Martha Gage - Winning Approach to Amazon Interview: How to Become Amazonian

Winning Approach

to Amazon Interview

How to Become Amazonian

Martha Gage

Copyright 2021, Martha Gage

All rights reserved. No part of this guide may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

Amazon and all related logos are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates.

Chapter 1: Introduction to Amazon

O nce in a while, a product or a service comes along that vastly accelerates the progress in an industry, while completely changing the world along the way. Amazon.com was one of them.

This pioneering multi-billion company by Jeff Bezos is fondly named as one of the Four Horsemen of modern technology, accompanied by the tech giants Apple, Google, and Facebook.

Amazon revolutionized the e-commerce industry and pushed its boundaries in ways no other company has ever done before.

Jeff Bezos got the idea to start a web-based business. In 1994, Amazon Company was started; foreseeing the success the company achieved was virtually impossible. He had a strong belief about the early statistics, which showed that web-based businesses have the potential of growing up to 2300% a year.

Bezos made a list of possible ventures he could follow to make a successful online business and finally settled on opening an online bookstore. The reason for him to choose books to be his product was since it is one of the products that initially did not demand the need to touch and feel them in hand before making a purchase. His decision proved to be immensely successful, and within the first 2 months of the launch, Amazon managed to successfully complete orders from all 50 states of the US and 45 other countries.

Company History and Motto

A fter graduating from Princeton University with an Electrical Engineering and Computer Science degree, he got offers from many leading tech companies such as Intel and Bell Labs. He was a rapid overachiever and managed to become one of the Senior Vice Presidents of D. E. Shaw and Co. Hedge Fund on Wall Street by the young age of 30.

The inception of Amazon happened due to what Bezos describes as his regret minimizing framework when an internet revolution was predicted in the early 90s. He paid great attention to detail when setting up the branding aspect of the company since he believed that brand names are even more important online than in the physical world.

He chose the name Amazon for the reasons that it is easy to remember, comes early in an alphabetized list, and also for being already associated with the word biggestbiggest river in the worldsince he hoped to make Amazon the biggest bookstore online.

From the very beginning of Amazon, Bezos aspired to create a culture that celebrates and benefits the hard work of employees. While being very much customer-centric, Amazon is known for rewarding its employees for their work ethic, diligent nature, and loyalty for the company.

The company started with a very small staff during the first couple months; the company started making over $20,000 sales per week. The early staff included Jeff Bezos himself, his wife, McKenzie, along with a few engineers, an editorial staff, site merchandisers, and a warehouse manager. Most of the earliest employees remained with the company until retirement, or are still holding higher level positions, which is a testament for the way the company treats its employees.

As a retail website, Amazon places great importance in providing exceptional customer service as well, which showcases in their Vision Statement.

Amazons Vision Statement:

Our vision is to be earth's most customer-centric company; to build a place where people can come to find and discover anything they might want to buy online.

Amazons Motto for Employees:

Work Hard. Have Fun. Make History.

The Founder and the Leadership Philosophy

F rom his Princeton University education and early career in international trade and finance to his journey as a technology entrepreneur and an investor; Jeff Bezos has always been an ultra-high achiever. The leadership philosophy of Bezos has largely been formed on rewarding the people who share similar qualities such as being innovative, conscientious, and always going that extra mile to ensure nothing short of perfection in the duty they were assigned.

Bezos has always had a strong vision for where he wanted the company to go, and over the years he has consistently shown the strength of his decision-making capabilities. Employees with many years experience working with him describe his leadership philosophy to be quite unorthodox.

For example, although constant communication among employees is often encouraged by leaders, according to Bezos, having to always communicate with your team members often is a weakness rather than a strength. He believes in hiring skilled, self-motivated, and dependable employees who can work with minimal supervision.

Since the early days of the company, Bezos opted to inspire his employees by being passionate and tremendously hard-working, which he expected from his employees to a similar degree. He has an energetic, fast-moving personality, with an affinity to getting things done quickly. The work environment at Amazon, in general, favors those who are always on top of things, who constantly challenge themselves to be better, and are more innovative.

Job Seeking at Amazon

A s the largest online retailer in the world, it may seem that Amazon is everywhere! It is also the second largest employer in the US with close to 600,000 employees globally. However, due to the extremely high standard hire screening procedure in the company, it can be quite difficult for someone to get in and become an Amazoniana term for an employee in Amazoneven with plenty of qualifications and related experience.