Working Backwards
A review of

Working Backwards

Insights, Stories, and Secrets from Inside Amazon


How Amazon Does It

by David Meyer

Amazon insiders Colin Bryar and Bill Carr detail Amazon’s processes for hiring, compensation and expansion as well as using metrics, generating new ideas and nurturing its corporate culture.

Amazon insider Colin Bryar became Jeff Bezos’ personal technical advisor and “shadow,” while co-author Bill Carr helped build Amazon’s digital products, including Prime and Amazon Web Services. Here, they detail Amazon’s principles, mechanisms and processes. While offering no criticism of Amazon, the authors provide insights about its processes and ideas that might help fuel your organization’s success.

Guiding Fundamentals

Amazon under-promises and over-delivers for its customers. It rejects short-term gains if they come at the expense of long-term value-building. It embraces experimentation, whatever the cost or size of previous failures. And Amazon takes pride in execution.


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