Doug Gurr, Amazon’s UK country manager, spoke recently about the practices they have adopted to become so hugely successful. But Amazon wasn’t always so fortunate. In fact, they have built their empire on their failures.
Amazon founder and CEO, Jeff Bezos, has talked quite enthusiastically about failing. These sentiments are something that Doug Gurr fully embraces as well.
“Innovation and failure go hand in hand, we make a lot of mistakes and we fail a lot. We don’t believe you can separate failure from innovation.”
Gurr went on to admit that, in the beginning, Amazon wasn’t bursting at the seams with customers.
“As Jeff has said publicly, we think Amazon auctions had seven customers, if he included himself, his siblings and his parents.”
He went on to discuss their tactics as a company, ranging from setting impossible goals, letting creativity flow, and even allowing hackers under their roof for their hackathons. The work that everyone does is truly rewarding. They have truly found a way to succeed where others have only failed!