We are joined by Colin Bryar, a former Amazon executive and co-author of the outstanding book, "Working Backwards: Insights, Stories, and Secrets from Inside Amazon". How did Amazon grow from a tiny start-up to one of the most successful companies on the planet? What best practices did Amazon leverage to facilitate this success? Colin was Jeff Bezos' "shadow" (Jeff's Chief of Staff") during those early days and talks to CSI Chat about:
- How was Amazon able to hire the best and the brightest employees? Colin explains Amazon's "Bar Raiser" hiring approach and how it was leveraged to hire 1,000's of Amazon's top employees.
- Amazon has banned the use of PowerPoint within their organization for most meeting presentations. Why did Amazon ban PowerPoint and what format does Amazon now use for most presentations?
- How has "thinking long-term" and "focusing on the customer" resulted in some of Amazon's life changing products and services including "Amazon Prime" and "Amazon Web Hosting"?
End of the day, Colin explains how nearly all of Amazon's best practices can be leveraged by all corporations to facilitate their growth and success.