Platforming | What Jeff Bezos Thinks

The virtuous cycle at the center of Amazon spiraled up into one of the world’s most highly valued companies

I was inspired by Esme González Pillardo in Between the lines of Bezos’ 2018 Letter to Shareholders, in which she points out that Bezos doesn’t mention the term ‘platform’ although his letter details in a step-by-step fashion the platform thinking behind Amazon’s ascent. As Pillardo states,

The success has been driven by a sophisticated and intuitive balance between vision, curiosity and passion; and a continuous process of experimentation and iteration. He makes it sound that by implementing a mix of agile and design thinking anyone could be on the track of exponential growth if only we had the technology and means.

And in fact, Amazon seems intent on building technologies to support other companies creating new ecosystems relying on the same technologies that Amazon is using. Bezos adds to that mix an operating manual for doing that, and a peek into the mindset needed to balance incremental and revolutionary innovation, customer obsession and radical vision, and relentless experimentation and a willingness to fail big. And of course, building a culture around ‘builders’, and allowing them room to grow, and thereby grow the business.

The platforming series is typically oriented toward what various consulting firms have to say about competing and succeeding in the platform ecosystem economy, but…