The Amazon Way
The 3rd edition of The Amazon Way is the ultimate leadership manual for innovation and business growth. The Amazon Way translates Amazon’s unique culture and management practices into insights and opportunities, as only an Amazon executive and expert advisor could do for the Amazon Leadership Principles.
Peppered with humorous and enlightening firsthand anecdotes with Jeff Bezos from the author’s career at Amazon, this revealing business guide is also filled with the valuable lessons that have served Jeff Bezos’s “everything store” so well—providing expert advice for aspiring entrepreneurs, CEOs, and investors alike.
The 3rd edition has many new and updated sections. This includes a new foreword from Tom Alberg, managing partner at Madrona Venture Group. Tom was on the board of directors at Amazon for 25 years. A new preface is included suggesting a vital strategy for Amazon and the leadership teams for all companies. Leadership principles have been updated with new interviews and insights.
About The Amazon Way
A business classic first released in 2014. Has sold well over 100,000 copies and translated into 6 languages. My goal for The Amazon Way was to write a personal story about the Amazon leadership principles, what they have meant to me and how the reader can consider them for their business. This edition is widely updated with fresh interviews and perspectives from other Amazon leaders. Includes a new foreword from Tom Alberg who was an early investor in Amazon and on the Amazon board of directors for 23 years. The book has a new preface with a suggestion for Amazon to consider, which is a suggestion for all businesses.
What’s being said about The Amazon Way
The revised edition of The Amazon Way contains valuable new material that expands its use as a practical guide to Amazon’s business and operating principles that can be applied to improve the prospects for success of any business
I helped recruit John to Amazon. Rossman has done a masterful job at capturing the heart and soul of Amazon, the leadership principles at Amazon, and making them available to all of us
In spite of its success and scale, Amazon continues to be one of the most innovative and agile enterprises in the history of business. In “The Amazon Way” John Rossman reveals the fundamental leadership principles that enable that success. It’s a must read if you’re in an industry that competes with Amazon, or aspires to be the Amazon of your industry.
The Amazon Way is timeless and priceless. Amazon may be the most customer-centric company on Earth. But how they do it is almost impossible to replicate, until now. In Amazon Way, Rossman breaks down Amazon’s leadership principles and simplifies them so any company can put them into play today. This is a textbook I wish I had when I first started in the Industry.
I observed John successfully integrate the 14 leadership principles into his client work on a daily basis during our 12 years together at Alvarez & Marsal. The 14 leadership principles can be used as a “Preflight CheckList”. I refer to the principles before launching any critical initiative.
The Amazon Way is an essential read for executives seeking an understanding of the core pillars that have supported Amazon’s phenomenal success.
I first read The Amazon Way in 2014 at a time we were still early in our turnaround efforts at Best Buy and found it extremely stimulating at the time. In this new edition, John Rossman provides an updated, in-depth and invaluable view of the principles that are fueling Amazon’s extraordinary business success. John’s suggestion to add a new principle focused on the Golden Rule is a great one for every company, as, more than ever, we need business to serve the common good!
The Amazon Way is an authoritative guide to the principles that drive and define one of most extraordinary organizations in human history. It’s one of a small number of books that have fundamentally shaped my understanding of Amazon as a journalist covering this peculiar giant of the tech industry. John Rossman’s perspective reflects the deep experience and informed understanding of someone who worked directly with Jeff Bezos and Amazon’s senior leadership team. This new edition proposes an important 15th leadership principle that Bezos’ successor as CEO, Andy Jassy, would be wise to consider adopting.
The Amazon Way was an essential tool that I referenced often as I led Blue Origin. The stories and background behind each of the Amazon leadership principles provided both essential insight into Amazon and valuable context to the guidance I received from Jeff Bezos as we rapidly scaled Blue Origin in size and into new business areas. This book is a must-read for anyone who wants to know how one of the largest organizations in the world remains innovative and customer-obsessed while growing through ambiguity, uncertainty, and change.
Rossman delivers an insightful, insiders view of how Amazon changed the world and became the category king of massive B2C and B2B categories. Read this book!
I’ve long studied and admired Amazon’s unique role in disrupting retail, supply chain, technology, and so much more. The Amazon Way brings an insider view into the leadership principles shaping the strategy and decision making of America’s most innovative company of our generation. Rossman’s viewpoint illuminates how Amazon’s customer obsession guides its decisions and culture. Creating a fascinating leadership playbook principle by principle.
In The Amazon Way, John Rossman brilliantly illuminates Amazon’s secretive corporate culture, using HIS rare insider’s perspective to show how Jeff Bezos has created unique systems that facilitate good decision making at all levels of his company.
Rossman’s ‘super-powers’ come from his capacity to translate Amazon’s leadership principles success into a business classic for any business that is seeking to become a more agile, customer-centric enterprise. The Amazon Way is his most captivating book as Rossman creates a combination of story-telling and credibility based on his capacity to clearly articulate the practical value of the lessons learned from his experience running in the fastest of all fast lanes.
Any serious student of business has to marvel at the incredible story that is Amazon. How can one company be so successful in its efforts to redefine, and ultimately conquer, so many different industries? In this book, former Amazon exec John Rossman shares the answer: a clearly articulated set of leadership and management principles that have guided Amazon since its inception. This is required reading for any leader who has aspirations of redefining markets and grabbing share from legacy competitors.
In The Amazon Way, Rossman clearly outlines the case to be relentlessly obsessed with customer experience and working backwards to innovate on their behalf. In healthcare, patients are becoming active consumers with an increasing focus on quality and improved affordability of treatments and care. While the idea of customer focus may sound like common sense – it is something many industries, including my own, can and need to learn from Amazon. This inspiring and pragmatic read will make any leader stop and think: How do you drive accountability to deliver on what matters most at all levels of the organization? Is your strategy being shaped by data driven decisions? How do you win as one for your customers, through bold collaboration, and thinking about your role beyond your role? My key takeaway: curiosity, culture and clarity are core to the success of any organization. Want to win? It starts with inspiring a future of customer-focused innovation.
Too many leaders think that incremental change is safe and that disruptive change is fraught with danger. “The Amazon Way” will convince you that the opposite is true.
John Rossman
Digital and Innovation Advisor
John Rossman is the author of four books on leadership and business innovation including the best seller The Amazon Way. He is an early Amazon executive who played a key role in launching the Amazon marketplace business in 2002. Today he is a leading keynote speaker on leadership for innovation and transformation. John is an operator and builder whose love is diving into business problems and customer needs designing innovative solutions and business models and creating durable enterprise value. He has served as the senior technology advisor at the Gates Foundation and senior innovation advisor at T-Mobile.
His new book, Big Bet Leadership: Your Transformation Playbook for Winning in the Hyper-Digital Era will be released on Feb 27, 2024.
John Rossman