
Working Backwards
Insights, Stories, and Secrets from Inside Amazon
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Narrated by:
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Bill Carr
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Colin Bryar
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Robert Petkoff
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By:
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Colin Bryar
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Bill Carr
About this listen
This program includes a preface read by the authors.
Working Backwards is an insider's breakdown of Amazon's approach to culture, leadership, and best practices from two longtime, top-level Amazon executives.
Colin started at Amazon in 1998; Bill joined in 1999. In Working Backwards, these two long-serving Amazon executives reveal and codify the principles and practices that drive the success of one of the most extraordinary companies the world has ever known. With 27 years of Amazon experience between them, much of it in the early aughts - a period of unmatched innovation that brought products and services including Kindle, Amazon Prime, Amazon Studios, and Amazon Web Services to life - Bryar and Carr offer unprecedented access to the Amazon way as it was refined, articulated, and proven to be repeatable, scalable, and adaptable.
With keen analysis and practical steps for applying it at your own company - no matter the size - the authors illuminate how Amazon’s 14 leadership principles inform decision-making at all levels and reveal how the company’s culture has been defined by four characteristics: customer obsession, long-term thinking, eagerness to invent, and operational excellence. Bryar and Carr explain the set of ground-level practices that ensure these are translated into action and flow through all aspects of the business.
Working Backwards is a practical guidebook and a corporate narrative, filled with the authors’ in-the-room recollections of what “Being Amazonian” is like and how it has affected their personal and professional lives. They demonstrate that success on Amazon’s scale is not achieved by the genius of any single leader, but rather through commitment to and execution of a set of well-defined, rigorously executed principles and practices - shared here for the very first time.
A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin's Press
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
©2021 Colin Bryar and Bill Carr (P)2021 Macmillan AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
"Jeff Bezos once told me that unlike Google or Apple, 'Amazon doesn't have one big advantage, so we have to braid a rope out of many small advantages'. Amazon has demonstrated again and again that success doesn't result from one big stroke of genius but from a set of clear business practices consistently and boldly applied. Colin Bryar and Bill Carr dive deep into how Amazon has become the company to study if you want to succeed in 21st-century business." (Tim O'Reilly, owner of O'Reilly Media)
"For those looking to change the world in ways (very) large and small via innovation and business, my strong recommendation is to dive deeply into Working Backwards. Bill and Colin have delivered a rarity of immense value, which is a powerful, high judgment dissection of the inputs to Amazon itself. I anticipate Working Backwards to quickly become required reading in board rooms and classrooms around the world." (Jason Kilar, chief executive officer of WarnerMedia)
“Colin Bryar and Bill Carr have operationalized the core management practices that lie behind Amazon's success. In particular, their insights into how any successful leader can focus on narrative and metrics to take a short-cut to the truth are essential for any leader in any industry. You'll want to have your highlighter ready and keep this book close at hand for quick reference." (Kim Scott, author of Radical Candor)
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Did you know how bad it is to work for Amazon?
- By Shamu from New York on 12-07-13
By: Brad Stone
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Loved
- How to Rethink Marketing for Tech Products
- By: Martina Lauchengco
- Narrated by: Martina Lauchengco
- Length: 6 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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The best products can still lose in the marketplace. Why? They are beaten by stronger product marketing. Yet, product marketing is widely misunderstood. It includes segmenting and targeting customers, positioning products vs. alternatives, creating product collateral, and supporting sales teams. But great product marketing achieves much more: it identifies the best way to bring your product to market, accelerates your product's ability to penetrate markets over time, shapes what the world thinks about your product and your category, and inspires customers to tell your product's story.
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nothing special
- By KwikC on 04-03-23
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Loonshots
- How to Nurture the Crazy Ideas That Win Wars, Cure Diseases, and Transform Industries
- By: Safi Bahcall
- Narrated by: William Dufris, Safi Bahcall - prologue and introduction
- Length: 10 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Physicist and entrepreneur Safi Bahcall reveals a surprising new way of thinking about the mysteries of group behavior that challenges everything we thought we knew about nurturing radical breakthroughs. Drawing on the science of phase transitions, Bahcall reveals why teams, companies, or any group with a mission will suddenly change from embracing wild new ideas to rigidly rejecting them.
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Not a fan of the narration style
- By pd park on 04-25-19
By: Safi Bahcall
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Empowered
- Ordinary People, Extraordinary Products
- By: Marty Cagan, Chris Jones
- Narrated by: Marty Cagan
- Length: 11 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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What is it about the top tech product companies such as Amazon, Apple, Google, Netflix, and Tesla that enables their record of consistent innovation? Most people think it's because these companies are somehow able to find and attract a level of talent that makes this innovation possible. But the real advantage these companies have is not so much who they hire, but rather how they enable their people to work together to solve hard problems and create extraordinary products.
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Where’s the meat?
- By Scott on 01-14-22
By: Marty Cagan, and others
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Escaping the Build Trap
- How Effective Product Management Creates Real Value
- By: Melissa Perri
- Narrated by: Erin deWard
- Length: 6 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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In this book, Melissa Perri explains how laying the foundation for great product management can help companies solve real customer problems while achieving business goals. By understanding how to communicate and collaborate within a company structure, you can create a product culture that benefits both the business and the customer. You'll learn product management principles that can be applied to any organization, big or small.
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Distractingly soft narration
- By Heather Henderson on 01-21-21
By: Melissa Perri
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Amp It Up
- Leading for Hypergrowth by Raising Expectations, Increasing Urgency, and Elevating Intensity
- By: Frank Slootman
- Narrated by: Daniel Henning, Frank Slootman
- Length: 5 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Snowflake CEO Frank Slootman is one of the tech world's most accomplished executives in enterprise growth, having led Snowflake to the largest software IPO ever after leading Data Domain and ServiceNow to exponential growth and the public market before that. In Amp It Up, he shares his leadership approach for the first time.
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Must read
- By Patty Post on 01-29-22
By: Frank Slootman
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The Lean Product Playbook
- How to Innovate with Minimum Viable Products and Rapid Customer Feedback
- By: Dan Olsen
- Narrated by: Walter Dixon
- Length: 9 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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The Lean Product Playbook is a practical guide to building products that customers love. Whether you work at a start-up or a large, established company, we all know that building great products is hard. Most new products fail. This book helps improve your chances of building successful products through clear, step-by-step guidance and advice.
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Weak Narration Makes for a Boring Listen
- By Trent S. on 11-04-16
By: Dan Olsen
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E-commerce Business Marketing: 2 Books in 1
- $30.000/Month: Build an Passive Income Empire from Home Selling Private Label Products on Amazon FBA and Dropshipping Shopify
- By: Michael Stone
- Narrated by: Tom Brooks
- Length: 6 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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The Amazon FBA wholesale business is a lucrative e-commerce investment opportunity. However, if you follow the instructions in the correct order, you'll have a better chance of making money. Find out how to become an amazing wholesale seller within the Amazon FBA domain and efficiently fulfill orders to become a wealthy reseller within the AMZ marketplace. This book also opens you up to all the basics of dropshipping, ensuring you have an understanding of what it really is about and also how you can go about it.
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Garbage Written By AI
- By Grunion Sabadon on 06-04-23
By: Michael Stone
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Continuous Discovery Habits
- Discover Products That Create Customer Value and Business Value
- By: Teresa Torres
- Narrated by: Teresa Torres
- Length: 7 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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In this audiobook, you'll learn a structured and sustainable approach to continuous discovery that will help you answer each of these questions, giving you the confidence to act while also preparing you to be wrong. You'll learn to balance action with doubt so that you can get started without being blindsided by what you don't get right. If you want to discover products that customers love—that also deliver business results—this audiobook is for you.
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The title is confusing. Great content inside.
- By Ken Wells on 09-25-22
By: Teresa Torres
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The Cold Start Problem
- How to Start and Scale Network Effects
- By: Andrew Chen
- Narrated by: Andrew Chen
- Length: 10 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Although software has become easier to build, launching and scaling new products and services remains difficult. Start-ups face daunting challenges entering the technology ecosystem, including stiff competition, copycats, and ineffective marketing channels. Teams launching new products must consider the advantages of “the network effect”, where a product or service’s value increases as more users engage with it. Apple, Google, Microsoft, and other tech giants utilize network effects, and most tech products incorporate them.
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Great high level summary. More unique insights wanted.
- By Roman on 12-09-21
By: Andrew Chen
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Understanding Michael Porter
- The Essential Guide to Competition and Strategy
- By: Joan Magretta
- Narrated by: Erik Synnestvedt
- Length: 6 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Michael Porter’s groundbreaking ideas on competition and strategy have unfolded over three decades and are spread across a dauntingly long list of publications. Every manager can name individual pieces of his work - competitive advantage, the value chain, five forces - but no one, not even Porter himself, has put the entire puzzle together to reveal it as an integrated whole. This lucid, concise audiobook does just that. This book provides an engaging summary of Porter’s ideas and an invaluable synthesis of this important body of work....
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Horrible and pompous narration
- By Amazon Customer on 08-28-13
By: Joan Magretta
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Fall in Love with the Problem, Not the Solution
- A Handbook for Entrepreneurs
- By: Uri Levine
- Narrated by: Perry Daniels
- Length: 11 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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As the cofounder of Waze—the world's leading commuting and navigation app with more than 700 million users to date, and which Google acquired in 2013 for $1.15 billion—Levine is committed to spreading entrepreneurial thinking so that other founders, managers, and employees in the tech space can build their own highly valued companies. Levine offers an inside look at the creation and sale of Waze and his second unicorn, Moovit, revealing the formula that drove those companies to compete with industry veterans and giants alike.
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Ok but not great
- By Didier Vallauri on 01-30-23
By: Uri Levine
What listeners say about Working Backwards
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- Vamsi Duvvuri
- 07-16-21
Must read
If you are an ex, current, or future business owner, this book is a must read.
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- Jason Olson
- 03-26-21
Informative and stories that can be implemented
As a small business owner, I wasn't sure if stories and secrets from one of the largest and most successful companies could be implemented into my business. But I was tuned in and listening closely from the start. I was constantly writing notes and going back to certain sections listening again to make sure I understood completely what they said worked, and what didn't work for them. There are so many secrets and tips that any size business could incorporate into their operation...both short and long term. It's easy to follow along and gives great perspectives from two people who experienced some principles that Amazon still uses these days.
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- iheartbooks
- 03-04-21
Bible for decoding Amazon’s repeated success
I’ve read a bunch of books on Amazon (everything store, invent & wander) and this book gets to the soul of why Amazon continues to out innovate its competitors. The focus on a few of its breakout successes (Digital, Prime and AWS) provides the listener with depth through a few examples. Must read for anyone who wants to help his/her business get better.
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- J. Jenkins
- 05-09-21
Interesting to hear from insiders
The book has a serious structure to the content with plenty of examples of how the organization built it's culture and created an amazing business. While that was interesting, I was disappointed the authors were not more courageous in giving their opinion on the current state of the business in terms of creating a somewhat challenging environment for employees. They took credit for it's creation, and not the responsibility for it's impact.
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- Ismael Viamontes
- 07-03-23
Great book
You can easily rely the content of this book to your individual situation. Really good .
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- David Ugarte
- 10-22-23
Insightful
As an Amazonian I found this book incredibly insightful and inspiring. These stories reflect on how todays Amazon was built and how you can achieve it for your own company.
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- Scott Engstrom
- 05-23-21
Very good business book
This book is very good and you should read it/listen to it if you are looking for insights regarding new product introduction and unique hiring practices. There is no arguing with Amazon’s successes and so hearing about how they introduced some of the most successful product lines is incredibly interesting.
But, not all books can be 5 stars. This one is just below the best business books I’ve read.
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3 people found this helpful
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- SRTulo
- 02-03-22
An Inside look
It’s rare to get this level of insight. Invaluable if you’re dreaming about working at Amazon or are curious about the mechanisms that make Amazon special.
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- Adrianne P
- 03-07-22
Nice intro for new Amazonian
Started listening to this after accepting a job at Amazon. I had a couple of months before I would start so I figured I’d listen while in between jobs. Went back and listened again after reaching 9 months tenure and definitely feel like this gave me a head start on picking up the culture and was pretty accurate. There are definitely better ways to learn culture, but all require more time with folks who have themselves fully adopted the culture. I recommend this for anyone coming to work at Amazon for the first time and hoping for a preview of what is to come and a history lesson of how Amazon became Amazon. I am starting to hire folks on my team and will suggest anyone new to Amazon consider listening in their early days. One thing missing was a more critical view of the LPs, more on how they sometimes clash with one another, or can be weaponized.
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- Joaquin Jackson
- 01-31-23
Phenomenal Book - Insights into an Innovative Culture
I’m in love with Working Backwards. It provides great insight into the decision making that formed some of the worlds greatest products. I’ve told many friends and co-workers about the book and how it’s changed my thinking.
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