On Tuesday, Amazon's new CEO, Andy Jassy, sent out his first companywide email.
In the note, obtained by Insider's Eugene Kim, Jassy expressed his admiration for founder Jeff Bezos, reiterated his commitment to building an innovative culture, and vowed to make Amazon "better every day."
It comes at an important time for the company. Amazon is under pressure to maintain high stock performance, address worker-unionization efforts and reports of poor treatment, and deal with regulators that are circling and alleging unfair business practices.
Insider spoke with Brian Dumaine, an Amazon researcher and the author of "Bezonomics," and the Fortune 500 CEO-communications consultant Eric Yaverbaum, about Jassy's first memo. Both agreed the memo underscored Jassy's commitment to Bezos' ethos and showed how Jassy would work to improve the employee experience at Amazon, a key issue Bezos himself recognized. "Please know that I care," Jassy wrote about strengthening Amazon's workplace culture.
"If I were his PR," Yaverbaum said, "I would have told him to write exactly what he wrote."
Expanding the focus of Bezos' consumer-first view
Jassy wastes no time stating his top business priority, quickly acknowledging that his goal is "to stay laser-focused on making customers' lives better every day, and doing so while also caring for our teammates."
Reports have come out about Amazon delivery workers peeing in bottles, warehouse workers documenting every minute of their day because they fear being fired, employees clocking 60-hour workweeks, and employees trying but failing to unionize in Alabama.
Bezos was aware of these problems. In his April shareholder letter, he wrote that Amazon needed to "do a better job" for its employees. This memo shows Jassy heard this message loud and clear.
"Worker rights have become a huge image issue for Amazon," Dumaine said. "He had to say something about it."
Yaverbaum, similarly, said Jassy wisely acknowledged that Amazon was "not always going to get things right. And changes will need to be made."
Setting the tone on his leadership style
As Insider has reported, Amazon has also faced significant turnover in its vice-presidential ranks recently. Some employees now worry that execs from slower-moving companies will cause Amazon's culture to suffer.
But in one line, Jassy sets the record straight.
"We've shown a willingness to make bold, innovative, long-term bets to make customers' lives better. You should expect that to continue," he wrote. "We also move fast."
That statement also serves another function, Dumaine said.
Jassy is saying "don't expect me to be a soft and fuzzy CEO," Dumaine said. "The hard driving culture that Bezos created will continue."
Making clear his allegiance to Bezos
Jassy also underscores his experience learning from Bezos, adding that he's worked under him for two decades. He spells out his love for the company and his deep respect for the company's founder.
Yaverbaum said this was a way for Jassy to assure employees that the leadership transition would be smooth. "Everybody does want to feel some sense of stability," Yaverbaum said. And no matter what you think of Bezos, "he has been successful," he added.
Dumaine agreed, saying that Jassy was making it clear that he was "not throwing away" Bezos' handbook.
Inspiring workers
In the latter part of the memo, Jassy inspires workers to keep up their influential work, from providing people with groceries and personal protective equipment during the pandemic to Amazon Web Services helping companies like Twitch and Netflix sustain growing demand.
For Dumaine, that last section is meant to inspire not only current employees but prospective hires as well.
"Every company now needs some purpose above making money," he said, adding that Amazon's sole purpose for years was to keep customers happy.
"That's not the kind of statement that gets people out of bed in the morning. Workers want to feel like they're contributing to society," Dumaine added. "That's something Jassy is going to have to figure out, to communicate a purpose beyond making the customer happy."
Here's the full email from Jassy to Amazon's workforce:
Amazonians.
Wanted to send a fast note in my first week as Amazon CEO to communicate a few things.
First, I'm really honored to be taking on the role. Have a ton of respect for Jeff, been lucky to work directly for him for nearly 20 years, and know what a big responsibility it is to do this job. You have my commitment, as well as the broader leadership team's commitment, to stay laser-focused on making customers' lives better every day, and doing so while also caring for our teammates and helping you grow and succeed in your careers.
Second, I love Amazon. I've been here for over 24 years, worked on many of our businesses, and am even more passionate about Amazon than when I arrived in 1997. Working at a company that starts with the customer, and evolves its strategies and tactics backwards from there is unusual. Many companies claim they'll do this, few actually do. Amazon is rare this way. We're also inventors. If you want to change outcomes for customers, you have to be willing (and hungry) to constantly invent and reinvent — even if it means sometimes cannibalizing your own businesses. We've shown a willingness to make bold, innovative, long-term bets to make customers' lives better. You should expect that to continue. We also move fast. We're strategically patient, but tactically impatient. Speed disproportionately matters to customers, and to businesses of all sizes at every stage of their evolution. Few people wake up thinking, "I want my items to come more slowly," or "I want my customer experience to get stale," or "I want to work at a company that moves slowly." Moving quickly to understand what matters to customers, solving their problems, making their lives easier, and continuing to invent on their behalf are at the heart of our culture and will remain so.
Third, just want you to know that you, my fellow Amazonians, matter a lot to me. I started at Amazon when there were just ~250 employees. We now have more than 1.2M employees. It's happened fast, especially over the last decade as our businesses have grown. At our size, at the pace we're trying to move for customers, and with our penchant for experimenting, we won't get everything right. We have issues that we need to work on — some we can solve quickly, others will take longer. But, please know that I care, and that we will work together to make Amazon better every day.
Finally, I want to remind us all about the role Amazon continues to play in the world. It's pretty extraordinary. We ship and deliver tens of millions of packages to customers every day. That's when there isn't a pandemic. During the pandemic, that number meaningfully increased as we helped so many people get their needed PPE, groceries, and other essential items while so many physical stores were closed. Probably like many of you, I've had lots of people say to me "thank goodness for Amazon — don't know how I would have gotten through this without them." We also provided business continuity to millions of customers via AWS, while helping companies like Zoom, Netflix, Blackboard, and, Epic Games handle the sudden and sustained surge of so many people being planted full-time in their homes (not sure if you have kids who are as obsessed with Epic Games' Fortnight, but my son seemed very thankful it scaled well :-). Amazon offerings like Prime Video, Amazon Music, Twitch, Audible, Alexa, and FireTV provided people with entertainment and companionship when distractions were most welcome. We created half a million jobs last year, and have continued to lead the way in raising starting wages to at least $15 in the U.S. (more than double the federal minimum wage). Many companies have followed, and we hope many more will. We helped 1.9 million sellers expand their customer bases to a global audience and radically change their earning prospects. We're working to create a more sustainable planet with The Climate Pledge, our commitment to be net-zero carbon by 2040, and we're now the world's largest buyer of renewable energy. Last month, we committed $150 million to empower Black-owned businesses with our Black Business Accelerator. And, we've created a $2 billion Housing Equity Fund aimed at preserving and creating more than 20,000 affordable homes for families in the Puget Sound, Arlington, and Nashville regions.
This is a pretty remarkable amount of impact in the world, and we've just gotten started. It's so *early* in how we will serve consumers, sellers, developers, businesses, authors, artists, creators, and other partners. We'll do this together, listening to customers, understanding their needs, and inventing on their behalf to make their lives better.
I look forward to pursuing the adventure together.
Andy
