Working Backwards: Insights, Stories, and Secrets from Inside Amazon

The mentality of “managing your dependencies” is key to being a leader at Amazon. As I’ve been talking with leaders, this concept of “managing dependencies” in an aggressive manner and far beyond a normal expectation really resonates.

At the end of the day, it’s all about outcomes at Amazon. com. If you violate all of the other principles—if you fail to obsess over the customer, communicate vaguely, hire second-rate people, ignore details, and so on—but consistently deliver outstanding business results, then all will be forgiven. After

another series of questions we can ask after we’re done: Did we ship on time? Did we make big promises (to our customers, sure, but also to our coworkers) and keep them? Did we relentlessly make the work better? Did we seek discomfort in the process of stretching to innovate? Is our theory of change, process, and creation improving? Did we ask hard