Amazon’s Final Frontier

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Amazon is a company that offers everything from retail to web services to digital media. It succeeds because of its leadership principles and strategy — which Jeff Bezos drew on a napkin:

For books (Amazon’s first industry), this strategy translates to:

1. Lower cost structure due to no physical stores.
2. Lower prices due to cost savings.
3. Better customer experience due to lower prices and faster delivery.
4. More customer traffic due to better customer experience.
5. More sellers (publishers, writers) due to more customers.
6. Better selection of books due to more publishers and writers.

17 years ago, Jeff started a space company called Blue Origin. The vision:

A trillion humans in the solar system.

Watching a with Jeff, it’s clear that space is the final industry that he wants to disrupt. Today, most rockets are expensive and not reusable. As a result, only large governments, corporations and billionaires can afford to play in the space industry. Here’s how I think Jeff wants to disrupt this:

1. Lower cost structure due to reusable rockets with better engines.
2. Lower prices due to lower rocket costs.
3. Better customer experience for space flight due to lower prices, better safety, and better comfort (more comfortable than sitting in coach?).
4. More customer traffic due to better space flight experience.
5. More sellers (entrepreneurs) who want to build space companies.
6. Better selection in ways to go to space and things to do in space due to more space companies.

As Jeff puts it:

“I want to build the infrastructure to make it possible for two kids in a dorm room to create a giant space company.”

Let’s hope he (or this other guy) succeeds.

I’m writing a book for new and aspiring product managers. If you enjoyed this post, visit principles.pm to get a free chapter.