Probably the best business book I ever read

Very clear communication of ideas and excellent moments of insights that had me scrambling for a notebook to take notes.

1 person found this helpful

Overpromises and underdelivers

In the first half of the book there are some interesting insights into Amazon management practices.

The second half of the book degenerates into a cult-like sycophantic Jeff-fest. Many of the outcomes seems retrofitted to the management principles rather than have a clear cause and effect.

Finally, we are hit with a pitch for consulting work.

The other striking characteristic of the book is the non-contribution of Bezos himself. We are merely referred to his shareholder letters.

You are better off reading Jim Collins' Good to Great which has obviously been an inspiration for Bezos.

Insightful insider account

The authors clearly care a great deal about Amazon and it’s processes and it’s easy to understand why—who wouldn’t after witnessing such tremendous success?

Fascinating to hear about the formation of Prime and AWS, the latter in particular given its outsized prominence in the world of technology.

One could easily get the impression that there are few to no downsides to any of the principles that the book postulates are responsible for Amazon’s tremendous success. They may be correct, but they may also not be and it would have been interesting to hear more discussion along these lines.

Overall, an enjoyable listen full of insider stories. An easy recommendation.

Amazing book on Amazon thought process

Great book and narration of Amazon ways of working and working backwards with the customer experience at the centre of everything

I’m not a fan of Amazon but…

I’m not a fan of Amazon on the basis that it’s business model and strategy is that they are willing to sell items at a loss for a long time in order to beat out every small retailers who have staff to pay and pay the bills each month by breaking even. And I do think society is worse off because of that and that they crush the dreams of many small entrepreneurs, who started businesses to support their families.

However this book was a fascinating insight into the teams and culture of the business. There’s a few nuggets of wisdom.

The main thing I took away from the book, probably reading between the lines a bit, is that if an entrepreneur is worried about their next payroll and bills they can’t concentrate on the big picture. Also you can’t compete against businesses who’ll see your whole value proposition as having the weakness of needing to pay for itself so you can pay the bills, and so give it away as a “by the way it’s included”.

Team dynamics and how they manage inputs are great. I’ve a feeling I will re read this book.

Inspiring and thought provoking.

Although many of the concepts within this book are widely known these days, the context provided by the narrative of how they came to pass and how they were applied as enablers within Amazon brings them to life. Recommended!

Very Insightful

Great insights to how the Amazon machine works, how great products are built and developed at Amazon like this very one we are using. Learnt a lot from it.

Interesting

Thin on detail, but states it is an overview. Still interesting book to listen to.

Well worth reading

Lot's of interesting insights and valuable lessons. Much easier to work on the long term goals if you have deep pockets.

Great insight into how amazon has evolved

This is a go-to case study for business leaders on how amazon disseminated their leadership culture to evolve each major product area into globally recognised products and services. In the past 20+ years amazon has gone from dominating physical distribution to leading digital services while a lot of businesses have changed very little. Everyone in business can learn something from this book.