On E05, Dave’s guest is John Rossman, author of The Amazon Way and Think Like Amazon – two bestselling books about the company’s culture of innovation that he experienced firsthand as the former head of merchant integration for the Amazon Marketplace business.

Every company now needs to have an Amazon Strategy. Whether you’re selling on Amazon, using their services or selling a product / service that Amazon can also offer, Amazon always needs to be on your radar. With over 74% of US consumers beginning their product searches on Amazon, 147m Prime subscribers (nearly half of the US population), and more than half (56%) of consumers say that if they were only able to buy products from a single store, it would be Amazon. The company generated $386 billion revenue in 2020, making it the third largest company in the world by revenue.

In 2002, John was hired as the director of merchant integration to play a key role in scaling the newly-launched Amazon Marketplace business, which now accounts for well over 50% of all orders at Amazon and has over two million sellers. It is an ecosystem that impacts global supply chains and is one of the “dreamy businesses” Bezos talks about. But the success of this business wasn’t preordained — in fact, most thought it would fail.

Dave and John talk about the lessons innovators and change agents can learn from Jeff Bezos and his organization’s approach to innovation, management and winning.

Agents of Innovation Amazon David Knies Jeff Bezos John Rossman The Amazon Way Think Like Amazon