Jeff Bezos officially steps down as Amazon CEO

At the time, Bezos developed a series of unusual leadership principles, which some say are the backbone of his success. Others think they’re talking about everything that’s wrong with Big Tech.

Jeff Bezos is stepping down as president of Amazon on Monday, exactly 27 years after its inception.

Talk to someone who has worked at Amazon before, and you won’t have to wait long to hear the phrase “customer obsession”.

Bezos wasn’t looking for quick cash. In order for it to be a successful business, it must have satisfied customers, at almost any cost.

Nadia Shurabura started working at Amazon in 2004. She was then invited to join the “S Team”, the elite team of Amazon executives, the first board of directors. But when she started, I thought she would be fired right away.

“I made the biggest mistake of my life in the height of Christmas,” she said.

Sharbora requested that the main products be placed on the warehouse shelves, which were too high. So it took time and money to get the right products off the shelves.

“I found a nifty way to lose as little money as possible and sort of fix the problem,” she said. “But when I told Jeff about it, he looked at me and said, ‘You’re thinking all this wrong.'”

“You are thinking about how to improve the ways to make money here,” he said. “Solve the problem for the customers, then come back in a few weeks and tell me the cost.” “

Bezos has many reviews. Last month, a shocking ProPublica article claimed to have seen Bezos’ tax returns and claimed that Bezos paid no taxes in 2007 and 2011.

Other negative stories about Amazon, its cruelty, and the monopoly accusations did not improve Bezos’ reputation.

Despite this, many people who work closely with him would not agree to call him selfless or selfish.

To them, he is a business visionary, a unique man who created a legendary business philosophy and a company worth almost $ 1.8 trillion (£ 1.3 trillion).

Bezos likes small teams. He has a rule for meetings to be productive: you need to make sure you can feed the whole group with two pizzas.

Bezos hates PowerPoint presentations, preferring instead written notes for leaders to discuss.

To prevent the dominant characters from having too much influence, he walks around the whole group during the meeting, asking everyone what they think of an issue.

And people who know him say he loves those who resist. “We were arguing and our voice got louder,” Sharabora says.

“Everything is very open, clear and frank, the conversations are lively and very moving. But it’s about the subject, never against the person,” she said.

Amazon has a list of 14 “Principles of Leadership”. One of these principles is “have the courage to be different”.

And it looks like Bezos really wants to take this culture to the next level. The principle says that leaders should “not compromise for social cohesion”.

But one wonders if this philosophy is still correctly interpreted at Amazon.

Bezos is a fan of engineering, invention and machines. He’s obsessed with metrics – which isn’t a bad trait in the logistics world. But critics say the obsession comes at a human cost, especially in Amazon’s many warehouses.

During the failed attempt by Amazon workers in Bessemer, Alabama, to form a union, I spoke to several workers who said they felt like “a cog in a machine.” Others might describe feeling “constantly watched.”

But at the highest levels, Bezos’ management style is different. He likes the independence of his teams, which, according to him, promotes innovation.

The success of Amazon’s cloud computing service had little to do with the company’s core business – e-commerce.

Nonetheless, Bezos backed the idea, giving his trusted employee Andy Gacy the freedom and capital to start a business within a company. Bezos sees Gacy as an entrepreneur, not just a manager, which is a key part of why he took over from Amazon as Bezos’ successor.

“It’s easy to be brave when you’re a startup,” says Sharbora. “As you get older it gets harder and harder to be brave, because now you take a lot of risks. He’s always been very brave.”

People who know him say that Bezos likes to deal with problems “in the opposite direction”.

In the planning phase, teams work on a reverse schedule procedure: start with the last step and work backwards.

“The first thing the team does is write a press release, and it’s usually the last thing companies write,” says Sharabora.

Bezos has always treated business with a long-term vision and a long-term policy. His relatives often use the word “methodical” to describe his preference for satisfied customers over quick profit.

Bezos has always been fascinated by space travel, and later this month he aims to travel to space on the first manned flight hosted by his company, Blue Origin.

Over 150,000 people have signed a petition calling for him not to be allowed to return to Earth, but whatever you think of him Bezos has proven to be a very intelligent and capable leader, someone different. of the way businesses operate around the world.