When Steve Huynh was a principal engineer at Amazon, conferences started with a “research corridor.”Amazon had a “studying tradition” even amongst engineers, Huynh lately informed the Pragmatic Engineer podcast, talking of his time on the tech large. Staff often drafted six-page memos, he mentioned, which they shared with the corporate to replace progress and show new tasks.”I spent on the order of like 1-4 hours day-after-day studying whereas I used to be a principal engineer,” Huynh mentioned. “What a tremendous tradition that I feel that just about each different firm ought to replicate if they may.”Huynh, who mentioned the corporate’s embrace of writing and studying the 6-page memos was a part of its “secret sauce,” mentioned Amazon staff’ writing was typically constrained to the format throughout his tenure on the firm, whether or not it was a enterprise technique, system design, or press launch.Huynh began at Amazon in 2006, only some years after the corporate turned its first revenue and whereas Jeff Bezos was on the helm. Bezos famously instilled this tradition of memo-writing from the highest down.Bezos insisted on dense, direct memos in 10-point font. In his 2017 letter to shareholders, Bezos wrote that “we do not do PowerPoint,” as a substitute choosing these six-pagers. “Not surprisingly, the standard of those memos varies extensively,” he wrote.Earlier than conferences, Amazon staff learn these memos collectively. On the Lex Fridman Podcast in 2023, Bezos defined why he did not ask staff to learn the memos prematurely.”The issue is folks haven’t got time to try this, they usually find yourself coming to the assembly having solely skimmed the memo, or perhaps not learn it in any respect,” Bezos mentioned. “They’re additionally bluffing like they’re in school, having pretended to do the studying.”
Please assist BI enhance our Enterprise, Tech, and Innovation protection by sharing a bit about your function — it’ll assist us tailor content material that issues most to folks such as you.
What’s your job title?
(1 of two)
What services or products are you able to approve for buy in your function?
(2 of two)
Proceed
By offering this info, you agree that Enterprise Insider might use
this information to enhance your web site expertise and for focused promoting.
By persevering with you agree that you just settle for the
Phrases of Service
and
Privateness Coverage
.
Thanks for sharing insights about your function.
Andy Jassy, Bezos’ successor and Amazon’s present CEO, has labored on the firm since 1997. When first pitching what would turn out to be Amazon Net Companies, Jassy described writing his personal memo.”I keep in mind this six-page narrative, we known as it a imaginative and prescient doc. We requested for 57 folks, which felt so ballsy on the time. I used to be so nervous, I wrote 30 drafts of this paper, and Jeff did not blink,” Jassy mentioned in a 2017 speak to the College of Washington.Jassy has continued the tradition of memo-writing beneath his personal management. In his 2024 letter to shareholders, Jassy wrote {that a} mere six-page allotment made the memos “a lot simpler for the viewers to interact with and ask the fitting ‘why’ questions.””I received actually actually good at simply studying these paperwork to stand up to hurry,” Huynh mentioned on the podcast, explaining that studying sufficient six-page memos taught him to precise himself in the identical format.Huynh not works at Amazon. He left to pursue YouTube content material creation full-time, as he informed BI in 2024. However Huynh nonetheless reveres the corporate’s studying tradition — even when he acknowledges it is probably not simply reproducible.”The issue could be, you truly should be disciplined and principled,” Huynh mentioned. His interviewer, Gergely Orosz, argued it may solely be accomplished from the highest down. Huynh agreed.