Which is in interesting because Amazon's "Leadership Principles" a are well-known and well-publicized part of Amazon's culture. Number 1 on that list is of course "Customer Obsession", which states:
>"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."[1]
It's probably no surprise that this is little more than a meme whose sole purpose is to be ceremonially regurgitated during job interviews.
It really isn't a meme. It's taken pretty seriously at the company, often gets cited in meetings as a reason to do (or not do) something, and is almost always referenced in large strategic projects/planning docs. It's even sometimes included in criteria for determining performance/promotions.
The problem lies in the fact that there's no one single definition of who "the customer" is, and no one single definition of what the best thing for that customer is. One team might see customer obsession as making sure only the best ads are shown, but there's probably another team who thinks that being obsessed about customers means showing the _most_ ads, while a third team sees _the ad companies_ as "the customer" and thinks that being customer obsessed means making them as happy as possible.
There's a weird side effect about being so serious about customer obsession. Like I mentioned earlier, it's often used as a promotion criteria, so people will come up with weird stuff and then spin it as "customer obsessed" so they can get promoted, even if it's something like showing more ads or constantly reminding people to buy something (which probably gets spun as "helping the customer to not miss out on a good deal" or something like that).
>"The problem lies in the fact that there's no one single definition of who "the customer" is ..."
From the post that we are commenting on here:
>"... show that company executives, including former CEO Jeff Bezos, knowingly made changes to the e-commerce platform that boosted profits while harming consumers and sellers, and making the site less usable."
It's pretty clear who the customer were here. It's literally all the parties that were not Amazon.
Something that "gets cited in meetings" yet not applied in practice pretty much supports it being little more than meme status.
Your quote listed two different distinct groups of people that are both customers of Amazon: consumers and sellers. And there's a third group that isn't listed: the ad companies which are also customers of Amazon. And what's best for one of those groups isn't necessarily what is best for the other group.
If the head of the fish is violating it, especially consistently, it's not a "culture". It's a tool to mislead people. The "use available tools to mislead people" is the culture.
(I'm not at all claiming this is unique to Amazon. But it uh. Does seem to be the case there. Like most large companies.)
And while I gave insight as to what it's actually like working with teams at Amazon, you've spouted speculation based on no experience or knowledge and now it sounds like you have nothing valuable to add to this discussion. /shrug
Someone who actually knows what they're talking about.
Even with the Customer Obsession LP, it's not too hard of a stretch to arrive at a conclusion where more ads are shown. Better are worse are, in many aspects, quite subjective in these areas.
Not really. Senior ux dev at <insert crate and barrel like company> told me that they A/B tested a more efficient flow and found conversion to sale dropped. Turns out when people have to put up with more hassle to buy something they get more committed, especially for high ticket items
