The need to support a free market by breaking up large companies that stifle innovation and competition is well established, but is it still valid? We’ve reached an economic precipice in building the future of technology; one that is striking chords of terror in many. Namely, that so much of our overall economic health is contingent on just a handful ...

There may be no single formula for success, but Jeff Bezos’s annual letter to stockholders comes darn close. Few figures have captured our attention the way Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos has. In just under 23 years, Amazon’s revenue has soared from $500,000 to $178,000,000,000, from nine employees to over 560,000, and its stock has increased 1,000 fold since ...

Every organization strives to innovate, but few succeed consistently over time. That’s why so many once dominant companies hit a peak and then decline. A recent study estimates that 50% of the current S&P 500 will be replaced over the next ten years. Success is supposed to breed success, but it often breeds failure. Yet IBM, Google and Amazon have ...

In 2014, Stephenie Landry was finishing up her one-year stint as Technical Advisor to Jeff Wilke, who oversees Amazon’s worldwide consumer business, which is a mentor program that allows high potential executives to shadow a senior leader and learn first-hand. Her next assignment would define her career. At most companies, an up-and-comer like Stephenie might be given a division to ...

The three game changers guiding Amazon’s long strategy will forever alter the way we think about customer experience. Jeff Bezos’ vision for the future of Amazon goes well beyond the short term speculation about the pending Whole Foods acquisition. The din around Amazon’s $13.7 Billion acquisition of Whole Foods has been deafening. Most of it has focused on the expansion ...

With Amazon edging towards becoming the world’s first trillion-dollar company, fresh attention is being paid to the factors that could derail its growth. The company slowed a bit this quarter, sending the stock down eleven percent. Nevertheless, this downtick should not distract from the reality that Amazon has emerged as the new model of innovation effectiveness. They are something new in ...

This one concept captures beautifully all of the trials, tribulations, and magic of the entrepreneurial spirit. Every so often you come across a concept so elegant in its simplicity that you can’t help but be drawn to it because of how easily it reduces even the most complex set of ideas into something short and memorable. For example, Malcolm Gladwell’s ...

Give an honest answer to one question and even the most complex and intractable decisions become a piece of cake. In the end, it’s not the knowledge you accumulated that you’ll think about but rather the decisions you made. I’ve taught graduate school for two decades. I’m always amazed at how one of the hardest things to teach is decision ...

It is clear that the internet has transformed how we shop.  More people are buying more products and services on-line than ever before.  High-street retailers and big brands are suffering at the hands of on-line merchants large and small.  There is one often overlooked innovation which has enabled this trend.  It is buyer/seller feedback. A key component of any business ...

The Healthcare Innovation Amazon and Apple Should Focus On It is no secret that Amazon has a secret artificial intelligence healthcare project called 1492. Amazon is making several strategic moves into the healthcare vertical, including hiring machine learning experts, investing in healthcare startups, and sponsoring hackathon-type innovation challenges with six-digit prizes for killer apps that can leverage Alexa, Amazon’s voice-recognition ...