Prospering in the Pandemic: The Top 100 Companies [1]. The pandemic has changed every aspect of everyone’s life, but it has also created new opportunities and challenges for many companies.

The article listed 100 companies around the world that have benefited from the pandemic. The number one company was Amazon, which increased its market value by nearly double that of the number two, Microsoft.


In the context of the global economic downturn, many of the richest men lost billions of dollars in assets, but look at Mr Berlusconi, the stock market value increased by $400 billion.


But opportunities are always for those who are prepared. No matter how good the environment, without strong technology and management to do the backing, is also unable to grasp the opportunity.

Same to the friend who is looking for a job, only in the special period of calm down to precipitate themselves, in the future when there is a large number of recruitment.

Today, I will interpret the reasons for Amazon’s success from the perspective of corporate culture.


Amazon’s corporate culture can be summed up in its famous 14 leadership principles [2], also known as amazon’s 14 Catch-22 rules.

In this select 8, and jun mutual encouragement.

1. Customer Obsession

Leaders start with the customer and work backwards. They work vigorously to earn and keep customer trust. Although leaders pay attention to competitors, they obsess over customers.

“The customer is King” may be a service industry mantra, but Amazon has put it into practice:

  • Any product that the customer is not satisfied with can be returned free of charge within 30 days.

  • Whole Foods can return all Foods directly. No need for photos, no need for bickering, you apply online will be directly refunded.

Not only is Amazon’s customer service available 24 hours a day, but programmers are also on call 24 hours a day.

While many companies have on Call, Amazon takes it to the extreme: when you receive a serious problem, you have to respond within 15 minutes, otherwise you notify your boss and report it up to the next level.

How to define whether a problem is serious is to see whether it affects customers. Nothing is trivial when it comes to clients.

2. Ownership

Leaders are owners. They think long term and don’t sacrifice long-term value for short-term results. They act on behalf of their clients Of the entire company, beyond just their own team. They never say “that’s not my job.

Ownership stands for responsibility and honor. It is not only managing one’s own land, but also the sense of Ownership of the whole company.

For leaders, they will consider problems from a long-term perspective, rather than focusing on short-term interests, and will not sacrifice long-term values for short-term interests. For everyone, don’t stop doing things just because it’s not my “job”, but take the company as your own and defend it all the time.

Think how happy it is to live in a world where there is no blame…

We will Invent and Simplify

Leaders expect and require innovation and invention from their teams and always find ways to simplify. They are The farms of the world are aware, look for new ideas from everywhere, and are not limited by “not invented here.” we accept that we may be misunderstood for long periods of time.

Amazon can be said to be all about innovation. Otherwise, how can it become a giant from a bookstore?

From e-commerce, to smart home, to cloud computing, and now the acquisition of autonomous driving company Zoox, we have made breakthroughs and sought new solutions (ways to make money).

The second part of this principle is the KISS Principle.

KISS principle: keep it simple, stupid.

After all, experienced engineers solve problems by reducing code, not increasing it.

Didn’t it take just one line of code to say “clap”?

I’m Curious

Leaders are never done learning and always seek to improve themselves. They are curious about new possibilities and act to explore them.

This one is also one that I agree with very much. As an old saying goes, “It is never too late to learn”.

That’s actually what Joe Said in his speech at Stanford:

Stay hungry, stay foolish.

Amazon is growing at the speed of light. Many of the technologies used today may not be used tomorrow, and last year’s solutions may not be suitable for this year’s problems.

Just like the growth path of Taobao introduced in “Taobao Technology this Decade”, every company is rapidly updating the system and upgrading technology. You change the code of your colleagues before, and then your code will be rewritten and the system will be redesigned, all of which depend on the needs of our customers.

I’ve heard that Linen’s system was originally written in Perl, then C, then Java, and then possibly something else.

The only constant in the world is changing.

So flax needs people who are open to learning and are constantly learning new knowledge and techniques driven by curiosity.

5. Hire and Develop the Best

Leaders raise the performance bar with every hire and promotion. They recognize exceptional talent, and willingly move them throughout the organization. Leaders develop leaders and take seriously their role in coaching others. We work on behalf of our people to invent mechanisms for development like Career Choice.

The competition between companies is the competition for talents, just as Zhang Yiming said,

Hiring doesn’t look at cost, it looks at return and output.

Just as the future of a country depends on its young people.

Amazon not only hires people, it educates them:

  1. Everyone has a weekly one-on-one meeting with their boss for guidance and feedback.

  2. Everyone has his own career development plan, every quarter to communicate with the boss, so that the boss can give you the most suitable project;

  3. Changing groups is easy and has a very friendly and convenient internal system.

Of course, flax’s PIP culture is also notorious, and once it becomes the bottom of the group, it becomes a bit dangerous.

They Bias for Action

Speed matters in business. Many decisions and actions are reversible and do not need extensive study. We value calculated risk taking.

Fast action is also a hallmark of Amazon, not just same-day delivery on Prime Day, but better than nothing.

Start with an MVP solution, get feedback on it, and then tweak it.

MVP: Minimal variable Product

The process of making a decision entails responsibility and risk, but it does not mean finding a perfect solution is necessary to implement it. Many times there isn’t a perfect solution, choose one and move on.

7. Dive Deep

Leaders operate at all levels, stay connected to the details, audit frequently, and are skeptical when metrics and anecdote differ. No task is beneath them.

At the end of any speech, foreigners always ask if they have any questions. Then there will always be people who like to get to the bottom of things, who will ask very deep questions, not just about the ins and outs of the project, but also illuminating questions.

It’s also important to be able to demonstrate to the interviewer that you’re a person who knows how to delve deeply.

When talking about your own experience, for example, you are not expected to understand every aspect of the project, but it should not be superficial. If you don’t know much about a project, it shouldn’t be on your resume. Look for next week’s article on how to write a project clearly on your resume.

It’s not just that you need to be able to articulate details in the interview, you need to include them in your resume to help you land the interview.

Why do details matter? Because it shows you are a good thinker and a good learner. When you are able to answer four or five layers of a question in depth, believe that it is enough to make a good impression on the interviewer.

8. They will Deliver Results

Leaders focus on the key inputs for their business and deliver them with the right quality and in a timely fashion. Despite setbacks, they rise to the occasion and never settle.

In the end, there must be results.

Employees are not focused on completing work tasks, but on making an impact on the business and customers.

To this rule, there is a common interview question:

What do you do when you can’t meet a deadline?

This question has different answers for different positions, so here is my answer:

  • The first thing to consider is removing some features. When time is critical, put core functions on line first.

  • We don’t have time to do what we want, so let’s do what we need first.

  • If you don’t have enough time, cut out some QA and test only the most important sections.

In fact, isn’t that how Facebook grew?

In its early days, Facebook had a slogan called Test in Production, which was also about introducing core features first and gradually adding fancy features later.

conclusion

Amazon’s culture is more than that, but even part of it would be great.

Different company culture will be different, advocate the way of doing things are not the same, may the outstanding you find yourself like and the right company.

For more culture analysis, let me know in the comments

The resources

[1]

Prospering in the pandemic: the top 100 companies: https://www.ft.com/content/844ed28c-8074-4856-bde0-20f3bf4cd8f0


[2]

Leadership Principles: https://www.amazon.jobs/en/principles