Working Backwards

Amazon’s approach to product and business building has always fascinated me, but this book made me rethink decision-making. Writing a press release before developing a product forces clarity, focus, and customer obsession before anything else. I immediately applied this to my own work, and it changed how I build products.

It’s not just a book about Amazon; it’s about thinking big while sweating the details. I kept nodding along, seeing parallels between their approach and the best teams I’ve worked with. If you want to create products that matter, this book gives you the blueprint.

I love this book because it gives an insider’s view of Amazon’s decision-making processes and culture that enabled all these amazing products to be created.

It shows that Amazon’s exponential growth for over two decades was not the outcome of luck, but of excellent management and leadership skills at every step of the way. Even if you are not interested in business, you will learn a lot about thinking in productive ways and making better decisions. 

Amazon is, in my view, the most consistently innovative product company in the world, and their founder Jeff Bezos has been sharing truly valuable insights into product and leadership since the early days of the company.  The new book Working Backwards by long-time Amazonians Colin Bryar and Bill Carr does the best job so far in highlighting the important aspects of how the company has created such a consistent machine for innovation.