Amazon 2021 Letter to the Shareholders

15 Apr 2022

Amazon’s new CEO Andy Jassy’s 2021 letter to the shareholders just came out and is packed with information about Amazon’s successes as well as the challenges they faced last year. What I found interesting is buried deep – components that are helping Amazon succeed. Here is the condensed list (read the letter for details):

Hire the Right Builders (“people who like to invent, who look at customer experiences, dissect what doesn’t work well about them, and seek to reinvent them”)
Organize Builders into Teams That Are as Separable and Autonomous as Possible (“single-threaded teams will know their customers’ needs better”)
Give Teams the Right Tools and Permission to Move Fast
You Need Blind Faith, But No False Hope (“feedback loops” and “product development process of working backwards from the customer”)
Define a Minimum Loveable Product (MLP), and Be Willing to Iterate Fast (“figuring out where to draw the line for launch”)
Adopt a Long-term Orientation (“you have to be in it for the long-haul or you’ll give up too quickly”)
Brace Yourself for Failure (“if you invent a lot, you will fail more often than you wish”)