Thinking in Primitives: AWS and Long-Term Innovation

This chapter explores how Amazon Web Services revolutionized the tech landscape by transforming complex IT infrastructure into fundamental services that drive innovation. It also examines Amazon's long-term customer-centric philosophies, illustrated through the development of Amazon Prime and the Kindle, highlighting the importance of strategic decision-making and alignment of customer and shareholder interests.

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The tools of thinking that fueled the Growth Mindset and fast decisions behind the success of Jeff Bezos.

Bezos frames business as a series of silent promises: to customers, to colleagues, to the future. Each promise is a primitive—simple, sturdy, waiting to be linked. When those links form, independence evolves into interdependence, and a whisper becomes a flywheel.

In this conversation, we explore how “Day One” thinking keeps the path clear, how a “regret-minimization lens” invites bold choices, and why “single-threaded leadership” protects the soul of a project.