When Amazon ordered most workers back to the office three days a week in February 2023, Pamela Hayter was not happy about the end of a popular pandemic-era arrangement.
But Hayter, a program manager, was bothered on a deeper level: Because the policy effectively meant that only people living near an Amazon office would be able to continue working at the company, she believed Amazon was violating one of its sacred tenets to “hire and develop the best.”
What’s more, by announcing the mandate with little warning or buy-in, Hayter believed, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy had betrayed his duty to “earn trust,” another important part of the Amazon code.
At Amazon these tenets, known as Leadership Principles, are much more than suggestions. They are a way of life that employees are judged on before they are even hired, steeped in from the moment they join, and scrupulously followed thereafter with the devotion of religious converts.
Hayter’s next move was a case in point: With the help of some of the 30,000 other employees who joined an internal Slack channel she’d created, she drafted a memo to lay out their concerns about the return-to-work mandate. The memo was exactly six pages long.
Like the Leadership Principles, six-page memos (“6-pagers,” in Amazon lingo) are part of a unique work culture forged within the giant internet company over the years and considered as much of a contributor to Amazon’s world-beating success as any blockbuster product or individual, including Amazon founder Jeff Bezos himself.
In reality, these principles and the processes they produce are among Amazon’s grandest innovations.
The customs and practices are widely imitated: More than a dozen books promise to teach managers the secrets to the principles and processes; consultants do brisk business helping firms import Amazon’s methods into their organizations; CEOs load their emails with Amazonian axioms.
Denne historien er fra DEEP DIVES: Special Digital Issue-utgaven av Fortune US.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent ? Logg på
Denne historien er fra DEEP DIVES: Special Digital Issue-utgaven av Fortune US.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent? Logg på
Norway's Nicolai Tangen Runs the World's Biggest Sovereign Fund. Can He Leverage its Assets to Change Business for the Better? - Nicolai Tangen, the Norwegian founder of London hedge fund AKO Capital, was picked by Norway's central bank to be the next CEO of its gargantuan oil-and-gas-financed investment fund, whose value had soared above $1 trillion.
Oslo, with its neatly painted houses and serene waterfront, is not known for high drama. But in 2020, Norway’s capital erupted in controversy over one spectacularly wealthy investor, a splashy event in Philadelphia—and the biggest sovereign wealth fund on the planet.
KKR's $1 trillion gamble
The co-CEOs of KKR have a radical strategy to supercharge growth—and chart a path far different from that of their mentors Kravis and Roberts.
Inside one of Silicon Valley's most mysterious venture capital funds
Iconiq Growth, which has long avoided the spotlight, recently closed a $5.8 billion startup war chest.
The rise and fall of Jump Crypto
A secretive trading firm got itself a crypto arm and a 25-year-old whiz kid to run it. Then came the $40 billion Terra disaster.
The troubled Tyson heir
The youngest Fortune 500 CFO was set up to run his family’s $21 billion chicken empire. His erratic behavior could change that.
The startups betting you can quit GLP-1s and stay thin
Some weight-loss companies are marketing Ozempic and Wegovy as a short-term holy grail. Doctors say it doesn't work that way.
The Amazon Way has its midlife crisis
Jeff Bezos’s famed management rules are slowly unraveling inside Amazon. Can they survive the Andy Jassy era?
Tech AI's Hidden Biases May Be Influencing What You Think. Here's What Should Be Done to Stop It - In less than two years, artificial intelligence has radically changed how many people write and find information.
In less than two years, artificial intelligence has radically changed how many people write and find information. While searching for details about Supreme Court precedent or polishing a college essay, millions seek help from AI chatbots like OpenAI's ChatGPT or Anthropic's Claude.In his newly published book, Mastering AI: A Survival Guide to Our Superpowered Future, Fortune AI editor Jeremy Kahn explores this new tech-infused reality and what should be done to avert the inevitable pitfalls. In the following excerpt, he focuses on the little-recognized problem of subtle bias in AI and the potentially profound influence it can have on what users believe.
A Return of the Entrepreneurial Spirit- As Japan finally emerges from a long period of slow growth, soy sauce producer Kikkoman continues its global advance.
In February 2024, the Nikkei Stock Average in Japan surpassed the record high that it set in 1990. To some, this peak signified that the country could finally put the "lost decades" of deflation and anemic growth behind. Yuzaburo Mogi, honorary CEO and chairman of the board of Kikkoman, is cautiously optimistic about this milestone. With a generational shift in motion, he sees Japan's leadership regaining some of its old dynamism and entrepreneurial spirit.
The AI Hangover- For thirty-five years, Fortune has been tracking the world's largest companies in our Global 500 ranking.
For thirty-five years, Fortune has been tracking the world's largest companies in our Global 500 ranking. We recently sat down with the head of Sequoia Capital, Roelof Botha, at our Brainstorm Tech conference in Park City, Utah, and at greater length for this issue's cover story. As he told Fortune's Michal Lev-Ram: "Winning isn't everything, it's the only thing." To learn how he's guiding the firm to sort winners from losers amid the noise and hype, see page 60.
