Cultivating Innovation at Amazon

© 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
The Culture of Innovation at Amazon: Driving
Customer Success
Leo Zhadanovsky
Principal Solutions Architect
Amazon Web Services

Culture of
Innovation
Enabling Innovation
for Everyone

Jeff Bezos
CEO, Amazon.com
“Invention comes in many
forms and at many scales. The
most radical and
transformative of inventions
are often those that empower
others to unleash their
creativity – to pursue their
dreams.”

To our shareholders
Amazon.com passed many milestones in 1997: by year-end,
we had served more than 1.5 million customers, yielding
838% revenue growth to $147.8 million, and extended our
market leadership despite aggressive competitive entry.
But this is Day 1 for the Internet and, if we execute well, for
Amazon.com. Today, online commerce saves customers
money and precious time. Tomorrow, through
personalization, online commerce will accelerate the very
process of discovery. Amazon.com uses the Internet to
create real value for its customers and, by doing so,
hopes to create an enduring franchise, even in established

Amazon Started with Books…

Innovation has Manifested Across Many Domains…
Drone Development
Advanced Shopping
Kindle Reader
Home
Entertainment
Grocery Delivery
Video Streaming
Home Automation Cloud Computing

« …innovation is now recognized as
the single most important ingredient
in any modern economy…In short, it
is innovation – more than the
application of capital and labor –
that makes the world go round »

OUR MISSION
We want to be earth’s most
customer centric company

OUR COMMITMENT
We make our customers’
lives easier

WHERE INNOVATION
STARTS
We start with the customer
and work backwards

Our beliefs for
building a culture
of innovation
»Customer obsession
“Start every process with the customer and work backwards”
»Long term thinking
“Be stubborn on the vision but flexible on the details”
»If you want to be inventive, you have to be willing
to fail
“We are willing to go down on a bunch of dark alleys and
occasionally we find something that really works”
»You have to be willing to be misunderstood for a
long time
“We are very comfortable being misunderstood”

Amazon’s Growth Flywheel
Value
Selection
Convenience

STUBBORN ON THE
VISION
But flexible on the details

WILLINGNESS TO BE
MISUNDERSTOOD
For a long period of time

» Mechanisms
Working Backwards Process
Press Release
FAQ & Visualizations
» Architecture
Micro-services Architectures
Loosely Coupled Applications
Self Service Platforms – No Gatekeepers
» Culture
Our People: we hire builders, innovators, entrepreneurs
Our Beliefs: Amazon Leadership Principles
» Organization
Experimentation
Two Pizza Teams
How do we
organize for
innovation?

ALWAYS WORK
BACKWARDS
FROM THE
CUSTOMER
CUSTOMER OBSESSION
© 2018, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights

Write the press release

Include both Customer FAQs and
Stakeholder FAQs
Include the hard questions
Share your press release early to gather
questions
Customer FAQs - Customers ask the best questions
because they are fundamental to any experience:
How much will this cost?
What type of support will I get?
Where can I find this?
How do I cancel this?
Stakeholder FAQs - What will your VP, partner
teams, internal Amazon resources ask about your
idea?
What is the underlying technology?
What will customers be most disappointed
about in your initial release?
How does this impact current systems?
What is the business impact?
How do we know what the customer needs?
How can we launch this more quickly?
What is provoking the most internal debate?
write the FAQs

Visualize the user interaction and
write the manual

Is Working Backwards Optional?

» Mechanisms
Working Backwards Process
Press Release
FAQs & Visualizations
» Architecture
Micro-services Architectures
Loosely Coupled Applications
Self Service Platforms – No Gatekeepers
» Culture
Our People: we hire builders, innovators, entrepreneurs
Our Beliefs: Amazon Leadership Principles
» Organization
Experimentation
Two Pizza Teams
How do we
organize for
innovation?

“We have the good fortune of a large, inventive team and a
patient, pioneering, customer-obsessed culture – great
innovations, large and small, are happening everyday on
behalf of customers, and at all levels throughout the
company. This decentralized distribution of invention
throughout the company – not limited to the company’s
senior leaders – is the only way to get robust, high-
throughput innovation. What we’re doing is challenging and
fun – we get to work in the future.”
Jeff Bezos
2014 Annual Letter to Shareholders

Amazon.com Services (theory)

Single-purpose
Connect only through
APIs
Connect over HTTPS
Largely “black boxes” to
each other
“Microservices”

Self-service Platforms without Gatekeepers
“We are creating powerful self-
service platforms that allow
thousands of people to boldly
experiment and accomplish
things that would otherwise be
impossible or impractical."

HYBRID
ARCHITECTURE
Data Backups
Integrated
App
Deployments
Direct
Connect
Identity
Federation
Integrated
Resource
Management
Integrated
Networking
MARKETPLACE
Business
Apps
DatabasesDevOps
Tools
NetworkingSecurity Storage
Business
Intelligence
ENTERPRISE
APPS
Virtual
Desktops
Sharing &
Collaboration
Corporate
Email
Backup
IoT
Rules
Engine
Device
Shadows
Device
SDKs
Registry
Device
Gateway
DEVELOPMENT & OPERATIONSMOBILE SERVICESAPP SERVICESANALYTICS
Data
Warehousing
Hadoop/
Spark
Streaming Data
Collection
Machine
Learning
Elastic
Search
Queuing &
Notifications
Workflow
Search
Email
Transcoding
One-click App
Deployment
Identity
Sync
Mobile App
Testing
Push
Notifications
DevOps Resource
Management
Application Lifecycle
Management
Containers
Triggers
Resource
Templates
API
Gateway
Streaming Data
Analysis
Business
Intelligence
Mobile
Analytics
Single Integrated
Console
TECHNICAL & BUSINESS SUPPORT
Support
Professional
Services
Account
Management
Partner
Ecosystem
Solutions
Architects
Training &
Certification
Security &
Billing Reports
GAMING
3D Game
Engine
Character
Designer
Multiplayer
Service
Twitch
Integration
Cloud
Integration
Regions
Availability
Zones
Points of
Presence
INFRASTRUCTURE
CORE SERVICES
Compute
VMs, Auto-scaling, Load Balancing,
Containers, Cloud functions
Storage
Object, Blocks, File,
Archivals, Import/Export
Databases
Relational, NoSQL,
Caching, Migration
CDN Networking
VPC, DX, DNS
Access Control
Identity
Management
Key
Management &
Storage
Monitoring
& Logs
SECURITY & COMPLIANCE
Resource &
Usage Auditing
Configuration
Compliance
Web application
firewall
Assessment and
reporting
AWS: Most Robust, Fully-Featured Technology Infrastructure Platform

Public Sector Innovations Powered by AWS
70PB of Earth data
Analyzes 75B financial
record daily
Enables 1000s of online
businesses in Asia
Unite a global research
community
Digital services for
constituents
Fighting child
trafficking

Every one of
us is a leader
on our
mission.

Amazon Leadership Principles
Customer Obsession
Leaders start with the customer and work backwards.
They work vigorously to earn and keep customer trust.
Although leaders pay attention to competitors, they
obsess over customers.
Ownership
Leaders are owners. They think long term and don’t
sacrifice long-term value for short-term results. They act
on behalf of the entire company, beyond just their own
team. They never say “that’s not my job".
Invent and Simplify
Leaders expect and require innovation and invention
from their teams and always find ways to simplify. They
are externally aware, look for new ideas from
everywhere, and are not limited by “not invented here".
As we do new things, we accept that we may be
misunderstood for long periods of time.
Are Right, A Lot
Leaders are right a lot. They have strong judgment and
good instincts. They seek diverse perspectives and work
to disconfirm their beliefs.
Learn and Be Curious
Leaders are never done learning and always seek to
improve themselves. They are curious about new
possibilities and act to explore them.
Hire and Develop the Best
Leaders raise the performance bar with every hire and
promotion. They recognize exceptional talent, and
willingly move them throughout the organization.
Leaders develop leaders and take seriously their role in
coaching others. We work on behalf of our people to
invent mechanisms for development like Career Choice.
Insist on the Highest Standards
Leaders have relentlessly high standards - many people
may think these standards are unreasonably high.
Leaders are continually raising the bar and driving their
teams to deliver high quality products, services and
processes. Leaders ensure that defects do not get sent
down the line and that problems are fixed so they stay
fixed.
Think Big
Thinking small is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Leaders
create and communicate a bold direction that inspires
results. They think differently and look around corners
for ways to serve customers.
Bias for Action
Speed matters in business. Many decisions and actions
are reversible and do not need extensive study. We
value calculated risk taking.
Frugality
Accomplish more with less. Constraints breed
resourcefulness, self-sufficiency and invention. There are no
extra points for growing headcount, budget size or fixed
expense.
Earn Trust
Leaders listen attentively, speak candidly, and treat others
respectfully. They are vocally self-critical, even when doing
so is awkward or embarrassing. Leaders do not believe their
or their team’s body odor smells of perfume. They
benchmark themselves and their teams against the best.
Dive Deep
Leaders operate at all levels, stay connected to the details,
audit frequently, and are skeptical when metrics and
anecdote differ. No task is beneath them.
Have Backbone; Disagree and Commit
Leaders are obligated to respectfully challenge decisions
when they disagree, even when doing so is uncomfortable or
exhausting. Leaders have conviction and are tenacious. They
do not compromise for the sake of social cohesion. Once a
decision is determined, they commit wholly.
Deliver Results
Leaders focus on the key inputs for their business and
deliver them with the right quality and in a timely fashion.
Despite setbacks, they rise to the occasion and never settle.
Amazon Leadership Principles

The
Institutional
YES!
To invent you have to experiment, and if you know in advance that it’s going to work, it’s not
an experiment
To our shareowners (2015)This year, Amazon became the fastest company ever to reach $100 billion annual sales. Also
this year, Amazon Web Services is reaching $10 billion in annual sales.
One area where I think we are especially distinctive is failure. I believe we are the best place in
the world to fail (we have plenty of practice!), and failure and invention are inseparable twins.
To invent you have to experiment, and if you know in advance that it’s going to work, it’s not
an experiment. Most large organizations embrace the idea of invention, but are not willing to
suffer the string of failed experiments necessary to get there. Outsized returns often come from
betting against conventional wisdom, and conventional wisdom is usually right. Given a ten
percent chance of a 100 times payoff, you should take that bet every time. But you’re still going
to be wrong nine times out of ten. We all know that if you swing for the fences, you’re going to
strike out a lot, but you’re also going to hit some home runs. The difference between baseball
and business, however, is that baseball has a truncated outcome distribution. When you swing,
no matter how well you connect with the ball, the most runs you can get is four. In business,
every once in a while, when you step up to the plate, you can score 1,000 runs. This long-tailed
distribution of returns is why it’s important to be bold. Big winners pay for so many
experiments.

Learn from Failures…

Decompose to Primitive Problems
Single-threaded Focus
Enables Self-directed Teams
Fosters Ownership & Autonomy

INNOVATION AT THE EDGE
Enable everyone to innovate

Interested in innovating like Amazon?
Let’s build something people will love.
EXPLORE innovation at
Amazon – the principles
behind our organization,
architecture,
mechanisms and culture
DEFINE a new service or
enhance a digital experience
that will delight your
customers; start with the
customer and work
backwards
BUILD, prototype and
experiment, in the cloud
to bring your new
digital offering to life;
test it with your
customers
1
2
3

CLOUD INNOVATION
CENTERS
Enable everyone to innovate

CIC Mission:
Customer Innovation Capability
Community leading public sector sponsors & AWS
collaborate to:
1. minimize technology costs to constituents,
2. expand technology alternatives,
3. ‘learn by doing,’
4. spur economic and workforce development, and
5. accelerate repeatable public sector cloud successes
to improve digital experiences for citizens everywhere..

Lower
Costs
Expand
Technology
Options
Spur
Economic
Development
Accelerate
Replicable
Success
Student
Experience
DxHub Mission

“The Cal Poly Digital
Transformation Hub applies
proven innovation
methodologies in combination
with the deep subject matter
expertise of the public sector
and the technology expertise of
AWS and it’s partners to solve
real-world problems in ways not
contemplated before.”
DXHub
Anti-Human
Trafficking
Aerospace
Engineering
Smart Cities
Agriculture
Kinesiology
CSU Cloud
Migration

Innovation Flow
Focus of the Innovation Challenge
Introduce Digital
Innovation Solution
Innovation
Workshop
(Working Backwards)
Engage Define
Solution Vision
(PRFAQ)
Value
Proposition
Prototype
Deliver new
digital offering
Realize Value
Scale
architecture
Establish
operating model
& capability
Visual
PrototypeFrame the Design
Challenge
STAGE
Identify
Customer
Interest
Customer
Executive Review
Agreement to
Proceed

We had three big ideas at
Amazon that we have stuck with
for 20+ years, and they are the
reason we are successful: put
the customer first, invent, and
be patient.
Jeff Bezos
Founder and CEO
Amazon.com, Inc.

Cultivating Innovation at Amazon

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

What's hot

What's hot (20)

Similar to Cultivating Innovation at Amazon

Similar to Cultivating Innovation at Amazon (20)

More from Amazon Web Services

More from Amazon Web Services (20)

Cultivating Innovation at Amazon