Faisal spent over 7 years at Amazon as a Director over the early growth of several businesses including Mobile Electronics, Amazon Warehouse, Amazon BuyBack, Amazon TradeIn, and Amazon Basics. Building these programs  helped Faisal hone his ability to Dive Deep into business processes and health. Since leaving Amazon in 2011, Faisal held a number of VP and C-level roles for companies such as eBay, Groupon, Staples, and Google, before joining Fabric as CEO in 2020. 

In this episode, Faisal shares key examples and insights about the Dive Deep principle and his approach to leadership and building an organizational culture. At Fabric – a fast-growing tech startup with two funding rounds in the first half 2021 – Faisal has pulled talent, practices, and values from Amazon, Google, and other top companies to form the current culture at Fabric. Listeners are likely to find valuable insights into how leaders can evaluate the best principles of past companies and apply them in their current work and team building.  

Mentioned in the podcast:

Fabric: fabric.inc

Faisal on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/faisal/

Faisal on Twitter: @FaisMasud

Coffee + Commerce Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/coffee-commerce/id1546141800


More from the episode:

1:40 – Faisal’s journey at Amazon and insights behind the businesses he led

7:20 – Challenges to scaling Amazon TradeIn

9:20 – Single-threaded leaders and document writing as key mechanisms to drive stakeholder engagement

10:29 – Using customer-level anecdotes and asking uncomfortable questions to understand the health of a business

20:00 – Dive Deep mechanisms from Amazon that have and have not transferred well in other organizations

25:33 – Top leadership practices that Faisal picked up outside of Amazon

29:16 – Establishing cultural values (i.e. leadership principles) at Fabric

30:49 – Amazon practices and principles adapted at Fabric

34:25 – How leaders can Dive Deep, regardless of the business culture they find themselves in

Elizabeth spent 15 years at Amazon where she grew multiple billion-dollar businesses and held several roles including Director of Lawn & Garden and Director and General Manager of Business & Technology for Selling Partner Success prior to joining Kraft Heinz as VP of Global eCommerce. 

In our conversation, Elizabeth shares the people-leadership practices that she built throughout her Amazon career and continues to apply in her role at Kraft Heinz. We also dig into how to balance flexibility with having relentlessly high standards and how to develop operational excellence when leading nascent businesses. You’ll be sure to enjoy Elizabeth’s candid advice, stories, and mechanisms throughout this episode. 

Mentioned in the podcast: 

Elizabeth on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elizabeth-bennett-5b82361/

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

Godwin spent 5 years at Amazon as a senior leader of product, retail and program teams. In each role, he led new innovations or launches for Amazon customers. Post Amazon, Godwin spent two years leading a business turnaround and is currently the co-founder at a real-estate tech startup where he continues to leverage the innovation processes he practiced at Amazon. 

In this episode, you’ll hear how Godwin uses customer focus and document writing to develop and refine new solutions for customers. Specifically, Godwin shares how he uses Press Release and Frequently Asked Question (PRFAQ) doc writing to clarify customer benefits and business requirements, which Amazon leadership principles he’s leveraged in businesses outside of Amazon, and why he continues to use written narratives in his startup work today. 

Mentioned in the podcast: 

Godwin on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/godwinpavamani/

Vive: https://gotvive.com/

Dave spent over 10 years at Amazon where he was a Technology Director prior to being asked to build the technology foundations for Bezos Academy. 

In Part 2 of our conversation, Dave shares his experience as a bar raiser and member of Amazon’s Bar Raiser Core team, a committee tasked with directing how Amazon’s bar raiser hiring program would operate and grow. In this segment of the conversation, Dave shares how Amazon thinks about managing both the quality and quantity of bar raisers to meet the organizations growing needs and demands. Any business curious about designing, managing, or optimizing a hiring control program will find great insights from Dave’s thoughts and experience in this episode.  

Follow Dave: 

On LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scarletink/

Leadership blog: https://www.scarletink.com/

Dave spent over 10 years at Amazon where he was a Technology Director prior to being asked to build the technology foundations for Bezos Academy. 

In Part 1 of our conversation, Dave shares his experience and advice on how to develop leaders and accelerate their learning and career development. During his years at Amazon, Dave coached, mentored, and promoted many Amazon leaders and was also promoted three times himself. Throughout the conversation, Dave shares insights, lessons learned, and best practices for developing the best talent. If you are working to develop your leadership scope or building your people management skills, you’ll be sure to pick up some actionable steps from this episode.

Follow Dave: 

On LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scarletink/

Leadership blog: https://www.scarletink.com/

Colin spent 12 years on Amazon’s senior leadership team, including two years as “Chief of Staff” to Jeff Bezos. During this time, Colin had a front-row seat to the development and implementation of Amazon’s core operating principles and mechanisms, such as written memos, single-threaded teams, and the bar raiser program. 

In early 2021, Colin, along with fellow ex-Amazon VP Bill Carr, released the book “Working Backwards: Insights, Stories, and Secrets from Inside Amazon.” 


In this episode, host Tyler Wallis sits down with Colin to discuss questions submitted by podcast listeners. The ensuing conversation dives deep into Amazon’s innovation machine, what it was like shadowing Jeff Bezos, and how companies of various sizes and industries are applying Amazon’s operating principles to realize growth in their own organizations. 

Check out Colin’s book:  https://www.workingbackwards.com/

Follow Colin on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/colinbryar/

John Olsen spent 7 years at Amazon as VP of Kindle Human Resources and VP of HR for Worldwide Operations. During these years of rapid global expansion for Amazon, John had to rely on proven principles and models to help ensure teams were making strong decisions, avoiding bias, and committed behind key goals. Since leaving Amazon in 2019, John has helped companies and boards learn to have backbone, disagree and commit in his roles as an advisor and investor. 

During our conversation, John shares how the Have Backbone, Disagree and Commit principle integrates with the other Amazon leadership principles, mental models for how to determine when a decision needs to be debated further, how to foster healthy disagreement with remote teams, and much more. 

Follow John: 

On LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-olsen-808650/

More from the episode: 

3:40 – Why you can’t just disagree and commit without having backbone

6:25 – How to recognize when it’s time to move a team forward with a decision

7:49 – 6-page memos as a tool to facilitate having backbone

9:40 – How to create a culture where it’s safe to respectfully disagree with other leaders

14:00 – Decision or document bar raisers

23:00 – How to encourage disagreement and speaking up with remote teams

26:30 – When to commit and when to continue to disagree

31:00 – Applying the leadership principle in advisor and governance work

Ethan Evans spent over 15 years at Amazon where he held multiple VP roles across Appstore, Twitch, and Amazon Gaming. During this time, Ethan led teams of over 800 people, launched Prime Video and Twitch Prime programs, and has been issued more than 60 patents. During Ethan’s time at Amazon, he helped craft part of the Ownership leadership principle and witnessed the S-team and countless teams demonstrate Ownership and long-term thinking. 

In our interview, Ethan shares how leaders should act in behalf of the entire company and think long term. From examples of having to push back on a request from Jeff Bezos to working with Andy Jassy and other leaders at milestone moments in Amazon history, Ethan draws from his experience to illustrate how Ownership can be demonstrated and taught within an organization. 

Follow Ethan: 

On LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ethanevansvp/

Website: https://ethanevans.com/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/EthanEvansVP

Podcast: https://theezcoach.libsyn.com/

More from the episode: 

4:30 – The story behind drafting the Ownership principle at Amazon

13:02 – How a billion-dollar Merch by Amazon business came to be from leaders seeing beyond their job descriptions

17:22 – The business model that Amazon has built to encourage ownership thinking

21:25 – The time Andy Jassy (incoming Amazon CEO) exemplified ownership by looking out for peer organizations in a time of crisis

23:16 – Example of 50 VPs and Directors lending their top talent to help Appstore deliver a key deliverable

26:54 – How Ownership can be taught through example and taking an outcome-focused perspective

30:00 – Fear as the enemy of Ownership, and steps to overcome this obstacle

Allon spent nearly 7 years at Amazon, holding senior roles across both Amazon’s e-commerce retail category businesses and as Director of Prime Now. During these roles, Allon refined his ability to dive deep into a business and understand its critical levers, a skill he first acquired as a management consultant and now applies post-Amazon as he leads portfolio operations in private equity. 

In this episode, you’ll hear how leaders can continue to stay connected to the key details of their business as their scope increases, how to prioritize when to dive deep, and why being data focused is key to the Customer Obsession principle. Tune in to hear more great ideas and approaches from Allon in this episode. 

Mentioned in the podcast: 

Allon on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/allonkatz/

More from the episode:

3:00 – How to stay connected to the details of a business as your scope increases

7:50 – How diving deep can help unlock resources for your team

8:35 – Ideas for being data driven in a nascent business

10:10 – How Amazon leaders prioritize where to focus amidst large amounts of data

13:25 – Finding balance between diving deep and operating at a high level

15:57 – When to trust anecdotes over aggregate data [Prime Now example]

20:34 – How a focus on data encourages an culture of ownership

22:50 – Why investing in diving deep early in a role pays dividends later in effective problem solving

24:01 – A mental model for pinpointing which data points to focus your time on

25:44 – Applying the Dive Deep principle in private equity work