Former Amazon senior leadership team member, Colin Bryar, discusses his experience working at Amazon and being Jeff Bezos's shadow. They delve into the practice of Amazon's Weekly Business Review, the challenges of measuring controllable input metrics, and the importance of customer understanding and innovation. They also discuss the qualities of a good operator, the concept of operating cadence, and career planning.
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WBR Origins
Amazon faced holiday demand exceeding capacity, leading to order limitations and fulfillment challenges.
This prompted the creation of a data-driven process to balance supply and demand and maintain a good customer experience.
insights INSIGHT
Data-Driven WBR
Amazon's WBR focuses on data to tell the story, emphasizing customer experience metrics alongside business metrics.
Unlike typical reviews, it uses a rich dataset to understand both customer experience and business performance.
volunteer_activism ADVICE
Controllable Input Metrics
Focus on controllable input metrics, the actions you can take to influence desired outcomes (output metrics).
Measuring in-stock rates, pricing, and delivery speed are examples of controllable input metrics.
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Colin Bryar joined Amazon really early in its life and spent twelve years as part of Amazon's senior leadership team.
For two of those years he was 'Technical Assistant' to Jeff Bezos, as known as 'Jeff's shadow', during which he spent each day attending meetings, traveling with, and discussing business and life with Jeff. After Amazon, he and his family relocated to Singapore for two years where Colin served as Chief Operating Officer of e-commerce company RedMart, which was subsequently sold to Alibaba. Along with his ex-Amazonian colleague Bill Carr, Colin is co-author of Working Backwards, a book on an insider's look at how Amazon works. Bill and Colin are co-founders of Working Backwards LLC, where they coach executives at both large and early-stage companies on how to implement the management practices developed at Amazon.
This podcast is a really deep dive into the practice of the Amazon Weekly Business Review, which remains to this day one of Amazon's secret operating weapons, and a big part of what makes for a great operator.
Working Backwards, book: https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/53138083 Working Backwards https://www.workingbackwards.com/ Commoncog summary of Working Backwards: https://commoncog.com/working-backwards/
(00:00) - Introduction
(01:24) - Colin's Background
(04:00) - Joining Amazon
(06:31) - The Data Situation in Early Amazon
(08:22) - Being Jeff Bezos's Shadow
(10:37) - Living in Singapore
(12:07) - Writing Working Backwards with Bill Carr
(15:17) - The History of the Weekly Business Review
(17:50) - How the Amazon WBR is different
(20:45) - Customer Experience Metrics vs Business Metrics
(22:33) - Controllable Input Metrics vs Output Metrics
(30:39) - What a Typical WBR Looks Like
(34:22) - Why Glancing at Metrics is Important
(35:43) - What kinds of discussions should you have in the WBR?
(37:30) - Understanding Variation
(41:28) - Stories About Figuring Out Controllable Input Metrics
(48:19) - Applying the WBR to internal business functions
(49:49) - Introducing the WBR to a New Company
(55:55) - Applying the WBR to New Products
(01:01:04) - Not Using Surveys as Primary Research on Customers
(01:04:17) - What Makes for a Good Operator?
(01:05:23) - Operating Cadence
(01:07:05) - What Colin Wishes All Operators Knew Tomorrow
(01:07:57) - What You'd Wish You'd Known
(01:09:50) - Would Many of These Lessons Apply to Early Stage Startups?
Commonplace Expertise