Amazon CEO Andy Jassy on Agility, AI Strategy, and the Changing Role of Managers

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SPEAKER_2 (0:20)

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Thank you.

Alison Beard (0:56)

I'm Alison Beard, Executive Editor at Harvard Business Review.

Adi Ignatius (0:59)

And I'm Adi Ignatius, HBR Editor-at-Large.

Alison Beard (1:02)

And this is the HBR IdeaCast, where we give you insights and inspiration to make you a better leader. Now, Adi, I have been hosting this show for nearly seven years now, and you've popped in on occasion, but let me officially welcome you as a new co-host.

Adi Ignatius (1:17)

Yeah, well, thank you. I'm really excited to be part of this, and very happy to be your co-host.

Alison Beard (1:21)

I am thrilled that you're gonna be bringing four decades of expertise and knowledge to the IdeaCast audience. You spent the last 16 years as Editor-in-Chief of HBR, and now, as Editor-at-Large, you are not only hosting the show with me, but also launching a new subscription offer for the C-suite called HBR Executive.

Adi Ignatius (1:42)

Yeah, I'm very excited about that. Listeners will hear more from us about HBR Executive before long, but it's hard at the top. We know that. With new technology, with political and geopolitical uncertainty, it's hard to run a company. So, this is a new product suite of content for CEOs and their top teams. We want to try to make it a little bit easier to do that difficult job. So, look, and that's what we're trying to do with IdeaCast, too, to bring in insights and inspiration that help managers do their job better.

Alison Beard (2:12)

And speaking of the C-suite, for your first episode, you flew out to Seattle to interview Amazon CEO Andy Jassy.

Adi Ignatius (2:19)

Yeah, look, Andy is a really interesting character. He succeeded Jeff Bezos, who was the founder CEO of Amazon. He ran Amazon Web Services, which grew phenomenally. You know, he's been the CEO since 2021 I wanted to talk to him now for a few reasons. First of all, they're going big on AI. They arguably were a little slow out of the gate, but AI is a very important part of their future, and he's got a lot of thoughts about what, how AI will reorder our world. But he's also shaking up the management structure at Amazon as well. And first of all, he's got everybody coming to work physically five days a week, which is controversial, but something he believes in. And he's flattening out management levels within the company. So there's a lot going on, and I wanted to find out from him, what is the big idea that animates all these changes?

Alison Beard (3:07)

Yeah, and he doesn't give many interviews, and I know this one was a long time in the making, so kudos to you for getting it. It did not disappoint. There are some great nuggets about organizing for innovation that I think our entire audience can learn from.

Adi Ignatius (3:19)

Look, Amazon is one of the biggest companies in the world, but I think the lessons from what they're trying to do in terms of becoming a perpetual innovation machine are relevant to any company of any size. So with that, here's my conversation with Amazon CEO Andy Jassy.

Andy, thank you for joining us. I want to jump in. You've said that you want Amazon to operate like a startup, like a very large startup, and a lot of CEOs say that. And I'm interested, how do you try to make that happen? You're an enormous company with a lot going on. How do you try to make that work?

Andy Jassy (3:57)

Yeah, well, we talk about, first of all, thanks for having me on. I appreciate it. We talk about wanting to operate like the world's largest startup. And I actually think Amazon already, based on our DNA and the way that we have become a company over the last 30 years, moves very quickly. But when you get larger, there are all sorts of ways that, you know, natural ways that you can get slowed down. And so when we talk about operating like the world's largest startup, we think about a few things. One is, I think in whatever we build, whatever we spend resource on, we have to make sure we're solving a real customer problem. Technology companies in particular fall in love with the technology, but they get to the end and they haven't really solved anything remarkable. And so you have to be, startups are missionary about trying to solve problems for customers. And that's what we've got to make sure we spend our time on. And then we need a lot of builders, disproportionately so. People that like to invent, people that like to dissect a customer experience and figure out what's wrong with it, even if it's pretty good, and then rebuild it. And then, you know, you need owners if you're going to be a startup. You need people to think about what would I do if this were my money? What would I do if I owned all the resources? Hey, I see that I own this piece of the problem. I don't really know what the rest of it's solved. Should I spend my time on it or should I just assume someone's got it? You need people who really feel accountable. As part of what our effort in trying to flatten our organizations is about, is we want the people doing the work to think like owners. And then you really need speed. And I think speed disproportionately matters in every business at every time.