John Rossman joined Amazon in 2002 as Director of Merchant Integration where he led the launch of Amazon’s 3P marketplace business. John also went on to lead the e-commerce solutions business for enterprise clients such as Target.com and Toys R Us before leaving in late 2005 to advise many companies on innovation and digital strategy and write three books on applying Amazon’s principles and mechanisms in business. 

In our conversation, we discuss the foundational considerations and steps to launching Amazon’s seller marketplace, including tradeoffs and key internal decisions to think long term about building a platform business. We examine the Invent & Simplify leadership principle and several practices leaders can take to better operate their businesses while continually innovating. Finally, we discuss Amazon’s newly-released leadership principles and what the next 25 years may look like for Amazon.

Learn more about John: 

On LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-rossman/

At Rossman Partners: https://the-amazon-way.com/rossman-partners

Published Books: https://the-amazon-way.com/books/

More from the episode: 

1:50 – What it was like joining Amazon in 2002

7:20 – Amazon’s early vision for its Marketplace business and focus on customer trust

11:45 – The challenges to launching an integrated and seamless online shopping experience

17:45 – Forcing functions to help leaders ensure simplicity and clarity

21:50 – Early efforts to simplify selling on Amazon for brands and resellers

26:10 – Clarifying and simplifying as hallmark attributes of Amazon

28:50 – Learning from Amazon’s focus on measurement to create action and accountability

31:26 – Thoughts on Amazon’s two new leadership principles