 --> 00:43:03.580\ncaster.\n\n983\n00:43:03.580 --> 00:43:08.230\nI played a lot of instruments growing up and my kids are really good musicians\n\n984\n00:43:08.230 --> 00:43:08.940\nway better\n\n985\n00:43:08.940 --> 00:43:14.340\nthan I am, but I played piano and saxophone and guitar and a little bit of\n\n986\n00:43:14.340 --> 00:43:15.140\ndrums.\n\n987\n00:43:15.140 --> 00:43:16.780\nI've made a couple of marathons.\n\n988\n00:43:16.780 --> 00:43:19.930\nWell, I write songs, so maybe we can get together and we can riff and come up\n\n989\n00:43:19.930 --> 00:43:20.460\nwith some good\n\n990\n00:43:20.460 --> 00:43:21.460\nideas.\n\n991\n00:43:21.460 --> 00:43:22.460\nYou should be the one singing.\n\n992\n00:43:22.460 --> 00:43:24.100\nNo, no, I can't sing.\n\n993\n00:43:24.100 --> 00:43:25.580\nAll right, we're out of the lightning.\n\n994\n00:43:25.580 --> 00:43:26.580\nGreat job Andy.\n\n995\n00:43:26.580 --> 00:43:29.060\nJust a couple more questions and I'll let you go.\n\n996\n00:43:29.060 --> 00:43:33.020\nNow you and your wife, Alana, have two kids.\n\n997\n00:43:33.020 --> 00:43:35.740\nWhat's a leadership lesson that you've picked up at work that you're trying to\n\n998\n00:43:35.740 --> 00:43:36.140\nlive out\n\n999\n00:43:36.140 --> 00:43:37.140\nat home?\n\n1000\n00:43:37.140 --> 00:43:43.860\nI think really being willing to learn from everybody.\n\n1001\n00:43:43.860 --> 00:43:49.050\nI think that an interesting thing to me, I don't know if you saw this, David,\n\n1002\n00:43:49.050 --> 00:43:49.700\nis just\n\n1003\n00:43:49.700 --> 00:43:54.070\nat a certain point of a number of folks' careers, they seem to lose their\n\n1004\n00:43:54.070 --> 00:43:54.780\nthirst to\n\n1005\n00:43:54.780 --> 00:43:55.780\nlearn.\n\n1006\n00:43:55.780 --> 00:43:58.500\nI don't know if it's because you get to a certain point and you think you\n\n1007\n00:43:58.500 --> 00:43:59.100\nshould know\n\n1008\n00:43:59.100 --> 00:44:04.410\nwhat there is to know or if it feels threatening to be senior and not know\n\n1009\n00:44:04.410 --> 00:44:05.900\neverything or it's\n\n1010\n00:44:05.900 --> 00:44:07.540\ntiring to always be learning.\n\n1011\n00:44:07.540 --> 00:44:13.180\nI think the second you're not learning is the second you're starting to unwind.\n\n1012\n00:44:13.180 --> 00:44:18.500\nI feel like I optimize at work to learn.\n\n1013\n00:44:18.500 --> 00:44:21.140\nI try in meetings to speak last.\n\n1014\n00:44:21.140 --> 00:44:23.700\nIf I don't have to say anything in a meeting, that's a great meeting.\n\n1015\n00:44:23.700 --> 00:44:25.980\nThere's nothing wrong with that.\n\n1016\n00:44:25.980 --> 00:44:32.040\nI am willing to change my mind as often as I'm presented with information that\n\n1017\n00:44:32.040 --> 00:44:32.460\nshould\n\n1018\n00:44:32.460 --> 00:44:34.660\nchange my mind.\n\n1019\n00:44:34.660 --> 00:44:40.500\nI feel like at home, I try to do the same thing.\n\n1020\n00:44:40.500 --> 00:44:41.940\nOur kids are amazing.\n\n1021\n00:44:41.940 --> 00:44:46.980\nThey're so thoughtful and they're so authentic and they are so open and they\n\n1022\n00:44:46.980 --> 00:44:47.900\nsee the world\n\n1023\n00:44:47.900 --> 00:44:49.660\ntheir own way.\n\n1024\n00:44:49.660 --> 00:44:50.900\nI learn a lot from them.\n\n1025\n00:44:50.900 --> 00:44:53.940\nI try to listen to what they're saying.\n\n1026\n00:44:53.940 --> 00:44:58.130\nI'm often in the position where they're asking me maybe for some advice or\n\n1027\n00:44:58.130 --> 00:44:58.980\nguidance.\n\n1028\n00:44:58.980 --> 00:45:01.860\nI've learned a lot from just their own stories.\n\n1029\n00:45:01.860 --> 00:45:08.860\nI also think that being able to tell your kids when you've done something wrong\n\n1030\n00:45:08.860 --> 00:45:09.260\nin an\n\n1031\n00:45:09.260 --> 00:45:13.610\ninteraction with either interaction with them or interaction at work, but being\n\n1032\n00:45:13.610 --> 00:45:14.820\nable to\n\n1033\n00:45:14.820 --> 00:45:20.950\nsay them, \"I got this wrong and I'm sorry,\" is also something that I feel like\n\n1034\n00:45:20.950 --> 00:45:21.500\nis a little\n\n1035\n00:45:21.500 --> 00:45:22.500\nbit generational.\n\n1036\n00:45:22.500 --> 00:45:27.600\nI feel like maybe the prior generations, it was the point of pride that you\n\n1037\n00:45:27.600 --> 00:45:28.380\ndidn't really\n\n1038\n00:45:28.380 --> 00:45:33.420\nsay sorry to your kids.\n\n1039\n00:45:33.420 --> 00:45:36.940\nMy generation was there to be respectful.\n\n1040\n00:45:36.940 --> 00:45:41.540\nI actually think it's opened up a lot of our best conversations when I have\n\n1041\n00:45:41.540 --> 00:45:42.380\napologized\n\n1042\n00:45:42.380 --> 00:45:43.820\nwhen I've gotten something wrong.\n\n1043\n00:45:43.820 --> 00:45:46.140\nThat's great insight.\n\n1044\n00:45:46.140 --> 00:45:49.660\nWhat do you see, Andy, as your unfinished business?\n\n1045\n00:45:49.660 --> 00:45:51.020\nOh, gosh.\n\n1046\n00:45:51.020 --> 00:45:53.220\nI feel like I have so much unfinished business.\n\n1047\n00:45:53.220 --> 00:45:54.620\nI'll start with work.\n\n1048\n00:45:54.620 --> 00:46:01.780\nI feel like it's so early with respect to what we're trying to do at Amazon.\n\n1049\n00:46:01.780 --> 00:46:07.260\nI think if you take our two biggest businesses, a retail business, which is it\n\n1050\n00:46:07.260 --> 00:46:09.540\n's a $500 billion\n\n1051\n00:46:09.540 --> 00:46:16.300\nplus a year annual run rate business, and 85% of retail worldwide still lives\n\n1052\n00:46:16.300 --> 00:46:17.420\nin physical\n\n1053\n00:46:17.420 --> 00:46:19.540\nstores.\n\n1054\n00:46:19.540 --> 00:46:24.280\nI don't know if it's going to flip 85, 15 the other way, but the proportion is\n\n1055\n00:46:24.280 --> 00:46:24.740\ngoing to\n\n1056\n00:46:24.740 --> 00:46:27.220\nbe very different in the future.\n\n1057\n00:46:27.220 --> 00:46:32.970\nIf you look at AWS, our cloud computing business, still about 90% of the global\n\n1058\n00:46:32.970 --> 00:46:33.700\nIT spend is\n\n1059\n00:46:33.700 --> 00:46:35.220\non premises.\n\n1060\n00:46:35.220 --> 00:46:39.580\nThat I do believe is going to flip in 20 years.\n\n1061\n00:46:39.580 --> 00:46:44.350\nWe have so much growth in front of us in our existing large businesses, and\n\n1062\n00:46:44.350 --> 00:46:45.300\nthat doesn't\n\n1063\n00:46:45.300 --> 00:46:49.510\ninclude what we're building with Prime Video, what we're building with our Go-\n\n1064\n00:46:49.510 --> 00:46:50.300\nEarth/Orbit\n\n1065\n00:46:50.300 --> 00:46:54.030\nsatellite with Project Kuiper, what we're building with healthcare, what we're\n\n1066\n00:46:54.030 --> 00:46:54.580\nbuilding\n\n1067\n00:46:54.580 --> 00:46:58.580\non the grocery side, what we're building with our autonomous driving, ride ha\n\n1068\n00:46:58.580 --> 00:46:58.700\niling,\n\n1069\n00:46:58.700 --> 00:46:59.700\nservice and zooks.\n\n1070\n00:46:59.700 --> 00:47:03.420\nThere are just so many things that we're going to do for customers, and AI will\n\n1071\n00:47:03.420 --> 00:47:04.220\nbe underneath\n\n1072\n00:47:04.220 --> 00:47:05.700\nall of it.\n\n1073\n00:47:05.700 --> 00:47:11.240\nThe amount that we're building right now to enable not just ourselves but\n\n1074\n00:47:11.240 --> 00:47:12.380\nothers to build\n\n1075\n00:47:12.380 --> 00:47:17.630\nAI, whether it's chips that make it much more price performance for them to do\n\n1076\n00:47:17.630 --> 00:47:18.380\ntraining\n\n1077\n00:47:18.380 --> 00:47:23.080\nor inference, whether it's our own models with Amazon Nova that are much more\n\n1078\n00:47:23.080 --> 00:47:23.940\ncost effective\n\n1079\n00:47:23.940 --> 00:47:27.630\nand lower latency for them or services that make it much easier to build\n\n1080\n00:47:27.630 --> 00:47:29.340\ngeneral AI applications.\n\n1081\n00:47:29.340 --> 00:47:32.620\nWe have a lot of unfinished business in Amazon.\n\n1082\n00:47:32.620 --> 00:47:38.660\nJust in my own life, I'm hoping that I'm only about halfway through it.\n\n1083\n00:47:38.660 --> 00:47:43.700\nThere's a lot that I'm really lucky that I have an amazing wife and amazing\n\n1084\n00:47:43.700 --> 00:47:44.340\nkids and\n\n1085\n00:47:44.340 --> 00:47:49.320\namazing friends, and there's so much more I want to do, and I'm hopeful I got a\n\n1086\n00:47:49.320 --> 00:47:49.860\nchance\n\n1087\n00:47:49.860 --> 00:47:51.540\nto do it over time.\n\n1088\n00:47:51.540 --> 00:47:52.980\nLast question for you.\n\n1089\n00:47:52.980 --> 00:47:57.200\nWhat's one piece of advice you'd give to anyone who wants to be a better leader\n\n1090\n00:47:57.200 --> 00:47:57.460\n?\n\n1091\n00:47:57.460 --> 00:48:03.920\nProbably, I would say the biggest difference between the people I started with\n\n1092\n00:48:03.920 --> 00:48:05.060\n28 years\n\n1093\n00:48:05.060 --> 00:48:10.110\nago here and what they're doing now has been their willingness and their apt\n\n1094\n00:48:10.110 --> 00:48:12.820\nitude to learn.\n\n1095\n00:48:12.820 --> 00:48:19.860\nI think that being a good learner, it starts with being able to be self-aware\n\n1096\n00:48:19.860 --> 00:48:20.900\nabout what's\n\n1097\n00:48:20.900 --> 00:48:24.340\ngone well, what's not gone well, and why.\n\n1098\n00:48:24.340 --> 00:48:30.100\nBeing able to look at yourself and ask what I need to change.\n\n1099\n00:48:30.100 --> 00:48:35.300\nI also know people who can tell you very well that they're a great learner and\n\n1100\n00:48:35.300 --> 00:48:35.620\nwhat they're\n\n1101\n00:48:35.620 --> 00:48:39.180\ndoing wrong and be right about what they're doing wrong and never be able to\n\n1102\n00:48:39.180 --> 00:48:40.700\nput into action.\n\n1103\n00:48:40.700 --> 00:48:43.820\nLast part is you actually have to do it.\n\n1104\n00:48:43.820 --> 00:48:49.720\nOld habits die hard, and so you do have to be able to be flexible your whole\n\n1105\n00:48:49.720 --> 00:48:50.500\nlife.\n\n1106\n00:48:50.500 --> 00:48:55.810\nI feel like it's at least as important at this stage of what I do in my life to\n\n1107\n00:48:55.810 --> 00:48:56.100\nbe a\n\n1108\n00:48:56.100 --> 00:48:58.820\ngreat learner as it was when I was 22.\n\n1109\n00:48:58.820 --> 00:49:04.190\nAndy, I had a great board member the late John Weinberg from Goldman Sachs, and\n\n1110\n00:49:04.190 --> 00:49:04.740\nhe had this\n\n1111\n00:49:04.740 --> 00:49:09.620\nsaying he told me that we had a one-on-one one time.\n\n1112\n00:49:09.620 --> 00:49:14.020\nHe said, \"David, in life you're going to learn that people either grow or they\n\n1113\n00:49:14.020 --> 00:49:14.420\nswell.\"\n\n1114\n00:49:14.420 --> 00:49:20.180\nObviously, Andy, you are a person that's constantly focused on growth all the\n\n1115\n00:49:20.180 --> 00:49:20.980\ntime.\n\n1116\n00:49:20.980 --> 00:49:26.180\nYou have not swollen, you're humble, you are authentic, you're the real deal.\n\n1117\n00:49:26.180 --> 00:49:31.530\nI had the privilege of meeting you a few months ago, and I was just blown away\n\n1118\n00:49:31.530 --> 00:49:32.420\njust by your\n\n1119\n00:49:32.420 --> 00:49:36.580\ndown-to-earth nature and your ability, obviously, to think through the issues\n\n1120\n00:49:36.580 --> 00:49:36.980\nthat the\n\n1121\n00:49:36.980 --> 00:49:41.220\nlargest companies in the world has to deal with.\n\n1122\n00:49:41.220 --> 00:49:43.380\nThank you for taking this hour out with me.\n\n1123\n00:49:43.380 --> 00:49:46.500\nI appreciate you very much, and it was a real pleasure.\n\n1124\n00:49:46.500 --> 00:49:47.140\nThank you, David.\n\n1125\n00:49:47.140 --> 00:49:47.860\nThanks for having me.\n\n1126\n00:49:47.860 --> 00:49:49.380\nI feel the same way about you.\n\n1127\n00:49:49.380 --> 00:49:52.740\nThank you for the time, and I look forward to seeing you again soon.\n\n1128\n00:49:52.740 --> 00:49:53.140\nGreat.\n\n1129\n00:49:53.140 --> 00:49:53.540\nGreat.\n\n1130\n00:49:53.540 --> 00:49:54.740\nMaybe on the golf course.\n\n1131\n00:49:54.740 --> 00:49:55.380\nI would love that.\n\n1132\n00:49:55.380 --> 00:50:04.660\nThere's something in this conversation I think almost any leader can relate to.\n\n1133\n00:50:04.660 --> 00:50:07.060\nMaybe it's stuck out to you too.\n\n1134\n00:50:07.060 --> 00:50:10.420\nAndy described that moment when you're about to launch a product and you kind\n\n1135\n00:50:10.420 --> 00:50:11.140\nof panic and you\n\n1136\n00:50:11.140 --> 00:50:14.500\nask, \"Why? Why did we think anyone would care about this?\"\n\n1137\n00:50:14.500 --> 00:50:19.860\nWe've all had that sinking feeling that maybe we got it wrong, which is why I\n\n1138\n00:50:19.860 --> 00:50:21.060\nlove the processes\n\n1139\n00:50:21.060 --> 00:50:24.820\nAndy uses, to start with the customer and work backward.\n\n1140\n00:50:24.820 --> 00:50:28.800\nIt's not just about building better products for customers, although that's\n\n1141\n00:50:28.800 --> 00:50:30.180\ndefinitely a part of it.\n\n1142\n00:50:30.180 --> 00:50:34.500\nIt's also about creating more momentum and trust and clarity on your team,\n\n1143\n00:50:34.500 --> 00:50:38.380\nbecause when you're all aligned on the problem you're solving and you know you\n\n1144\n00:50:38.380 --> 00:50:39.380\n're serving,\n\n1145\n00:50:39.380 --> 00:50:42.580\nyou can move faster and hit the mark more often.\n\n1146\n00:50:42.580 --> 00:50:44.260\nSo here's something to try this week.\n\n1147\n00:50:44.260 --> 00:50:47.940\nLook around and find a project that's been floundering a bit.\n\n1148\n00:50:47.940 --> 00:50:51.700\nThen take a page from Andy's playbook and write a press release for it.\n\n1149\n00:50:51.700 --> 00:50:53.140\nGet your team involved.\n\n1150\n00:50:53.140 --> 00:50:57.700\nYou might be surprised how that exercise sharpens your thinking and gets things\n\n1151\n00:50:57.700 --> 00:50:58.260\nmoving in the\n\n1152\n00:50:58.260 --> 00:50:59.460\nright direction.\n\n1153\n00:50:59.460 --> 00:51:01.300\nSo do you want to know how leaders lead?\n\n1154\n00:51:01.300 --> 00:51:04.900\nWhat we learned today is the great leaders start with the customer and work\n\n1155\n00:51:04.900 --> 00:51:05.700\nbackward.\n\n1156\n00:51:05.700 --> 00:51:10.020\nComing up next on how leaders lead is Scott Boatwright, the CEO of Chupoli.\n\n1157\n00:51:10.020 --> 00:51:14.560\nSo be sure to subscribe on YouTube or wherever you get your podcast so you don\n\n1158\n00:51:14.560 --> 00:51:15.060\n't miss it.\n\n1159\n00:51:15.060 --> 00:51:18.740\nThanks again for tuning in to another episode of How Leaders Lead.\n\n1160\n00:51:18.740 --> 00:51:22.020\nWhere every Thursday you get to listen in while I interview some of the very\n\n1161\n00:51:22.020 --> 00:51:22.820\nbest leaders in the\n\n1162\n00:51:22.820 --> 00:51:23.460\nworld.\n\n1163\n00:51:23.460 --> 00:51:27.250\nI make it a point to give you something simple on each episode that you can\n\n1164\n00:51:27.250 --> 00:51:28.660\napply to your business\n\n1165\n00:51:28.660 --> 00:51:31.460\nso that you'll become the best leader you can be.\n","

Andy Jassy 0:00

There is this very strong force inside the company that we're here to make customers lives easier and better every day. And a lot of companies talk about it, not that many really live it. And Amazon is a company that really lives it every day. You

David Novak 0:20

and You know, a lot of leaders say they put customers first, but today, you're going to see what it really looks like when that mindset drives every decision. Welcome to how leaders lead. I'm David Novak, and every week I have conversations with the very best leaders in the world to help you become the best leader you can be. My guest today is Andy Jassy, the CEO of Amazon. He's been with the company for 28 years, and he's the guy who built and led Amazon Web Services before succeeding Jeff Bezos as CEO in 2021 now listen, it's not easy to lead one of the biggest companies in the world, not to mention following an iconic founder like Bezos, but as you'll see, Andy is more than up for the task. He's smart, he's curious, and he's committed not just to saying customers matter, but actually operationalizing it. Andy knows how to start with the customer and then work backwards, and if you want to make better decisions and launch better products, you've got to hear the strategies he shares, plus he's got some bold takes on AI and post pandemic work that are definitely going to get your wheels turning. So here's my conversation with my good friend and soon to be yours. Andy Jassy,

I got to ask you this, what was the last thing you bought on Amazon Prime? I

Andy Jassy 1:44

buy so much on Amazon Prime, probably either razor blades or biotin. I buy so many my everyday essentials from Amazon, just because the selection is so broad and the delivery is so fast, it's so convenient. So that's probably the last two.

David Novak 2:00

Yeah. Well, I tell you what, my household is continually bombarded by Amazon, and we love it. It's such a great service. And bless you, David, thank you. Bless me and everybody else in the world. You know, everyone Andy knows about Amazon, but you know I'm not, not everyone knows your whole story. And so I'd like to take you back to, just to the beginning. What's the story from your childhood that's that's really shaped the kind of leader that you are today?

Andy Jassy 2:28

A lot of my childhood was dominated by sports. I played competitive tennis. I played that junior national circuit, and I played soccer, and I would say on the tennis side, it was, it was actually kind of a hard way to grow up. It's such a intense sport. It's so individual focused. When you lose, there's nobody to billion but yourself. When you win, there's no one to really celebrate with but yourself. And growing up in the East Coast, I also felt like the parental environment around tennis was very intense. But, you know, tennis taught me a lot of lessons that have really helped me later in my life. It taught me what hard work looks like and what happens when you don't work hard. It taught me really how to be focused in the moment. You know, when you get to competitive levels at 10 in tennis, all the matches are won by like 15 to 20 points during the match. So you just have to have the ability to be laser focused in the moments that matter. It taught me how to move on. You know, you know, when you you can play a tennis tournament and you can have the best win of your year at 9am and then go out at 2pm and play another match, and it's all gone. So you have to be able to move on from success really quickly and from failure very quickly. Because the other thing is, when you play tennis at a competitive level, you rarely win the tournament, so it means you actually lose almost every single time that you play, you know. And then it did teach me as well that you you have to find a way to be good to yourself even when things go wrong, you know they're like we all plan so hard and work so hard, and no matter what happens, sometimes it just doesn't work out. And if you're competitive and have high standards, you have to live with that. And then you have to, you have to find a way to give yourself a little bit of a break. And you know, I learned those things I would say from tennis, which have been helpful. And you know, I would say that one lesson I would say from my soccer life, which really involved my dad, was probably the, you know, the person on this planet that I most respect. And you know, as a kid, I really kind of worship my dad, I still do, but I remember I went to a soccer game my younger brothers and I was driving my dad crazy and just being antsy. And he said, Well, why don't you go run a mile around the track? The field was inside of a quarter mile track. And so I went and I ran. And I ran it really slowly, but I ran it and I got back, and I said to my dad, I said, see I did it. And he said, if you're going to run like that, why bother running like if you're going to do something, do it. And he doesn't really remember that story, but that story always stuck with me, that if you're going to do something, whatever it is, do it and do it to your fullest or don't do it. And so that was, those were good lessons for

David Novak 5:23

me. That was a great story. Said, and Andy, I understand that you actually wanted to be a sportscaster early on. I

Andy Jassy 5:31

did, you know, I, I loved, you know, I watched the movie broadcast news, if you ever seen that movie. Absolutely. That gave me the bug for TV. And then I got an opportunity to work as an intern between my sophomore and junior years in college, which I then did for three years working for a startup morning show in New York called Good Day New York. I started about a month and a half before it went to air, and I just I loved everything about I love the rush of live TV. I love just the imperfections of live TV, and the things that go wrong are often some of the most amusing moments. So I, you know, I thought I wanted to be a sportscaster. I sent my reel to to, I don't know, 80 markets around the country. Small markets only got two offers. They were in places I just couldn't bring myself to move to. And I went and worked at ABC Sports, initially as a production assistant. And back then, when there were way fewer places to be that were broadcasting live sports, that was kind of the end of my sportscasting career, was moving to production.

David Novak 6:33

Well, how'd you land at Amazon? I

Andy Jassy 6:34

went from doing this, you know, working at ABC Sports, to working at a direct marketing company that a couple Procter and Gamble guys spun out that was really a great general management experience. They did direct marketing of continuity, series, collectibles, and I learned a lot doing that. And then I got a little bit bored with the subject matter, and I tried a couple of my own businesses that I would say went middling, but they weren't what I wanted to do long term. So I I went back to business school, and when I was at business school, I thought that I would probably start my own business again. That's really what I wanted to do. And I had written this, this field study with a few friends from school on building a music management slash label company that we called cage shakers. We had a band that we were managing at the time in Boston called two ton shoe, and we that was going to be the first band in this thing I was going to do. One of my partners and his wife, very appropriately said, we're not spending all this money and going into debt. So you can start like a music label company with Andy. So he, he decided not to do it, and then I decided I would probably go work at a company try and pay back some debt, and I could learn a lot. And I, you know, it's funny, I went to the Bay Area for a last round interview at a technology company. I took a red eye back to Boston. I hardly ever check my answering machine, but my wife was at and then my fiance was was at work. So I checked it, and there was this woman who came on and said, Look, I found your resume in the resume book. I have a cancelation at 9am I'm not going to fill it. You can come or you can not come. It's your call. It was this woman from Amazon. I didn't even really know Amazon at that time. This was probably, this was March of 1997 and but I was leaving that morning at 11. I was driving with with my friend to go see a concert in New York and then go on spring break. So I had this window. I said, Oh, the interview. I went to the interview. I loved the person I met. I got asked to come to Seattle. I really liked the people I met in Seattle and my, my then fiance, now wife. We had met on the east coast, but she really she's from LA and she wanted to live closer to her family for a couple years. And our plan was which we we wrote, we agreed on a napkin in a bar that we would be in on the west coast for two to three years, then moved back to New York City, that was our plan. And so I got this job at Amazon, and I was really excited about the idea of it. I didn't nobody knew. Anyone who tells you they knew Amazon was going to turn into what Amazon turned into was just lying to you. Nobody knew. But I did figure that if it didn't work out, it did seem the internet was going to be a big deal, and it did seem that E commerce was going to be a big deal, so I would have interesting experience to take back to New York. And you know, that was almost 28 years ago, and I started to hear the three days after the last final exam of business school. And I've been here for almost 28 years at this point,

David Novak 9:37

got to ask you, did you frame that napkin at the bar. I wish I'd kept the

Andy Jassy 9:42

napkin, but I don't have a napkin, and my wife has argued that the statute of limitations on that napkin have expired. So I'm

David Novak 9:48

here. You know, you've had quite a journey that you've gone from this aspiring sportscaster and in the world of sports to the CEO of Amazon. What do you think you did? Differently. Andy, as you you approached your career, and you climb so rapidly within Amazon, what advice could you offer up on how to do that? Well,

Andy Jassy 10:10

first of all, I feel like my my journey or adventure was, was a lot of luck, and I think maybe one of the things I did best was not overthink it. You know, I have a 21 year old son and a 24 year old daughter, and one of the things I see with they and their peers is that they all feel like they have to know what they want to do for their life at that age. And I really don't believe that's true. You know? I mean, I, I mean, look at the path I I wanted to be a sportscaster, and then I did sports production. Then I was a product manager, you know, then I started two businesses in between, you know, during that whole interim before I went to business school, I try, I worked at a retail golf store, I coached my my high school soccer team. I tried investment banking, I tried sales and ad specialty companies. So I tried a lot of things, and I think that early on, it's just as important to learn what you don't want to do is what you want to do, because it actually helps you figure out what you want to do. And I went to business school in part thinking when I was doing recruiting at the end of college, I was doing sports casting, so I didn't do any of the recruiting, and I didn't take any of the classes that would allow me to maybe be an investment banker or do consumer packaged goods or lots of and I got done with business school, and realized, after finding a try and all the other things that I did and didn't like them, then I actually wanted to go back and do something entrepreneurial. So I do feel like one of the lucky parts for me was that I tried lots of things and was able to sort for myself, what appealed to me and what didn't. I think your attitude is an embarrassing amount of your success or lack thereof. You know, like, are you reliable? Do you say, which do you do? What you said you were going to do? Do you work hard? Do you like being on teams? Are you trustworthy? Are you a good learner? I feel like those are things that you can control. And it's actually amazing to me how often people don't control it, but you really can completely control those things. And I feel like, you know, I worked hard those things over time. Hey

Koula Callahan 12:18

everyone, it's Kula from how leaders lead. And if you've watched our podcast for any number of episodes, you probably know that a common theme from all of the great leaders we interview is that they are active learners. They have this commitment to continuing to learn and grow, so that they don't say stagnant, and so that they continue to see success in their leadership and in their life. This theme of active learning is so important, and it's what David's latest book, how leaders learn is all about. It's all about helping you develop that skill of active learning so that you too can continue to see success in your leadership and in your life. The book is really entertaining. It pulls stories from some of our greatest podcast guests and pairs those stories with insights that you can incorporate into your leadership and into your life right away. Grab how leaders learn on Amazon or wherever books are sold, and I think you're really gonna love it. You feel David's personality through the pages and through his storytelling, and it's a really powerful way to level up your leadership. Now,

David Novak 13:15

you mentioned earlier, one of the reasons why you like tennis is that you know, or you learned a lot from tennis, is that you don't always win. You got to get pick yourself back up. And as you look back on your career at Amazon, was there a particular time where you really had to pick yourself back up after you you know, something didn't go your way? And could you tell us that story and what you learned from it? Well,

Andy Jassy 13:35

I could probably fill your whole podcast, David with stories of things that didn't go well, or times I failed and and I actually, I will say, for whatever it's worth, that every most significant learning I've had has been after something that didn't work out. You know, I just think that you're much if you're self reflective, it's just an incredible opportunity to self assess and figure out what you want to change. But I've had many experiences that were embarrassing, but I I'll tell you one of them. You know, when I was this was probably 2001 and I was co running marketing for Amazon, yeah, with, with another person, and we used to do these operating planning reviews that were very long PowerPoint presentations. We don't do PowerPoint anymore in the company, but back then, we did, and we had this deck that this, you know, co marketing leader, and I did that was, it was like 140 pages. It was really long deck, and I owned presenting the first 70 pages. And we worked really hard on this presentation. And so it was in front of the senior leadership team, and I get maybe three slides in, and I'm talking about customer retention, and Jeff Bezos, who, you know is our founder and was our CEO at the time, interrupted me and said, all the numbers on this page are wrong, and you know, you're not you're not expecting that. And so I. Said, Well, why do you think they're wrong? And he said he started to go through the first set of numbers. You know that feeling when somebody is like going through it, and you're realizing step by step that they're right? He's not all the way through it yet. And he's taught, and I realized, as he's saying, that somehow the numbers are all wrong. And so I said, Well, actually, you're right. These numbers are wrong. And then there was this long pause. He said, Why should I trust one other thing, you say this entire presentation? And I said, Well, I hope you do, because we have 137 pages left in this presentation, really long, you know, few hours for you, if you don't. And it was, you know, I would say the presentation did not go well, and I don't think any, I don't think we cover ourselves in glory, particularly me. But, you know, it's funny in many ways, that experience was very seminal for me, because it was one of my worst fears realized. Like, you know, one of the things I had to get over in my career was whenever I got in front of new audiences who I felt like didn't know me well. I too often felt like it was a pass, fail referendum on my competence. And the thing I almost always feared most at work was going into a big meeting and being exposed as not knowing what I was talking about or being wrong or not worthy. And so here it was, like, really, kind of my worst fear realized, and I got through the presentation anyway. I regained my composure. And it was not a great presentation, but it was not a catastrophe. And I felt like, afterwards, you know, if that's the worst that happens when you get something really wrong and get called out for it publicly, I can deal with it. And so it was actually, in a weird way, a confidence builder.

David Novak 16:44

I'll tell you what. I'm impressed wise. He said, hey, look, you might not those first whatever pages didn't go so well, but we got a lot more. So hopefully something's right. That takes some courage there. I give him credit for hanging in there. You know,

Andy Jassy 16:57

did, and you know what he did? Hey. I mean, actually, everybody was very respectful. The rest of the way. Who knows if they were if they were paying attention, but it seemed like they were. You

David Novak 17:05

know, Amazon has this unique and it's now renowned. It's called a CEO shadow role. And you were tapped to be the first one under Jeff Bezos. And how did you, how did that role shape the leader that you, you've become?

Andy Jassy 17:18

It's unlike any role I've ever done or will do in the future. It was, you know, it's funny, interestingly, inside the company, when I was asked to do the role, everybody I respected told me not to do it. And they said, you know, you're too senior to do that role. It's like a glorified, you know, briefcase holder. It's such a left turn in your career. And the only person who told me to do it was the person I was co running marketing with there. Now some of it may have been that he wanted to run marketing himself, but the thing he told me that at least I believed him on was that he had done the same role in the British Navy, and that he had found it incredible learning experience. And so Jeff very graciously offered me the ability to shape what the role would be with him. We made it like a chief of staff role, and then the idea for him was it was a way to extend his bandwidth. We would be in all the same meetings together, by the way, including his one on ones. And he would often say to me, Why is nobody telling me anything I would say was not really a one on one, because I'm in the meeting, but, but it was, it was a way for him to extend his bandwidth with somebody who'd been at the company for a while. Then for me, I just was able to soak up everything. You know, Jeff is, you know, one of the most amazing business leaders in this generation, and all these leaders were also quite good, and I got to learn just how they how they led. And, you know, a lot of things that I wanted to emulate, some things that maybe I wanted to avoid. And so what I learned, though, in the in the role, apart from just observing, is just, I always was amazed at the way that Jeff was able to context shift. It was, it was kind of a different form of what I was talking about earlier in being in the moment in tennis and those 10 to 15 points like you either the breadth of what we do at Amazon is quite broad. And he was amazing at going from one meeting working on, you know, things in our fulfillment network, to going to the next meeting, inventing technology that could help Expo, you know, with with discovery in our retail business, he was just really good at turning it on and turning it off and moving to the next topic and being in that topic and not allowing the last meetings to to distract him. He also was quite good at asking people for more than they thought they were capable of doing. And that was a really interesting learning experience too, just because, as a leader, you often don't want to over ask because you feel like people might turn you off if you ask for things that aren't realistic. But he had a really good balance of how to ask for more. Of them, what the team believed they could do, but not so much that it was incredible, and that was really interesting to me. I felt like I had really high standards heading into that job. That was I felt like a strength of mine, and I realized that my standards weren't high enough after doing that job. So I just learned a lot in the role, and I was very lucky to do it. It really did shape a lot of my leadership career. You

David Novak 20:24

recall a time when Bezos asked you something that to do something that you didn't know you're really capable of doing, and pushed you to the next level many

Andy Jassy 20:33

times. I mean, you know, in the early stages of AWS, which I, you know, coming out of that shadow job. That's what I went to go do, is to work with a team of people to build, you know, to write a vision document to see if there was something there. When we were defining the first set of services, he pushed the team and me to think bigger than we were already thinking. I remember in the early days of AWS two when we actually had the services built and we were trying to attract enterprises startups used AWS from the very start that you know, a lot of the big startups the last 15 years, Instagram, Dropbox, Airbnb, Stripe, like a lot of these startups, built on top of AWS. But when we started getting enterprises and government agencies using AWS to just changed the trajectory of the business. And I remember in the early days, enterprises really like to match up title for title. So a lot of these enterprise CEOs, if they were gonna do a big deal with us, wanting to talk to Jeff. And I would say to Jeff, I really need your help, like, I really need you to come and talk to this enterprise and this enterprise. And he, he he just refused to do it. And he any, I remember sitting in a conference room with him, talking to him about it, when we were about to try and approach Netflix, who became our first really big all in AWS customer. And I was really kind of pleading with him to do it. And he said, You know what? He said, You can do it. He said, and good luck with it. And actually it was great. I mean, it was, it was just what I needed at the time, and just knowing that there wasn't an alternative made me have to figure out how to step up on those spots and be the right partner for those enterprise CEOs. And it would never have scaled given the breadth of Jeff's job as CEO of Amazon, if he had had to be in the middle of those conversations. So he was right about that, but I wasn't sure at that time that that people would accept it, and it was, it was great to push

David Novak 22:32

well, they accepted enough to where you build over $100 billion business. It seemed to work out all right. Maybe he was pretty wise, and staying out of that meeting, that's fantastic. You know, when Jeff, you know, tapped you to be a successor, that had to come with a lot of pressure, since he's such an iconic leader, not only in business, but in business history. You know, what's the biggest challenge stepping into the CEO, CEO role in a in a position like that that you were in, and how'd you navigate it? How did you think about

Andy Jassy 23:04

it? Well, you know, it's, it's funny, David, I never really thought much about it before, because I loved what I was doing, running AWS and and I also just didn't think Jeff was ever going to step away from it. And so I really, like some people said, Oh, you must have thought about it for a lot of years. I really didn't, until he told me, and I was not expecting it, as I was thinking about I had a few months in between when it was announced, and then when the transition happened. AWS is maybe a sixth or a seventh of the size of Amazon in general. And I remember when AWS was a 10th of the size of what it was at that moment, and didn't seem that different to me. So I thought maybe it might not be that different. And turns out, the job is really different. You know, if you run one of these significant businesses, AWS being one of them, you have to massively delegate to, you know, to be successful. But you can still be in the weekly rhythms of the business. I could still go to the weekly business review or the weekly ops review or the weekly sales review. When you have 25 businesses across the company, you can't be in the weekly rhythms of the business. Doesn't scale for the for the businesses, or for you or the company. So you have to build completely different mechanisms in what you're going to spend your time on, and how you're going to audit and inspect and add value. So that was different. I think a second thing was, you know, I all the people that were going to report to me. I knew them all because I was on the senior leadership team with them for many years, and I had good relationships with virtually all of them. And so I just didn't think it was going to be to be that big a deal moving into new job. But what happened was, every single relationship reset. I didn't expect that. Some reset really quickly, some took a little longer reset, and some never reset, you know, and the ones that didn't reset, you know, both sides have to move on from that. But. I didn't expect that, you know. And then I would say, you know, if you're gonna, I think any time you become the CEO of a company, there are, you know, predecessors, and you know, you know, people are gonna always want to compare and, you know, and I was succeeding to your point, maybe the most iconic business leader of our generation. You know, I think that a lot of people told me before I did the job, you just have to be you. And that sounded a little bit cliche to me. It's kind of easier to say it than do it. But, you know, I realized over time that was really true, that you you have to play to whatever your own strengths are, and you can't try to be you can learn from whoever you've worked with in the past, but you can't be that person. You got to be who you are. I had the circumstance in 2022 on the backside of the pandemic, where we had all sorts of challenges, particularly, as you know, we we took a fulfillment network that we built the first 25 years of Amazon and doubled it in 18 months, and then built out a last mile transportation network the size of ups in about 20 months. So it turned out that we had a really different fulfillment network than we did before, and it took us a while to figure out how to connect it right and get the cost structure right. And while that was happening, our cost to serve was too high. And you know, when you end up with with something like that, and the explosion of AI with kind of big business altering situations, it has a way of forcing you quickly to figure out who you are as a leader and how you're going to lead as a team together and move on with it.

David Novak 26:43

What was the biggest thing you learned about yourself in that period? A little bit of just

Andy Jassy 26:46

learning again to trust yourself. You know, I kind of feel like at almost every leadership level, when you step up, if you know, if you have some humility and you have some respect for what you don't know and what you have to learn. You can also sometimes have maybe too much respect for it, and if you know, you're encountering areas that you haven't been in before, with really great leaders who are really deep in that area. And you can kind of, you know, at times, you can delegate too much, or you can have instincts certain things seem like you want to change, or maybe a bit awry, and you don't trust yourself enough to really speak up and call it out. And you know, I just think during that time, there were some things that seemed a little bit off to me, that a lot of people were telling me were okay, that just turned out that we needed to be moving on faster, and so just it was a good reminder that you just have to trust your own instincts and your gut sometimes. And you know, even if you're wrong, people will show you why you're wrong, and it's okay. You

David Novak 27:52

know, the PGA Championship is this weekend, and after his historic win at Augusta National, all eyes are on Rory McIlroy, as he buys for another major go all in with Roy this week and catch my conversation with him last year where he shared his incredible insight about goal setting.

Rory McIlroy 28:09

My attitude towards goal setting is is a little different. I think people you can make these grand, ambitious plans, but if you don't have a structure or a system to work within. Someone said once that you don't rise to the level of your goals, you you fall to the level of your systems. So if you have good systems in place, so for me, that would be okay. I want to be the best player in the world, or I want to win the Masters one day, for example. Okay, that's that's great. But how do you get there? And it's all to do. What does a practice day look like for me? Okay, well, I want to be in the gym for two hours, and I want to work in my short game for this amount of time, and I want to do this, and I want to do that. So my goals start to become more process driven rather than result driven. So if I can make my goals about the process, and I can check the boxes while I'm practicing and while I'm doing my the stuff I need to do, then hopefully one day, the results should just take care of itself. That's sort of my attitude towards goal setting. But you need to set the big goal to start, obviously. But then it's breaking it down into like, into these little sections that I think is the real important stuff. Go

David Novak 29:20

back and listen to my entire conversation with Rory Episode 187 here on how leaders lead. You know, Andy, one of the things I was really impressed doing my research on you is just, I don't think I've ever seen anybody talk more about just having an obsession for the customer you are so passionate about, about that being the driving force. Can Can you share a little bit about that? Yeah,

Andy Jassy 29:42

well, you know, one all of us have been customers of lots of different businesses, and I think we know what it's like to be treated poorly or like we don't matter, and what it's like to be treated well, you know, maybe the biggest driving force of many in the. Amazon culture is just how customer focused we are. And you know, everything we do, from the way we build products to the way we conceive of ideas, to how we make decisions on choices when we're going to air for customers, versus try to save money, like we always try to shade and err on the side of doing right by customers. And there is this very strong force inside the company that we're here to make customers lives easier and better every day. And a lot of companies talk about it, not that many really live it. And Amazon is a company that really lives it every day. And that is very motivating and very inspirational, if you've been customers of companies and and I love it. I think actually, if I, if I look at one of the interesting things, when I was working on the AWS business, I had never worked in the technology business or in the B to B business. I'd always been a consumer person before that. And when I was learning about the different companies there. Most of the technology companies tend to be competitor focused. They will get what their competitors are doing, and then they try to fast follow and one up them. And then there's one or two of them that I would say are product focused. Where they they say, Well, it's nice that you, Mr. Mrs. Customer, have an idea about this product, but you should leave it to the experts. So you know, we know what we're doing. And both those strategies, by the way, can be very successful strategies. They're just not ours. Our strategy is try to hear what customers are struggling with. Sometimes they can tell you specifically what you what they want you to fix. Other times, all they can do is tell you what's going wrong, and then you got to read between the line and try to invent on their behalf. And I love that mission. I think everybody here who's a builder loves that mission, because we're here to make lives better for customers, and

David Novak 31:49

that's the big why for your organization. Yeah, you have this, I love this working backwards document that you do talk a little bit about that

Andy Jassy 31:58

before we write code. We do these working backwards documents. There are two main documents. One is a press release, and the other is a frequently asked questions document. And the press release is designed to make sure that we try to write a forward going press release on what we want to announce the day we launched this product that we're thinking about building. And what it makes you do is it makes you really think about, what are you providing? How's it differentiated from what's out there today, and why will it be remarkable when you launch it? Because we've all been a part of products, or at least, I have where you get to the very end and you go to announce it, and you think, like, why did we think anyone was going to care about this, like, what's remarkable about this? So really forces you to have something that you believe matters. And then I think the Frequently Asked Questions document is really useful, because we force people to figure out, ahead of time, how they're going to build the product and why. So it's who you build them the product for What's their problem you're trying to solve? How does this really solve the problem? Why does where you're drawing the line at launch for v1 Why is it enough functionality that people will care about? What are people going to be most disappointed about when you launch v1 what are they going to be saying, you know, doesn't work in the product, and are we okay launching it before we get those pieces. How are we going to price it, and what dimensions? What will people go most about it? Will people dislike? How does it compare to what's out there? Competitive all, what's the architecture you're going to build, and why? All the questions that force you to really think through the product. So that when we get through the working backwards set of documents, which takes us, typically, 234, drafts of that by that time, we don't have to check in with the team again, like they know what they're building. They know that it's a dynamic set of documents, so they keep updating them as they learn more as they're building the product. But it actually it takes kind of a half step back to allow teams to move two steps faster and so and I think we hit the mark, not all the time, but much more frequently with customers than I think other processes do. I love

David Novak 34:09

that, that the way to really work future, back like that. That's just such a great insight. I'd also like you to explain your one way and two two way, two way door approach that you use when it comes to decision making, yeah, we

Andy Jassy 34:23

have this concept internally about two way and one way doors. And if it's a two way door decision, it means that you can walk through that door, and if you got it wrong, you can rock, walk right back through it, and no harm. A one way door decision is when you walk through that door, and if you get it wrong, it's really hard to walk back. And so the you know, the two way what you really want, or what we want, at least the two way door decisions, which is the overwhelming majority of decisions we make in business, you want to push down to the people working do. The actual work and the owners, so that they don't have to go through a lot of meetings and a lot of approvals to get the two way door decisions done, because if they get them wrong, they know they can walk back through. You gotta have the right metrics to make sure you recognize when you've gotten something wrong. But you want to push down those two way door decisions, the one way door decisions, you want to make more methodically now they are the very small minority of decisions, but those you intentionally want to go methodically through it and make sure you've got the right answer, because if you get it wrong, it's hard to go backwards. So it's a very useful construct for us to think about. And you know, what's interesting to me in part about that construct is both of those constructs assume that the doors that you want to walk through are open and unlocked. And one of the interesting things when you think about invention, which we do a lot of we spend a lot of our waking hours trying to invent. Here it's kind of a little bit the opposite, where you're trying to figure out how you can unlock a door that seems like it's been bolted shut for a while. And so I think this concept of doors is very useful for us inside the company.

David Novak 36:05

I love it. And speaking of decisions, you know, Amazon Prime is one of the greatest business success stories of all time. You know, looking back, what do you think has been the biggest strategic decision that you've made so far that has continued to, you know, have the kind of impact that's growing this business,

Andy Jassy 36:21

maybe a few come to mind. I think, with our existing large businesses in our retail business, the decision to not give in on the choice people thought it was a binary choice between being able to ship items really quickly and being able to lower your cost to serve. And we just didn't believe that. And the you know, in that time I was mentioning earlier, where our cost to serve was too high, as we'd redone the network and expanded it dramatically, it really forced us to challenge our most closely held beliefs, and we re architected the network, especially in the US to go from this flat National Network to this regionalized network where we were able to get items much closer to end users, which meant shorter delivery times to customers which they love, and shorter distances mean lower cost and less energy consumed. And so we, you know, I think we were able to prove to ourselves with a number of inventions in our retail business that we could both ship items to customers faster and lower our cost to serve. I think, at the same time in our other really large business, in AWS, what's happened with AI, particularly generative AI is generative AI has, you know, I think it's going to reinvent every customer experience that we know of today, and some ones that we've only fantasized about. And I think we made a decision relatively early on that we were going to invest very, very substantially in generative AI. And I think that, you know, in the short term, it means we're going to spend a significant amount of capital and resource, but I think it's going to completely change our customer experiences and who we are as a company in the medium to long term, you know. And then I think there was a time in, you know, maybe in around the 2022 time frame, early 23 where, you know, at that time, where we we didn't have our cost server, we needed it, and we were struggling on some pieces in our retail business, where I think a lot of people would say things to me like, I don't know why you don't only do retail in AWS and shut everything else down. And, you know, I think that if your objective is to make customers lives easier or better every day. There are so many customer experiences that customers want us to help them with that. I think we can be a part of changing what's possible, and that will be really good businesses for Amazon as well, and that you have to be thinking five to 10 years out, not just a quarter at a time or one year out. And so I think it was a really good decision for us to continue investing in areas like Prime Video and Kuiper with our which is our low Earth orbit satellite, and some you know, healthcare, where I think we have the chance to really change the healthcare experience in the US. And I think the last thing would be, I don't think any of us know right now how much the pandemic really screwed us up, you know, like, I think, I think it screwed up families, it screwed up marriages, screwed up, you know, kids screwed up companies. And I just think that what happened during the pandemic was we were forced, you know, overnight, to basically completely change the way we had to work. And I think people really rallied and made it work. But I I'm not, you know, I don't think it was the best long term change. I think we did it over a short period of time, but a lot of things I think, went by the way. Side in what we all had to do in the emergency that turned out to be, to be hard to kind of get back to the spot that you believe you're behaving and acting best for customers in the business. And I think a lot of companies still haven't gotten back there. I think standards got relaxed because everyone felt like they had to. I think people got really disconnected from one another. I think people kind of lost touch with the culture, with everybody being remote. I think if you're inventing, if you're not together, it's much harder to invent Well, if you're not in person, riffing on one on one another's ideas, and, you know, staying after a messy meeting and figuring out the last 10% which is always the part that actually makes the idea really, you know, like real. And so I think just some of the cultural things that we have been working on together to make sure that we are optimizing for customers and being able to invent on their behalf have been really important for us too, you know.

David Novak 40:57

Andy, it's been so much fun, and I want to have a little bit more with my lightning round of questions. Are you ready for this? Go for it. Okay, the three words that best describe you,

Andy Jassy 41:05

entrepreneurial, curious and authentic.

David Novak 41:10

If you could be one person for a day besides yourself, who would it be? Maybe

Andy Jassy 41:14

Mark Messier, you know, who's the captain of the Rangers? I'm a lifelong Rangers, fans, just maybe one of the very best leaders of our generation,

David Novak 41:25

the captain, for sure. What's your biggest pet peeve? My biggest pet peeve is

Andy Jassy 41:29

probably, know it alls, you know, I feel like there's so much we all don't know, and it's unnecessary to act like you know everything, and it's also a lot of times unfund to be with. Know it alls I know you love Buffalo wings. Where do you get the best buffalo wings? My favorite buffalo wings are vindictive wings. Here in Seattle, they are outstanding, crispy, great sauce. If you get to Seattle, come to vindictive wings on First Avenue.

David Novak 41:58

I'm on my way, that'd be great. Do you have any nicknames? A

Andy Jassy 42:01

lot of people call me AJ, jazz, jazzer.

David Novak 42:06

What's the one thing you do? Just for you,

Andy Jassy 42:08

playing golf. I really enjoy playing golf, if it really gets me outside of my day to day. And I love being with people I've had the privilege to play with, or entertainment. You know, I my wife and I like to do that together, but I, I really love music, I really love movies, I really love sports and so those I share with my my family, but I, but I love them myself. If I turned on the radio in your car, what would it be? Probably a lot of band called The Beth's from New Zealand, the Foo Fighters, Brandy Carlisle, they'll probably be who's playing for me right now. You love

David Novak 42:45

your music. I love it. You know, that's why you have you riff. You riff at Amazon. That's what you do there. You know what's something about you that few people would know? Well,

Andy Jassy 42:54

probably until this that I played tennis very seriously, or that I tried to be a sportscaster. I played a lot of instruments growing up, and my kids are really good musicians, way better than I am, but I played piano and saxophone and guitar and a little bit of drums. Ran a couple marathons.

David Novak 43:16

Well, I write songs, so maybe we can get together and we can riff and come up with some good ideas. You should be the one singing. No, no, I can't sing. All right, we're out of the lightning round. Great job. Andy, just a couple more questions, and I'll let you go now. You and your wife, Alana, have two kids. What's a leadership lesson that you've picked up at work that you're trying to live out at home?

Andy Jassy 43:36

I think really being willing to to learn from everybody. You know. I think that an interesting thing to me. I don't know if you saw this. David is just at a certain point of a number of folks careers, they seem to lose their thirst to learn. I don't know. I don't know if it's because you get to a certain point and you think you should know what there is to know, or if it feels threatening to be senior and not know everything, or it's tiring to always be learning, but I think the second you're not learning is the second you're starting to unwind. And, you know, I feel like I optimize at work to learn. You know, I try in meetings to speak last if I don't have to say anything in a meeting, that's a great meeting. There's nothing wrong with that. And and I am willing to change my mind as often as I'm presented with information that should change my mind. And so I feel like, at home, I try to do the same thing, you know? I but my our kids are amazing. They're so thoughtful, and they're so authentic, and they are so open and and they see the world their own way. And I learn a lot from them. I try to listen to what they're saying, and while, you know, I'm often in the position where they're asking me maybe for some advice or guidance, I've learned a lot from. Us their own stories. And I also think that you know, being able to tell your kids when you've done something wrong in an interaction with either either an interaction with them or interaction at work, but being able to to say them I got this wrong, and I'm sorry, is also something that I feel like is a little bit generational. I feel like maybe the prior generations, it was the point of pride that you you didn't really say sorry to your kids, like, you know, it's not, you know that, you know. I feel like my generation was, you know, was there to be respectful. And I actually think it's opened up a lot of our best conversations when I have apologized, when I've gotten something wrong.

David Novak 45:43

Yeah, that's great, great insight. And what do you see? Andy, is your your unfinished business?

Andy Jassy 45:49

Oh, gosh, I feel like I have so much unfinished business. Yeah, I'll start with work. You know, I feel like it's so early with respect to what we're trying to do at Amazon. I mean, I think if you take our two biggest businesses, you know, a retail business, which is, it's a $500 billion plus a year annual run rate business, and 85% of retail worldwide still lives in physical stores, you know. So, like, I don't know if it's going to flip 8515 the other way, but it's going to the proportion is going to be very different in the future. You know, if you look at AWS, our cloud computing business, still about 90% of the global IT span is on premises that I do believe is going to flip in 20 years. So we just, you know, we have so much growth in front of us in our existing large businesses, and that doesn't include what we're building with Prime Video, what we're building with our low Earth orbit satellite, with Project Kuiper, what we're building with healthcare, what we're building on the grocery side, what we're building with our autonomous driving ride hailing service and zoox. I mean, there are just so many things that we're going to do for customers and AI will be underneath all of it and the amount that we're building right now to enable, enable, not just ourselves but others, to build AI. You know, whether it's chips that make a much more price performance for them to do training or inference, whether it's our own models with Amazon Nova that are much more cost effective and lower latency for them, or services that make it much easier to build generative AI applications. We just, we have a lot of unfinished business in Amazon, you know, just in my own life, I'm hoping that I'm only about halfway through it, you know. And there's a lot that I you know, I'm really lucky that I have an amazing wife and amazing kids and amazing friends, and there's so much more I want to do, and I'm hopeful I get a chance to do it over time.

David Novak 47:50

Last question for you, what's one piece of advice you'd give to anyone who wants to be a better leader?

Andy Jassy 47:56

Probably I would say the biggest difference between the people I started with 28 years ago here and what they're doing now has been their willingness and their aptitude to learn, you know, and, and, and I think that, you know, being a good learner. It starts with being able to be self aware about what's going well, what's not going well, and why, and being able to look at yourself and ask what I need to change, you know, and and I also know people who can tell you very well that they're a great learner and what they're doing wrong, and be right about what they're doing wrong, and never be able to put into action. And so that last part is you actually have to do it. And, you know, old habits die hard. And so you do have to be able to be flexible your whole life. You know, I feel like it's at least as important at this stage of what I do in my life to be a great learner as it was when I was 22 you

David Novak 48:58

know, Andy, I had a great board member, the late John Weinberg from Goldman Sachs, and he had this saying. He told me that, you know, when we had a one on one one time, he said, David, in life, you're gonna learn that people either grow or they swell. And obviously, Andy, you are a person that's constantly focused on growth all the time. You have not swollen, you're humble, you are authentic, you're the real deal. And I had the privilege of meeting you a few months ago, and I was just blown away, just by your down to earth nature and your ability, obviously, to think through the issues that the largest companies in the world has to deal with. So thank you for taking this hour out with me. I appreciate you very much, and it was a real pleasure. Thank you,

Andy Jassy 49:46

David, thanks for having me, and I feel the same way about you. So you know thank you for the time, and I look forward to seeing you again soon. Great, great.

David Novak 49:53

Maybe on the golf course. I will go with that. You.

There's something in this conversation I think almost any leader can relate to. Maybe it stuck out to you too. Andy described that moment when you're about to launch a product and you kind of panic, and you ask, Why? Why did we think anyone would care about this? We've all had that sinking feeling that maybe we got it wrong, which is why I love the processes Andy uses to start with the customer and work backward. It's not just about building better products for customers, although that's definitely a part of it. It's also about creating more momentum and trust and clarity on your team, because when you're all aligned on the problem you're solving and you know you're serving, you can move faster and hit the mark more often. So here's something to try this week. Look around and find a project that's been floundering a bit, then take a page from Andy's playbook and write a press release for it. Get your team involved. You might be surprised how that exercise sharpens your thinking and gets things moving in the right direction. So do you want to know how leaders lead. What we learned today is the great leaders start with the customer and work backward. Coming up next on how leaders lead is Scott Boatwright, the CEO of Chipotle. So be sure to Subscribe on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts so you don't miss it. Thanks again for tuning in to another episode of how leaders lead, where every Thursday you get to listen in while I interview some of the very best leaders in the world. I'm making a point to give you something simple on each episode that you can apply to your business, so that you'll become the best leader you can be.

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