1600s
Patel uses a hypothetical 1600s Amazon to argue that big innovations depend on earlier infrastructure such as the internet and logistics.
“imagine if Amazon dot com got built in the sixteen hundreds, it would be an epically failed company.”
Topic
Amazon
155 facts from 63 episodes, in date order. These are what speakers said on the shows, each linked to the moment it was said. They aren't independently verified.
1994
Amazon's early engineer Shel Kaphan chose Oracle as the database after Sybase failed to return his call.
“And Sybase did not return Shell's call. And so he chose Oracle.”
1994
Jeff Bezos says Amazon could rely on existing infrastructure such as credit cards and postal services, and he wants Blue Origin to build similar infrastructure for space.
“When I started Amazon, I didn't have to develop a payment system, it already existed. It was called the credit card.”
1994
Jeff Bezos says he told Amazon's early investors he thought there was about a 30 percent chance of success, meaning getting their money back.
“told all of our early investors that I thought there was a 30 chance of success.”
1995
Bezos spent most of a year and 60 meetings raising Amazon's first $1 million from 22 investors for 20% of the company.
“taking the better part of a year to raise one measly million dollars over 60 meetings, ultimately from 22 different investors to sell 20% of the company”
1995
Shel Kaphan built a dynamic web page engine called Obidos that carried IDs in the URL so Amazon could track shopping carts without cookies.
“He invented this really insane engine. It's basically a rendering engine called Obidos”
1995
Amazon's first purchase was made on April 3, 1995, by John Wainwright, who bought Douglas Hofstadter's Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies.
“Shell's friend John Wainwright makes the first purchase on April 3rd, 1995, a book called Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies by Douglas Hofstetter.”
1995
Amazon launched its website to the public on July 16, 1995.
“And then shortly after that, July 16th, 1995, they launched the site to the public.”
1995
Amazon opened for business in July 1995 with a small team handpicked by Jeff Bezos.
“Amazon opened for business in July 1995, staffed by a handful of people handpicked by Jeff Bezos.”
1996
Amazon had $15.7 million in revenue in 1996, about 15 times its prior half-year total.
“They do 15.7 million in revenue in 1996.”
1996
Amazon chose Kleiner Perkins to lead its $8 million Series A at a $60 million post-money valuation.
“Amazon ends up choosing Kleiner to lead their series A $8 million at a $60 million post money valuation.”
1997
Amazon went public in 1997 at roughly a billion-dollar valuation, and nobody could have foreseen that it would later build AWS.
“amazon in 97 when they went public you know i think around a billion dollar valuation nobody could have foreseen aws”
1997
Amazon went public at $8 per share and ran up to $120 per share during the dot-com bubble.
“Amazon IPO'd at $8 per share. And just for fun, I want to point out that subsequent run-up there in the dot-com bubble to $120 a share.”
1997
Amazon's first shareholder letter in 1997 said it would prioritize growth, with an emphasis on long-term profitability and capital management.
“We will focus on growth with an emphasis on long-term profitability and capital management.”
1997
Amazon's IPO on May 15, 1997 raised $54 million at a $438 million market capitalization.
“They raised $54 million at a $438 million market cap.”
1997
Lex Fridman says Jeff Bezos first wrote about 'day one' thinking in his 1997 letter to Amazon shareholders.
“I think you 1st wrote about it in 97 letters to shareholders.”
1997
In his first shareholder letter, Jeff Bezos wrote that setting a high bar in hiring would be the single most important element of Amazon's success.
“Setting the bar high in our approach to hiring has been and will continue to be the single most important element of Amazon's success.”
1998
Walmart sued Amazon in late 1998 over trade secrets after Amazon hired its executives, and the case settled with no damages.
“In late 1998, Walmart sues Amazon for trying to steal trade secrets. The case settles with no damages”
1998
Amazon acquired the payments startup Accept.com in 1998, largely to keep eBay from buying it.
“Bezos swoops in and Amazon steals the deal and acquires Accept.com, mostly so that eBay doesn't get it.”
1998
Ghodsi said Amazon.com and Google already existed in 1998, using them to argue that today's AI infrastructure companies can survive new app waves.
“there was actually an Amazon.com already in 98, there was already, uh, Google actually existed already in 98 and so on.”
1999
Amazon raised about $2 billion in convertible debt, far more than its IPO, which helped it survive the dot-com bust.
“raising about $2 billion in convertible debt on the debt markets, which totally saves Amazon skin.”
1999-2001
Howard Marks said Amazon's stock reached about $89 in 1999, fell to about $6 in 2001, and later rose to roughly $3,300.
“Amazon that I think it was 89 in 99, and then it fell to six in 01.”
1999
Amazon bought Benchmark-backed payments startup Accept.com for $175 million of Amazon stock.
“They swoop in and they buy accept.com for $175 million of Amazon stock.”
2000
Amazon launched Marketplace, letting third-party sellers list on Amazon's product pages, in November 2000, starting with books.
“In November of 2000, they launched Marketplace first with books.”
2000
Amazon rewrote Amazon.com to run on Linux and HP servers instead of Digital Equipment Corporation servers, which the host says helped save the company financially.
“a massive rewrite of all of Amazon.com to run on Linux and run on these, they did this big deal with HP, run on HP servers.”
2001
Amazon laid off 1,300 people in 2001.
“And so in 2001, they lay off 1,300 people.”
2001
Amazon held a 2001 management offsite with Jim Collins, whose flywheel concept became associated with the company.
“they do a management offsite in 2001 with Jim Collins, author of Good to Great, where he writes about the flywheel”
2001
In 2001 Jim Sinegal met Jeff Bezos for coffee, after which Amazon reversed a policy of raising prices, according to the hosts' account of Brad Stone's book.
“Jeff has this coffee with Jim and Jim explains this philosophy to Jeff.”
2002
In 2002 Amazon held a developer conference attended by eight people and announced a new division called Amazon Web Services.
“They hold a conference for developers in 2002. A total of eight people attend the conference.”
2003
Netflix's stock fell about 60% when Amazon was reported to be entering the market, and McCarthy stayed on instead of leaving.
“It dropped literally the stock price drops 60, six zero percent shades of what's happening with Peloton now.”
2003
Steve Jobs told Jeff Bezos that Amazon had a decent chance of being the last place to buy CDs, a business he said would be high margin but small.
“Amazon has a decent chance of being the last place to buy CDs.”
2003
Around 2003 Jeff Bezos mandated that Amazon move from a monolithic software stack to services, which Garman says led to AWS.
“Jeff Bezos basically mandated across the company that in order to move from a big monolithic stack that wasn't gonna scale anymore for Amazon, we had to move everything to services.”
2004
Amazon CIO Rick Dalzell proposed setting up an Amazon subsidiary in Cape Town, South Africa, for Chris Pinkham, who wanted to move his family there.
“We'll set up a new Amazon subsidiary in Cape Town, South Africa that you can lead.”
2004
Jeff Bezos emailed his senior leadership team (the S team) that PowerPoint presentations were over and that they must write short narratives instead.
“S team members would be required to write short narratives describing their ideas.”
2006
Matt Garman said that in 2006 AWS had to convince customers why a bookseller should run their computers.
“2006, we had to answer the question of like, why would a bookseller ever run my computers?”
2007
Amazon bought Audible for $300 million shortly after launching the Kindle.
“Right after the Kindle launch, they buy Audible. Amazon buys Audible for $300 million.”
2007
The first Kindle went on sale in November 2007 for $399, held 200 books and sold out in under six hours.
“The Kindle goes on sale for the first time all the way in November of 2007. It retails for $399 and would hold 200 books. It sold out in less than six hours.”
2011
Intercom was founded in 2011 and, according to the episode introduction, its products operate within 25,000 businesses including Amazon, Lyft and Atlassian.
“The business was founded in 2011 and their products operate with 25,000 businesses, including the likes of Amazon, Lyft, and Atlassian.”
2013
A host says Amazon added over $1.5 trillion in market capitalization after Brad Stone's first book, The Everything Store, was published.
“Amazon has created over a trillion and a half dollars of market cap since you released the first book.”
2015
Amazon revealed financial results for Amazon Web Services in 2015, after which its profitability became widely recognized.
“AWS was a cipher in 2013. The company revealed the financials in 2015. And the world recognized how good of a business that was.”
2015
Brad Stone says Amazon's push to bring Chinese sellers onto its Marketplace was inspired by Alibaba's AliExpress and by Wish.com.
“they are quote-unquote inspired, their eyes opened by two companies. One, Alibaba is expanding AliExpress with this idea that the sellers”
2015
When Amazon first broke out AWS financials in 2015, AWS had about a $6 billion revenue run rate and 70 percent annual growth.
“IPO, quote unquote, $6 billion revenue run rate for AWS, 70% annual growth rate.”
2015
In 2015 Amazon bought Annapurna Labs, an Israeli company, and began custom designing its own chips.
“They also bought Annapurna Labs, this Israeli company, and they started custom designing chips”
2016
In 2016 Amazon restructured so that Andy Jassy became CEO of AWS and Jeff Wilke became CEO of the retail business.
“Jassy becomes CEO of AWS and Jeff Welke becomes CEO of everything else, Amazon retail.”
2016
The six founding corporate backers were Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook (now Meta), Google DeepMind and IBM.
“So that's Amazon and Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, now Meta, Google DeepMind and IBM.”
2016
Fleabag debuted in the United States on Amazon, amid a race among networks, cable and streamers including Netflix to make good shows.
“streaming TV services like Netflix and Amazon, where Fleabag debuted in the United States, were all in a race to just get good stuff out there.”
2017
A Bloomberg article by Spencer Soper reporting that Amazon had previously considered buying Whole Foods helped prompt John Mackey to contact Amazon.
“Spencer Soper, wrote an article that suggested that Amazon had considered buying Whole Foods in the past”
2018
Amazon's HQ2 plans for Long Island City and Crystal City included requests for helipads, which Brad Stone connects to Bezos's interest in helicopters.
“the request for helipads in Long Island City and Crystal City that were part of HQ2”
2019
Amazon's advertising business grew from roughly $4 billion in 2018 to about $10 billion in 2019, according to David Rosenthal.
“It went from something like $4 billion in 2018 to $10 billion in 2019.”
2019
Amazon.com did not finish migrating off Oracle databases onto AWS database products until 2019.
“Amazon.com did not finish their migration off of Oracle databases and onto AWS products until 2019”
2019-2024
Matt Garman said that in each of the previous five years Amazon commissioned more renewable power projects than any other company in the world.
“each year for the last 5 years, we've commissioned more than any company in the world”
2020
Paul Graham remarked in December 2020 that about 99.98% of Amazon's growth had occurred since its IPO.
“he remarked in December 2020 that an astonishing 99.98 of Amazon's growth had happened since IPO.”
2021
A host says Amazon's advertising business generated roughly $6 billion in the most recent quarter.
“now you've got this massive advertising business, I think 6 billion in the last quarter.”
2022
David Rosenthal said Amazon had about $470 billion in trailing twelve-month revenue, second only to Walmart among all companies.
“Amazon did $470 billion of revenue in the last 12 months. That is the second highest amount of revenue that any company has ever done ever.”
2022
David Rosenthal said Amazon held a 56% share of US e-commerce.
“The largest application of the internet by revenue is e-commerce. Amazon has a 56% market share of US e-commerce.”
2022
David Rosenthal said Amazon's sponsored listings advertising was a roughly $30 billion high-margin business inside its retail segment.
“Amazon sponsored listings, which is a $30 billion high margin revenue business within retail.”
2022
David Rosenthal said Amazon's retail segment lost about $1.5 billion in the most recent quarter because it invests far ahead of demand.
“The reason that retail lost a billion and a half dollars last quarter is Amazon invests so far ahead of the curve.”
2022
The host says Shopify has about 2 million merchants and Amazon has over 30 million sellers.
“We've got something like 2 million Shopify merchants and over 30 million Amazon sellers.”
2022
Ben Thompson says Amazon over-invested in logistics and over-hired after Jeff Bezos pushed one-day delivery.
“they dramatically over invested in their logistics network their cost structure got completely out of control they over hired”
2022
A host notes that Acquired covered Amazon in two episodes and describes Amazon as only about a 27-year-old company.
“We were able to fit Amazon into two episodes, but Amazon is only a, what, 27-year-old company?”
2023
Huang describes Omniverse as a 'zero billion dollar' business with about 40 customers, including Amazon and BMW.
“There's like 40 customers now, something like that. Amazon, BMW, you know?”
2023
Over 400 other organizations had signed Amazon's Climate Pledge, according to Adam Selipsky.
“We have over 400 other organizations, including many large companies, who have signed on to the climate pledge”
2023
Ben Affleck says Amazon planned a traditional theatrical release for Air on about 3,500 screens.
“we're gonna do a theatrical traditional, you know, 3,500 screens out in the theaters.”
2024
Dario Amodei noted that Google and Amazon build their own AI chips, and that Anthropic collaborates with both.
“Google is building their own, you know, chips, as we know. Amazon is building their own chips”
2024
Nilay Patel said Amazon's AI push includes more than $8 billion in funding for Anthropic, its own AI chips to compete with Nvidia, and nuclear power investments.
“That includes more than 8 billion in funding for Anthropic, a huge push to build its own AI chips to compete with Nvidia, and even nuclear power investments”
2024
Nilay Patel referred to an $8 billion Amazon investment in Anthropic tied to building a data center and running Anthropic's Claude.
“there's an $8,000, 000,000 investment in Anthropic to help build a data center and then run Anthropic and Claude.”
2024
David Luan says Amazon brought in him and his Adept team to run agents work at Amazon about a year before the interview.
“Amazon brought us in to go, uh, run agents for Amazon about a year ago at this point.”
2025
Adam Selipsky said Amazon was already over 90% powered by renewable energy, with a goal of 100% by 2025.
“the good news is we are already over 90% renewable energy powered across all of Amazon”
2025
David Luan says Alexa Plus uses a remote browser powered by his team's technology to use Thumbtack and book a plumber.
“Then what happens is Alexa Plus spins up a, uh, remote browser powered by our technology, basically, that then goes and uses Thumbtack like a human to go get you a plumber to your house”
2025
Amazon released Nova Act, its agent toolkit, as a research preview in March.
“We released Nova Act, which was the research preview that came out in in in March.”
2025
David Luan says enterprises using Nova Act report over 95% reliability, compared with an average of about 60% for other agent products.
“they're seeing ninety five plus percent reliability, which is, as I'm sure you've seen from the coverage of, you know, uh, other agent products out there, is like a material step up from the average 60% level of reliability”
2025
Sean Fitzpatrick says Microsoft, Amazon and Google are each investing close to $100 billion in foundational AI models.
“each one of them is putting in, you know, uh, close to $100 billion, you know, Microsoft, uh, Amazon, Google.”
2025
Chris Benson said Amazon was laying off 14,000 middle managers on the notion that technology can replace human work.
“doing massive layoffs, you know, and they're doing that on the notion, uh, in Amazon's case, 14,000 middle managers”
2026
The host said that Amazon had banned Meta's new Muse AI agent from shopping on Amazon.
“In the last couple days we've had Amazon ban Meta's new Muse AI from shopping on Amazon”
2026
Alan Chan noted that Amazon has its own shopping agent called Rufus, which may be part of why Amazon blocks Meta's Muse.
“And Amazon as well also has their Rufus agent, so maybe they're trying to play that up as well.”
2026
Jon Gabrus said the DINKs pilot was shot a couple of years earlier and that the series is six episodes for Amazon.
“we shot the pilot a couple years ago. We're doing 6 episodes for Amazon.”
2040
Amazon pledged to reach net-zero carbon across its operations by 2040, which Adam Selipsky said is 10 years ahead of the Paris Accords goal.
“net zero carbon across all of Amazon retail, AWS, everything, uh, by 2040, uh, which is 10 years ahead of the Paris Accords”
Undated
At Amazon, Dan Lewis wrote several six-page documents in his first two and a half months and pitched them to leadership.
“I wrote five, six-pagers in my first two and a half months. I pitched them to the leadership team.”
Undated
Ben Gilbert cites a statistic that Amazon made more money in its 21st year after its IPO than in all of the previous years combined.
“I think I heard a stat recently that was Amazon made more money in its 21st year after IPO than in the entirety of the 20 cents IPO.”
Undated
Brad Stone reports that Dave Clark, who was promoted above his former boss and best man, had Amazon sue that executive after he left to join Target.
“when that executive leaves Amazon to go to Target, Dave Clark basically has Amazon sue him.”
Undated
Brad Stone says Amazon's retail business is the biggest and first customer of Amazon Web Services.
“Retail is the biggest customer of AWS. It's the first customer.”
Undated
Brad Stone found that Amazon, rather than Jeff Bezos personally, paid for the Campfire event.
“But in fact, as I looked into it, Amazon pays for it.”
Undated
Amazon tried to launch in Mexico without Google search advertising, showing its concern about relying on Google, and the launch struggled until it turned Google advertising on.
“they tried to launch in Mexico without Google. And it was a great illustration of how concerned Bezos and Jeff Wilkie were”
Undated
Brad Stone says some sources described Amazon's cashierless store technology as its biggest single investment, alongside the China effort.
“I definitely had some sources saying that it was the biggest single investment in Amazon history, at least alongside China”
Undated
Brad Stone says Amazon negotiated with Kiva Systems over many years, bought it, and then went back on a promise to let the founders sell the robots externally.
“they negotiated the thing over many years and tried to suppress its growth, and then bought it”
Undated
Chenyi Shi contrasts an eBay seller of one antique watch, who wants the highest price, with an Amazon seller who wants more unit sales at the market price.
“He has only one watch to sell, but the equation going in his mind is, how can I sell this watch for the highest price possible?”
Undated
Andrew Marks argued that Amazon's favorable cash conversion cycle made it sounder on free cash flow than its losses on the income statement suggested.
“they actually had a very favorable cash conversion cycle. So the business was much more sound from a free cash flow perspective, much earlier than it was from an income state perspective.”
Undated
According to Steve Yegge's post as read on the show, Jeff Bezos mandated that all Amazon teams expose their data and functionality through service interfaces.
“all teams will henceforth expose their data and functionality through service interfaces”
Undated
One host says AWS veterans told them that AWS does not deprecate features, unlike other Amazon products.
“that became very clear that AWS doesn't deprecate features Amazon will kill stuff”
Undated
Chenyi Shi noted that Amazon, despite AWS's success, flopped with the Fire Phone and lost billions of dollars on Alexa.
“But as successful as they are in AWS, they also flopped Fire Phone, if you still remember that. They also lost billions and billions on Alexa.”
Undated
Chenyi Shi argued Amazon's retail marketplace benefits depend on the scale advantage of its warehouse and distribution infrastructure.
“we all know Amazon in retail has gigantic scale advantage in the infrastructure, right? Just all the warehouse and distribution centers they've built.”
Undated
Amazon's mandatory Customer Connection program requires corporate employees to work as customer service agents for a few days every two years, and Bezos took part too.
“Every two years, the corporate employee is required to become a customer service agent for a few days.”
Undated
Toyota's andon cord lets any worker who notices a quality problem stop the whole assembly line so specialists can fix the cause, an idea Bezos brought to Amazon customer service.
“When any worker notices a quality problem, they are authorized to pull a cord that stops the entire assembly line.”
Undated
To differentiate its streaming service and avoid endless bidding against rivals for studio content, Amazon concluded it had to produce its own movies and TV shows.
“We had to create our own content. It was time to make our own movies and TV shows.”
Undated
Early working-backwards documents for Amazon Web Services stated the goal of giving a student in a dorm room the same computing infrastructure as an Amazon engineer.
“we wanted the student in a dorm room to have access to the same world class computing infrastructure as any Amazon software engineer.”
Undated
Amazon has 16 leadership principles, which Adam Selipsky calls the company's operating system.
“we have 16 leadership principles that they're, uh, not just in some manual, they're alive and well.”
Undated
Adam Selipsky said AWS was founded partly because Amazon wanted its teams to move faster by sharing a common layer of infrastructure services.
“one of the reasons why AWS was founded was because Amazon wanted to move faster, and they wanted to create the shared layer of infrastructure services”
Undated
Amazon's two-pizza team rule holds that a team should be no larger than two pizzas can feed.
“wherever possible, you should have a team no larger than can be fed with 2 pizzas.”
Undated
Amazon runs most internal meetings around a narrative document of up to six pages that attendees read silently instead of using PowerPoint.
“it could be up to 6 pages, no longer than 6 pages, and when we come into a meeting, the first thing we do is say hello, and then we all sit down and read.”
Undated
Before building any significant new service or feature, Amazon writes a full press release and FAQ, known as PRFAQ or working backwards.
“we'll actually write a full press release along with a full FAQ.”
Undated
Adam Selipsky argues that Amazon's customer obsession is about deep understanding and decision-making, not emotional attachment.
“Although I think loving your customers is a good thing. But at Amazon, and I I think the reason why, uh, we actually are so customer-obsessed”
Undated
Jeff Bezos says he stepped down as Amazon CEO mainly to spend time on Blue Origin.
“And the reason, the primary reason I did that is so that I could spend time on Blue Origin.”
Undated
Jeff Bezos says that during an early Amazon business review he called the customer-service line and waited many minutes, showing the reported wait-time metric was wrong.
“And I picked up the phone and I dialed the 1800 number and called customer service.”
Undated
Jeff Bezos says Amazon Web Services is building a foundation model called Titan and a corporate tool called Bedrock.
“we're building Titan, which is our, uh, foundational model, we're also building, y- um, Bedrock”
Undated
Jeff Bezos says meetings at Amazon and Blue Origin typically start with a six-page narrative memo that attendees read silently for about 30 minutes.
“a typical meeting will start with a six-page narratively structured memo, and we do study hall.”
Undated
Prem Natarajan headed the Alexa AI organization at Amazon before joining Capital One.
“And then I went to Amazon, where I headed the Alexa A I organization.”
Undated
Taylor cites Amazon's two-pizza team model as a way to cut management overhead by keeping teams small.
“if you have what I think Amazon called the two pizza box team, you reduce the need for a lot of that overhead”
Undated
Taylor compares the AI boom to the dot-com bubble, noting that failures like Webvan and Pets.com coexisted with lasting companies like Amazon, Google, eBay, PayPal and Salesforce.
“In the same way you had Webvan and Pets.com, but you also had Amazon, Google, eBay, PayPal, Salesforce, and others come out of it.”
Undated
Liu notes that Amazon emerged from the Web 1.0 era and became stronger after the bubble's rationalization.
“you had really good companies like Amazon that actually were born in that era, right?”
Undated
Barney cites Amazon's complex relationships with millions of suppliers and customers as a setting where generative AI can add value.
“In order for Amazon to run its business model, it has to have relationships with its suppliers and customers, and there's millions of them, and it's deeply complicated.”
Undated
Kahn says Jeff Bezos banned PowerPoint presentations at Amazon because he worried that bullet points produced sloppy thinking.
“That's why Jeff Bezos had famously kind of banned PowerPoint presentations at Amazon because he was very worried about the kind of sloppy thinking”
Undated
Kahn cites studies of men left alone with Amazon's Alexa who became abusive toward the female-voiced assistant and sometimes carried those habits into real relationships.
“Particularly, there's some interesting studies about men who have been left alone with Alexa, um, basically the Amazon digital assistant.”
Undated
Kahn says pressure on Amazon led to a parent-enabled Alexa mode that responds only when a child is polite.
“it's one of the reasons there was actually some pressure put on Amazon to introduce a mode to Alexa that a parent can turn on, where the Alexa will only respond if the child is polite”
Undated
Matt Garman said Amazon probably had problems the first time it ran Prime Day because of traffic hitting its website.
“the first time we probably did Prime Day, we probably had issues across that too of just people hitting the website and other things.”
Undated
Matt Garman said that under Amazon's one-way door framework, big investments and hard-to-reverse service launches get more executive inspection than reversible decisions.
“I'm gonna go invest $1 billion or or some decision, or I'm gonna launch a new service that is hard to kind of pull back or is painful to pull back.”
Undated
Matt Garman rejected the idea that AWS began as a way to resell Amazon's spare capacity, saying the math does not work.
“AWS was never about excess capacity about about Amazon. It just just, like, math doesn't work, right?”
Undated
Aaron Levie says early cloud adoption required enterprises to trust new vendors such as Amazon, which they had not previously used as enterprise suppliers.
“They had to trust these new vendors that they hadn't worked with before. If you were an enterprise, you'd never worked with Amazon, you know, as an enterprise vendor.”
Undated
De Freitas cites Amazon's Alexa making a 'hm' sound as an example of a cue that makes technology seem like it has a mind and body.
“when Amazon's Alexa goes, Hm, you know, it it's as if it's really pausing and and thinking”
Undated
MrBeast says Amazon reported Beast Games as the number one unscripted show of all time.
“It was the number one unscripted show of all time”
Undated
Andy Jassy says Amazon aims to operate like the world's largest startup and believes it already moves quickly.
“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 thirty years, moves very quickly.”
Undated
Andy Jassy defines a two-way door decision as one that can be reversed with no harm if it proves wrong.
“The two-way door decision is one where if you walk through it and you're wrong, you can walk back through it and no harm.”
Undated
Amazon set a goal to raise the ratio of individual contributors to managers by at least 15% and says it had beaten that goal by the end of the first quarter.
“increase the ratio of individual contributors to managers by at least 15% across the company, which we have beaten already by the end of the first quarter.”
Undated
Amazon created a 'no bureaucracy' email alias where employees could report bureaucracy directly to Andy Jassy.
“we started this no bureaucracy email alias where we encourage anybody in the company that thought they were experiencing bureaucracy to email me at this um alias.”
Undated
Andy Jassy says he has received over a thousand emails through the no-bureaucracy alias, not all of which describe true bureaucracy.
“I've gotten over a thousand emails at this point, and not all of them are true bureaucracy.”
Undated
Amazon has changed 375 processes because of emails sent to the no-bureaucracy alias.
“we have changed already 375 processes because of these emails.”
Undated
Andy Jassy says Amazon's own data does not show that remote work raises productivity, though he acknowledges invention is hard to measure.
“our data doesn't suggest what you said, but I also I mean, how do you measure how well you're inventing?”
Undated
Amazon built a custom AI chip called Trainium that Andy Jassy says will help customers save money.
“We've built a chip there, our own custom AI called Trainium that's going to help people save a lot of money relative to what the cost has been to date.”
Undated
Andy Jassy says Amazon Bedrock offers the largest selection of leading third-party frontier AI models, including Amazon's own.
“we've built this service called Bedrock, which has the largest selection of those leading third party frontier models, including our own”
Undated
Andy Jassy says Amazon's AI services contribute to a multibillion-dollar annual revenue run rate in AI.
“these are services that are part of why we have a multi billion dollar annual revenue run rate in the AI space.”
Undated
Andy Jassy says Amazon offers an AI-powered coding assistant called Q.
“We have something called Q that's the best AI powered coding assistant.”
Undated
Andy Jassy says Amazon has built or is building over a thousand generative AI applications internally.
“we have over a thousand generative AI applications across Amazon that we've built or are building”
Undated
Amazon built Rufus, a generative AI shopping assistant for its retail business.
“we've built something called Rufus, which is a generative AI powered shopping assistant.”
Undated
Amazon built a foundation model that compares apparel brands' sizing to recommend the right size to shoppers.
“we've built a foundation model to compare all the brands and which ones run comparably small or large to recommend the right size to you.”
Undated
Andy Jassy cites tariffs as an example of distractions that Amazon tries not to let pull it away from serving customers.
“you can get distracted by, you know, are there going to be tariffs? how high are the tariffs? are there not going to be tariffs?”
Undated
At the time of the interview, Andy Jassy had been at Amazon for twenty-eight years and CEO for four.
“you've been at Amazon for twenty eight years, you've been in the CEO role for four.”
Undated
Matt Bornstein said Amazon began sending order emails with minimal details and a link, as data holders withheld information from email scanning.
“So Amazon, famously, now, when you order something, they send you a confirmation email that says, Hey, you just ordered something. Click here to find out what you ordered”
Undated
David Luan says Navan, formerly TripActions, uses Amazon's agent technology to automate backend travel bookings for its customers.
“we have another customer called Navan, which is formerly TripActions, which uses us basically to automate a lot of backend bookings for travel for their customers.”
Undated
David Luan says Peter Abbeel, a Berkeley professor who came from Covariant (which he calls Clearpath), works at Amazon, and that he or his students created most of the reinforcement learning algorithms that work well today.
“Here we also have Peter Abiel, who came from Clearpath and is a Berkeley professor that basically created or his students ended up creating the majority of the RL algorithms that work well today.”
Undated
Alex Hardiman says The New York Times announced a partnership with Amazon about two months before the interview, which she says provides appropriate compensation and controls over its content.
“we just announced, um, about two months ago, a partnership with Amazon, and they really recognize sustainable and fair value exchange that gives us appropriate compensation for our work”
Undated
Tim Crawford said Amazon was asked not to bring more workloads into Ireland because of energy concerns.
“Amazon got asked not to not to, uh, bring more workloads into Ireland or something along those lines.”
Undated
Rene Haas says Arm entered general-purpose cloud data centers years ago with Amazon, Microsoft and Google.
“ARM had gotten into the cloud data centers a number of years ago, general purpose cloud with Amazon and Microsoft and uh, and Google.”
Undated
Ylan Kazi says patients are more demanding because they expect healthcare to match the experience they get from Amazon and other retailers.
“patients are becoming more demanding around it because they've had amazing experiences, you know, from Amazon and other retail companies.”
Undated
Rich Isenberg compared dark web attack marketplaces to the Amazon marketplace, saying people who cannot write code can buy and deploy large attacks.
“There's five star rated vendors, they take all major credit cards, um, and anybody who doesn't even know how to write code can deploy a huge attack”
Undated
Neeley says Meta, Apple, Amazon, Google and Netflix have deployed specific AI at scale for roughly fifteen to twenty years.
“Many of the companies in the 2,000 s, like Meta, used to be Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Google, Netflix. They've been deploying specific AI at scale in the last fifteen, twenty years.”
Undated
McAfee says SpaceX has crashed many uncrewed rockets because launching without people aboard is a reversible, two-way-door decision.
“SpaceX has launched a lot of rockets, they have and crashed a lot of rockets because they realized that in many ways, launching a rocket is a two way door.”
Undated
Michael Watkins cites Amazon as a classic example of designing an organizational sensory system for understanding the outside world and the company itself.
“Amazon being a a classic example of literally designing the architecture through which you understand what's happening out there and inside your organization”
Undated
Todd Vancil says cloud computing moved enterprise data to infrastructure providers such as Amazon, Google and Microsoft and to software-as-a-service providers.
“Whether it be infrastructure as a service from the cloud service providers, the Amazons, the Googles, the Microsofts, whether it's being my data that is now inside of software as a service providers.”
Undated
Alex Hormozi recounted Jeff Bezos saying Amazon bets on things that will not change, such as customers preferring lower prices, more selection and faster delivery.
“We believe that customers will prefer cheaper prices 10 years from now just as much as they do now.”
Undated
Chris Benson cites Walmart and Amazon as companies advertising drone delivery, as evidence that pervasive robotics is arriving.
“Walmart advertises drone delivery, as does Amazon, and you know, we're seeing more of those.”
Undated
Das Deb says his work at JPMorgan Chase serves large clients such as Amazon, Walmart and Target.
“we service big clients like Amazon and and Walmart and Target and whatnot.”
Undated
Benjamin Houssard describes Amazon hiring the founding team of Adept AI and signing a license agreement with the startup within days, as an example of the acquihire model.
“They hire the founding team of Adapt AI on, uh, the Monday, on the Tuesday, uh, they sign a a licenses agreement back, uh, to, uh, the startup.”
Undated
Dane Knecht cites Amazon as an example of a company blocking personal shopping agents.
“you saw Amazon just say, uh, no, no, no personal, no personal shopping there, uh, from an agent.”
Undated
Ray Winstone is working on a show called Danger Money for Amazon.
“we're doing a a a show called Um, Danger Money for Amazon.”
Undated
Joe Rogan, reading a report, said AI companies including Anthropic and Amazon buy physical books in bulk, scan them for training data and destroy the originals.
“are buying physical books in bulk, cutting off their spines, scanning the pages for A I training data, and then destroying or shredding the originals.”
Undated
Will Arnett says he is working on The Challenger, a limited series for Amazon about the Challenger disaster.
“the challenger, um, um, it's a a limited, limited series for Amazon.”
Episodes
- 2 Jan 2026Costco3h 1m
- 16 Oct 2023NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang1h 31m
- 4 Apr 2023Interview: Hamilton Helmer & Chenyi Shi on How to Build an AWS-Like Second Business1h 31m
- 19 Dec 2022Holiday Special 20222h 21m
- 6 Dec 2022Stratechery (with Ben Thompson)1h 55m
- 28 Sep 2022Benchmark Part I3h 44m
- 6 Sep 2022Amazon Web Services2h 45m
- 30 Aug 2022Howard Marks & Andrew Marks: Something of Value1h 30m
- 16 Aug 2022Amazon.com4h 18m
- 20 Jun 2022The Playbook: Lessons from 200+ Company Stories1h 5m
- 12 May 2022Arena Show Part I: Idea Dinner + YC Continuity1h 27m
- 6 Apr 2022Platforms and Power (with Hamilton Helmer and Chenyi Shi)1h 24m
- 10 Feb 2022Peloton2h 20m
- 3 Nov 2021Complexity Investing & Semiconductors (with NZS Capital)1h 44m
- 27 May 2021Special: Amazon Unbound (with Brad Stone)1h 18m
- 1 Feb 2021Special: Sequoia Capital's Investment Playbook (with Alfred Lin)57m
- 16 Jul 2020Pinduoduo1h 55m
- 19 Dec 2019Convoy (with CEO Dan Lewis)1h 41m
- 20 Jul 2026Alex Hormozi: Making $100M Before 32 and Refusing to Be Controlled2h 26m
- 20 Feb 2025MrBeast: If You Want To Be Liked, Don't Help People! I Lost Tens Of Millions On Beast Games... But I'm Worth $1 Billion!1h 44m
- 14 Dec 2023#405 – Jeff Bezos: Amazon and Blue Origin2h 20m
- 25 Feb 2025#380 Four Hundred Pages of Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger In Their Own Words1h 21m
- 21 Sep 2023#321 Working with Jeff Bezos57m
- 27 Sep 2026The Best TV Shows of the 21st Century59m
- 28 Oct 2026#2571 - Jimmy Carr2h 53m
- 2 Nov 2026Linda Cardellini58m
- 29 Oct 2026STAYING ALIVE: Sean Hayes!49m
- 26 Oct 2026Ray Winstone1h 8m
- 8 Oct 2026RE-RELEASE: Ben Affleck59m
- 14 Oct 2025Never Fight a Megatrend: Cisco’s Jeetu Patel28m
- 12 Nov 2024Sharing AI Mistakes: Partnership on AI’s Rebecca Finlay38m
- 29 Oct 2024The Risks of Too Much AI: Fortune’s Jeremy Kahn31m
- 3 Jan 2024Making Magic With Gen AI: Capital One’s Prem Natarajan25m
- 21 Oct 2025CIO Advice on AI: How Chief Information Officers Can Lead in 2025 | CXOTalk #89852m
- 14 Jul 2026The New Rules for Becoming an Enterprise Leader32m
- 2 Apr 2026Strategy Summit 2026: Who’s Going to Succeed with AI?30m
- 19 Mar 2026Strategy Summit 2026: Why AI Means Radical Change30m
- 6 May 2025Amazon CEO Andy Jassy on Agility, AI Strategy, and the Changing Role of Managers33m
- 18 Feb 2025The Consumer Psychology of Adopting AI27m
- 8 Oct 2024Why AI Isn’t Enough To Beat The Competition24m
- 27 Oct 2025LexisNexis CEO says the AI law era is already here1h 11m
- 21 Aug 2025Amazon is betting on agents to win the AI race59m
- 13 Jan 2025Why CEO Matt Garman is willing to bet AWS on AI1h 10m
- 26 Jun 2024Dario Amodei CEO of Anthropic: Claude, New models, AI safety and Economic impact1h 11m
- 6 Dec 2023CEO of Amazon Web Services: Cloud, GenAI, two pizza rule and customer obsession.50m
- 17 Dec 2025‘Like Disneyland when it just opened’: Arm CEO Rene Haas on the AI revolution24m
- 27 Aug 2025Inside how The New York Times leverages AI40m
- 23 Oct 2026Democratizing Security for the Agentic Web with Cloudflare CTO Dane Knecht41m
- 29 Aug 2024Cloud Strategy in the AI Era with Matt Garman, CEO of AWS42m
- 3 Sep 2024Bret Taylor - The Agent Era - [Invest Like the Best, EP.386]1h 28m
- 8 Aug 2023Des Traynor - Real Talk about AI and Software - [Invest Like the Best, EP.340]1h 5m
- 22 May 2025What Is an AI Agent?36m
- 23 Dec 2025AI Enterprise - Databricks & Glean | BG2 Guest Interview45m
- 16 Oct 2026326. M&A heading into Q4: How AI is reshaping value creation47m
- 29 Jan 2026288. Securing agentic AI: A playbook54m
- 12 Sep 2024From No-Code to AI-Powered Apps with Airtable’s Howie Liu1h 12m
- 9 Oct 2026Reducing Alert Noise with AI in Enterprise IT - with Dhrubojyoti Das Deb of JPMorganChase26m
- 15 Jul 2026Preparing Enterprise Data for Safe AI Deployment - with Todd Vancil of Securiti AI32m
- 27 Jan 2026AI Adoption and Skepticism in Regulated Industries - with Ylan Kazi of Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Dakota21m
- 14 Oct 2026Governing AI Agents: Alan Chan of GovAI on Monitoring, Agent IDs, Rogue Agents & Preparing for RSI2h 17m
- 29 Jan 2025Aaron Levie, CEO of Box, on Box AI, Enterprise Enthusiasm, and the Evolution of SaaS50m
- 6 Aug 2026Models, Harnesses, and Multi-Agent Systems49m
- 10 Nov 2025Are we in an AI bubble?49m