Working Backwards

An interesting look behind the curtain of the business principles that took Amazon to the top. Enjoyable to live in a space where work is genuinely productive and smart, especially if that isn't typically true for your company.

Admittedly, the pacing and enjoyability of the chapters is a bit up-and-down, and the authors are quick to blow past the effects of Jeff's 'genius business impulses' - it genuinely seemed miserable to be an employee there half the time.

There's actionable lessons for any company, and an enjoyable read here for tech workers. Amazon should probably revisit the purity of their earlier years given the tank in quality their site has experienced over the past few years.

Take homes:

- Constrained input metrics
- PR/FAQ, start from the end
- Tenets to help guide decision making

I'm using these concepts in production right now.

Fantastic read! The processes developed within Amazon and described in the book give great insight into how to - slowly but surely - drive innovation within a larger corporation. Besides that, the case studies later in the book, like the one on AWS, are page-turners. Pretty cool, how they were willing to bet big (and completely out of their comfort zone) to keep developing value for their customers.