4 ms·

Amazon is constantly trying new things

29 points by fern12 9y ago

seibelj 9y ago
Having the ability to throw enormous amounts of human and monetary capital into many different projects simultaneously, plus top notch technical talent, certainly helps.
- BadassFractal 9y ago
  There are plenty of companies out there who have the same resources, but are nowhere close in terms of results.
  - ryandrake 9y ago
    It's almost as if success is not purely a function of talent and capital. Who knew?
    - madamelic 9y ago
      No offense to you, but I am getting really tired of luck-driven nihilism. Survivorship bias doesn't mean everything is hopeless, it is just a reality you should hedge for.
      - SyneRyder 9y ago
        I didn't interpret the comment as meaning luck driven. I thought it meant that execution and being prolific can also be factors, in addition to talent and capital. Samsung seemed to learn a lot by trying lots of form factors and seeing which ones sell.
  - gozur88 9y ago
    There's a resource that no other large company has, though - Jeff Bezos. Don't underestimate the importance of having such a brilliant guy in the #1 spot.
  - ankushnarula 9y ago
    Peter Thiel tried to point this out to Eric Schmidt a while back: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Q26XIKtwXQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Q26XIKtwXQ
    - BadassFractal 9y ago
      Great link, thank you
jonknee 9y ago
This was perfectly exemplified by a statement at their new product announcement today: > "Fire tv has been a surprising success for us" https://twitter.com/fmanjoo/status/913105004369666048 https://twitter.com/fmanjoo/status/913105004369666048
Shed 9y ago
This is my first ever comment on Hacker News after reading it for years... Inspiring article. This is one of the tenets I’ve built my ‘career’ on. For me, constantly trying new things is not only a necessity in business, it’s something I can’t live without in life, because it’s so exciting. It’s utterly possible to ‘Fail Upwards’ and you can do what Amazon does, with very little resources too. I bring many ideas to life, a huge proportion of them don’t make tons of money, but that’s mostly not my metric of success. Living a life less ordinary and being creatively fulfilled are some of my primary drivers. I encourage anyone to try more of their ideas - and if you’re interested, my books and speeches cover this area of ‘constant innovation’ too - just Google ‘Shed Simove’. Post over. Cherry popped. Xxx
dogruck 9y ago
This article claims the secret to success is "trying new things." That's misleading because it implies that AMZN management doesn't have a strategic plan.

29 points by fern12 9y ago

Having the ability to throw enormous amounts of human and monetary capital into many different projects simultaneously, plus top notch technical talent, certainly helps.

BadassFractal 9y ago
There are plenty of companies out there who have the same resources, but are nowhere close in terms of results.
- ryandrake 9y ago
  It's almost as if success is not purely a function of talent and capital. Who knew?
  - madamelic 9y ago
    No offense to you, but I am getting really tired of luck-driven nihilism. Survivorship bias doesn't mean everything is hopeless, it is just a reality you should hedge for.
    - SyneRyder 9y ago
      I didn't interpret the comment as meaning luck driven. I thought it meant that execution and being prolific can also be factors, in addition to talent and capital. Samsung seemed to learn a lot by trying lots of form factors and seeing which ones sell.
- gozur88 9y ago
  There's a resource that no other large company has, though - Jeff Bezos. Don't underestimate the importance of having such a brilliant guy in the #1 spot.
- ankushnarula 9y ago
  Peter Thiel tried to point this out to Eric Schmidt a while back: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Q26XIKtwXQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Q26XIKtwXQ
  - BadassFractal 9y ago
    Great link, thank you

jonknee 9y ago

This was perfectly exemplified by a statement at their new product announcement today: > "Fire tv has been a surprising success for us" https://twitter.com/fmanjoo/status/913105004369666048 https://twitter.com/fmanjoo/status/913105004369666048

Shed 9y ago

This is my first ever comment on Hacker News after reading it for years... Inspiring article. This is one of the tenets I’ve built my ‘career’ on. For me, constantly trying new things is not only a necessity in business, it’s something I can’t live without in life, because it’s so exciting. It’s utterly possible to ‘Fail Upwards’ and you can do what Amazon does, with very little resources too. I bring many ideas to life, a huge proportion of them don’t make tons of money, but that’s mostly not my metric of success. Living a life less ordinary and being creatively fulfilled are some of my primary drivers. I encourage anyone to try more of their ideas - and if you’re interested, my books and speeches cover this area of ‘constant innovation’ too - just Google ‘Shed Simove’. Post over. Cherry popped. Xxx

dogruck 9y ago

This article claims the secret to success is "trying new things." That's misleading because it implies that AMZN management doesn't have a strategic plan.