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Today, in the Invent Like An Owner Podcast, Dave speaks with John Vlastelica to talk about how Amazon scaled recruitment. They’ll discuss the origin and impact of the Bar Raiser program, where select employees helped pick top notch applicants, the birth of Making Great Hiring Decisions, Amazon’s behavioral interviewing training, how Matt Round’s MRT was designed for the interviewers not recruiters, and the challenges companies face scaling a high hiring bar.
John Vlastelica joined Amazon in 1998 as the Tech Recruiting Manager and then later became a Director of Recruiting. He helped build out the recruiting organization, programs and infrastructure during his 6 years there for what would become foundational to Amazon’s incredible employee growth.
Episode Resources:
John Vlastelica’s LinkedInConsulting and Training from John’s company, Recruiting Toolbox Website and TwitterLearn about the pros and cons of Bar Raisers: Barraisers.comDownload the Hiring Manager Maturity Model and Culture of Recruiting Best Practices: https://go.recruitingtoolbox.com/hiring-manager-maturity-modelFind Dave on LinkedIn and TwitterWhat to Listen For:
00:00 Intro01:55 What is the Bar Raiser Program?08:33 Hiring people that will make the overall team better10:22 Embedding high hiring standard into every interview process12:17 Tech teams and non-tech teams have different bar standards16:34 Amazon’s Interview Training Program - Making Great Hiring Decisions20:00 The art of behavioral interviewing25:04 Some of the drawbacks of the Bar Raisers program28:30 How to scale a high hiring bar32:43 People want to hire smart folks and they depend on proxies37:21 Questions and scenarios to raise the bar mentality in the early days38:48 Spent the last 16 years building Recruiting Toolbox42:07 Overinvest in your hiring standards early44:20 Bringing ownership into the recruiting culture46:53 How John helps companies through Recruiting Toolbox51:18 MRT shifted recruiting to more pipeline oriented, and allowed feedback on interview feedback, a very amazon thing to do 55:53 Creating a culture of ownership and recruiting ownership59:03 Advice for CEOs and startups -
Today, in the Invent Like An Owner Podcast, Dave speaks with Eric Benson to discuss his myriad early software engineering projects at a time when Amazon was rapidly growing as a company. He implemented Book Matcher (which didn’t last long) and the Similarities feature, and later built the original version of Weblabs that helped test which Amazon features were optimal. Eric also mentored many of the new software engineers, and later worked to port Amazon from Digital Unix to Linux (along with Bob Vadnais, and others).
Eric Benson joined Amazon in 1996 as the 5th software engineer. He is currently a Software Consultant at United States Digital Service (USDS), a government agency composed of a group of technologists from diverse backgrounds working across the federal government to transform critical services for the people.
Episode Resources:
Eric Benson’s LinkedIn and TwitterFind Dave on LinkedIn and TwitterWhat to Listen For:
00:00 Intro02:39 Amazon's multi-day outage in 199705:15 Back then there was no backup server, just one customer database07:09 Joining Amazon in 199610:00 Improving the website software was one of the first tasks12:52 Book Matcher: people get recommendations after posting a rating15:36 Developing the Similarities feature24:10 Instant Recommendations 25:31 Promoting unusual items to show up in recommendations27:00 Building v1 of Weblabs34:16 People get burned out when there’s too much information37:34 CatSubst is putting marks in the HTML file to notify the software it serves39:44 Experimenting between showing 3 and 5 similar items41:09 Is every new feature slowing down the site?42:54 The biggest problem with CatSubst45:11 The hardware cost per unit was very high49:21 Hardships of the engineering team while using Linux53:27 Rufus the Dog and several site launches57:26 Helping new engineers with language and coding01:01:13 Software engineering at Amazon was too advanced for packaged software solutions from 3rd parties01:04:05 From a small business to becoming a huge company -
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Today, in the Invent Like An Owner Podcast, Dave speaks with Neil Roseman & Jorrit Van der Meulen. The discussion revolves around Amazon's DVD rental business which was launched outside of the US, the significance of the Subscription Management Service, and the transition to the Agile/Scrum product development methodology at Amazon.
Neil Roseman is the former VP for Software Engineering at Amazon. He is currently the Technologist in Residence at Summit Partners - a funding company committed to finding and partnering with exceptional entrepreneurs to help them accelerate their growth and achieve dramatic results. Jorrit Van der Meulen originally joined Amazon in 1999 and left in 2005. After working at Zillow for nearly four years, he left and rejoined Amazon in 2008 as the VP for Content Sites. He's currently the VP for Amazon European Retail.
Episode Resources:
Neil Roseman’s LinkedIn and TwitterJorrit Van der Meulen’s LinkedInFind Dave on LinkedIn and TwitterWhat to Listen For:
00:00 Intro02:51 Many people who don't live in the UK or Germany weren’t aware of Amazon’s DVD rental business08:13 What happened after DVD rental was launched in the UK and Germany10:27 Figuring out how to ship DVD’s and then taking them back into rotation12:18 The window people want to rent a DVD is super short16:05 Reducing complexity by picking a market that was more solvable19:35 How Jorrit joined Amazon21:37 Launching the Subscription Management Service and moving to agile development26:43 It was process that was both business and technical28:33 Meeting with Jeff Bezos and the Subscription Service team33:15 Key features of the Subscription Management Service36:43 The difficult (and easier) aspects of creating Amazon Prime40:52 Focus on creating an appealing pricing program46:06 Integrating the business and development functions49:26 Jorrit runs Amazon’s retail business in Europe50:17 Neil is currently the Technologist in Residence at Summit Partners -
Today, in the Invent Like An Owner Podcast, Dave speaks with John Rossman. They talk about how the Merchants@ program was built from scratch, why working directly with third party sellers prompted the principle of seller obsession, launching the Apparel and Sporting Goods categories, developing smaller teams within the retail organization, and essentially, how Amazon’s Leadership Principles led the way to writing his book, “The Amazon Way”.
John Rossman is the former Director of Merchant Integration and Enterprise Services at Amazon. He spearheaded the launch of the Merchants@ program, one of the largest B2B networks with thousands of sellers, offering products in new categories such as apparel, sporting goods, consumer electronics, health and beauty, and home.
Episode Resources:
John Rossman’s LinkedIn and TwitterThe Amazon Way BookThe Amazon Way WebsiteFind Dave on LinkedIn and TwitterWhat to Listen For:
00:00 Intro02:39 What is the Merchants@ Program?04:41 Prior to Amazon, John was in a startup technology company09:04 While there was Customer Obsession, they needed to create Seller Obsession12:43 Inventory and catalog refreshes from daily to hourly14:06 Account management team within the retail organization15:51 Engineering and design work for customer and seller experience17:43 Gently enforcing the parity clauses of the seller agreements19:03 Building a three-option integration path for sellers22:36 Working directly with third party sellers24:30 The big launch for the Apparel category, followed by Sporting Goods27:31 The evolution of Item Matching30:59 Knowing when to have and not to have patience on something31:49 A big no to “handshake’ credit card deals to maintain customer trust34:15 Self service registration, so that seller’s could register without talking to anyone35:50 Product promotions and processing refunds38:26 Merchant.com was essentially a business outsourcing arrangement41:44 Classification is one of the tricky parts in creating a great customer experience44:17 M.com business wasn’t winning 45:41 How "The Amazon Way" book came to be47:41 Being good has never been the bar at Amazon49:36 Truly understand the nature of experimentation in the business51:42 Getting clarity in your thinking and getting senior leaders to sit down and listen54:36 Startups should focus on instrumentation and metrics56:36 You don't want to scale when you don't understand your unit cost basis -
Today, in the Invent Like An Owner Podcast, Dave speaks with Josh Petersen and Matt Round. The conversation takes us back to Amazon’s early years, when the Personalization team was put together and built on features such as Similarities, Instant Recommendations, Cart Recommendations and more. The team strove to iteratively improve key features; over time, the Personalization and Automation worked toward Jeff Bezos’ vision of “a store for every customer”. They also talk about the effectiveness of small cross-functional teams, feature testing through Weblabs, MRT (Matt’s Recruiting Tool) - a tool still being used today, and much more.
For over 20 years at Amazon, Josh Peterson helped create highly visible and innovative technologies used by millions of customers. He was the Director for the Personalization team and then led different teams at Amazon including Prime Photos/Cloud Drive, AWS, and Bots/NLU. Matt Round is the former Director of Software Development, and later became the Managing Director responsible for establishing the Amazon Development Centre in Scotland (a wholly owned subsidiary of Amazon.com) including full responsibility for team building, project selection and implementation oversight.
Episode Resources:
Josh Petersen’s LinkedInMatt Round’s LinkedInFind Dave on LinkedIn and TwitterWhat to Listen For:
00:00 Intro02:01 Personalization feature examples05:17 How Personalization features were evaluated08:00 Item to item similarities versus collaborative filtering09:40 Personalization aims to build out a store for every customer12:17 Putting together a team focused on Personalization14:12 Tracking which features were generating which results17:12 How do Weblabs work?20:17 Big wins for the Personalization features24:22 How did Personalization work for new customers?28:53 Impact on Editorial team when Personalization became more automated32:30 Amazon’s customer reviews34:14 Emergence of advertising on Amazon39:29 Two Pizza Team model: small cross-functional teams with a narrow focus42:57 Personalized merchandising and Automated merchandising 47:27 Matt’s Recruiting Tool (MRT): a simple tool to manage the interview process50:24 The Amabot Story54:46 Iquitos: the first successful microservice at Amazon 59:10 Pressure from the product side produced innovation on the technical side01:00:14 By testing a lot of things, you learn about things you don’t know.01:02:56 Listening to data is very important -
Today, in the Invent Like An Owner Podcast, Dave speaks with Rebecca Allen. They travel through memory lane by talking about the restructuring of Amazon’s catalog using Base 36, the complications of recycling ISBNs that led to the creation of Amazon’s Standard Identification Number (ASIN), how the Title Authority feature helped customers find books through associations, the seemingly impossible to accomplish Used Books category, and so much more.
Rebecca Allen is a former Software Engineer at Amazon from March 1996 to September 1998. She helped in the programming of creating and maintaining the book catalog, creating tools to modify the Amazon catalog, and much more.
Episode Resources:
Rebecca Allen’s LinkedInInterview with Amazon’s Technical Co-founder And Employee #1, Shel KaphanInterview with engineer Paul Davis (Second Employee at Amazon)Find Dave on LinkedIn and TwitterSponsored by Skilljar.com founded by ex-Amazonians Sandi Lin and Jason Stewart. Skilljar is transforming the way enterprises onboard, engage, and retain their customers.What to Listen For:
00:00 Intro02:36 Discovering Amazon and then joining the team05:25 Hired to work on catalog and search engine07:12 The original catalog sources weren’t customer facing10:16 Who made the requests to edit the catalog 11:27 Developing the typo tool to allow the catalog department to fix content errors14:03 The complications of recycling ISBNs; building the Amazon Standard Identification Number (ASIN)21:31 People were worried about the backward compatibility of ASINs24:09 ASINs have been increasing rapidly over the years27:37 Base 36 is a really unique solution, but has worked extremely well29:26 Definition of Biblio Records34:38 What is Title Authority?37:21 Helping readers find what they want through associations41:38 Have ASINs been licensed or was it built just for Amazon?42:35 Introducing the Used Books catalog from the Library of Congress45:36 Order database broke down when Used Books was launched48:47 Differing opinions and the pressure to convince people50:58 Coming up with alphabetical search results54:21 How the catalog set up Amazon competitively57:00 “If you know your problem, your solution will be better.” - Rebecca Allen -
Today, in the Invent Like An Owner Podcast, Dave speaks with Maryam Mohit. They talk about the different iterations of the early Amazon website that massively improved customer experience. Key improvements included navigation, browse, adding search to the homepage, personalizing the website, adding electronic gift certificates, expanding to new categories and much more. It was all made possible by listening to customers and translating their confusion and input into innovative product solutions.
Maryam Mohit, former VP for Site Development, was one of Amazon’s earliest employees, and was hired to “make the Amazon website interactive”. She went from working with a small initial team (one HTML developer and hiring the first QA) to running what became a department of more than 200 front-end engineers, web developers, designers, editors and researchers responsible for the features and functionality of the website, and the overall online customer experience.
Episode Resources:
Maryam Mohit’s LinkedInNextdoorOne Sky Giving CircleBrightWorksFind Dave on LinkedIn and TwitterWhat to Listen For:
00:00 Intro02:23 Joining Amazon in 199607:15 Talked to customers to understand the problems they were having with the Amazon website11:18 Search page wasn’t yet a part of the Amazon homepage11:51 The Amazon Checkout pipeline was a 12-page process13:35 Barnes and Noble was the biggest competition14:22 What Amazon’s V2 homepage looked liked 15:58 Goals set during the site redesign19:13 The 1-Click ordering feature and how it came to be27:14 After every major project, teams did post-mortem sessions30:53 Executing customer feedback and incorporating it into the Amazon website32:14 Amazon’s V4 launch was a holiday release36:56 HTML 1.0 was basically writing every page by hand39:29 With V5, Amazon launched other products aside from books (music/CDs)45:50 Signed their Meeting maker launch schedule in blood47:39 Tabbed navigation introduced for the first time50:52 V6 focused on Amazon Video/DVD store and the holiday gift center55:00 Feel the urgency of the pain that customers are saying in their own voice -
Today, in the Invent Like An Owner Podcast, Dave speaks with Shawn Haynes. They discuss how the Amazon Associates team built and grew the affiliate marketing program. Shawn grew the team from several hundred initial affiliate marketing websites to more than 500,000 by the time he moved on. He shares how the learnings from early Associates economics, such as focusing on cost per new customer rather than margin on individual sales, helped inform the Premium Associates and Megadeals that Amazon pursued later.
Shawn Haynes was the first Amazon Associates Program Manager and later was a Director of Product Development for Electronics.
Episode Resources:
Shawn Haynes’ LinkedInSubscribe to our NewsletterFind Dave on LinkedIn and TwitterSeveral of Shawn’s favorite products of lateSpade L Ranch Beef MarinadeVanatoo Transparent Zero Powered SpeakersLonesome Dove, by Larry McMurtryWhat to Listen For:
00:00 Intro02:39 Amazon Associates Affiliate Marketing04:07 Why work at Amazon?07:51 Hired to grow the Amazon Associates program10:57 How innovative affiliate marketing was back in 199613:09 Commission rates third party sites could earn17:24 Amazon Associates Getting Big Fast21:15 Initial challenge after joining Amazon Associates25:35 Seemingly simple components that needed a new system31:30 Associates Central is still working and serving customers33:31 Different types of Associates site36:32 Crohn’s Disease specialist leaving a review on their own book39:19 How the Associates program supported megadeals43:07 Promoting Amazon’s Best Seller list drove huge customer demand44:37 Tips for new entrepreneurs to be more innovative46:24 Many early deals were based on ad impressions49:20 Amazon’s Core Values that stood out for Shawn52:02 The David Breashears story -
Today, in the Invent Like An Owner Podcast, Dave speaks with Alex Edelman. They talk about how an English Major from the University of Pennsylvania joined Amazon as the company’s first dedicated “HTML Wizard”, why the V3 project (in 1997) was mainly about obsession over customer experience, the thrilling yet exhausting experience during Launch Nights, and how a boating accident led to shared ownership through pager rotation.
Alex Edelman is an internet veteran. He was Amazon.com's first web developer, and has decades of experience building and scaling innovative web sites, mobile apps, and web service APIs. Lately, his focus is on serving his family's community, often leading in school fundraising and event planning.
Episode Resources:
Alex Edelman’s LinkedInWorldreaderRainier ScholarsSubscribe to our NewsletterFind Dave on LinkedIn and TwitterWhat to Listen For:
00:00 Intro02:16 How did you get to Amazon?06:07 Amazon set its eyes on the growing internet presence07:04 Hired under the site development and editorial team08:10 First major project after joining Amazon13:11 Reason why relational databases weren't an option before14:20 Pushing for the customer recommendations feature15:19 The difficulties of developing Amazon V317:12 Engineers built basic templating system for editorial team to use19:33 Launch Nites of big projects24:32 It’s a collective mission to serve the customers25:47 Product images and developing an image server 29:29 The Pager Story33:01 From books to launching new products37:18 Macro templates and expansion of UI features39:53 What is brutal triage?41:52 Young technologies don’t have great tooling 43:26 Winning the Just Do It award (3 times)46:43 Interface programming has come a long way -
Today, on the Invent Like An Owner Podcast, Dave speaks with Blake Scholl. They discuss Blake’s time working on the Amazon Personalization team, and how he went on to build the team that built Amazon’s Automated Advertising engine, that dynamically placed ads on Google Ads (before Google even had an API). Amazon’s Automated Advertising engine started slow, but went on to drive billions in profitable sales for the company. It was fun to hear not only about the successes, but also about the missteps along the way.
Blake was formerly the Manager of Automated Advertising and Social Networks, and is currently the Founder and CEO of Boom Supersonic, which is redefining commercial flight by bringing supersonic flight back to the skies.
Episode Resources:
Blake Scholl’s LinkedInBlake Scholl’s TwitterBoom SupersonicSubscribe to our NewsletterFind Dave on LinkedIn and TwitterWhat to Listen For:
00:00 Intro02:44 Why did you join Amazon?04:45 First project in the Personalization Services team08:13 The Personalization Service algorithm11:40 Experiencing the early days of Google Ad Words19:47 The plan to be the ‘default’ app for online shopping20:41 How long it took to build Google paid placements25:03 Writing product ad content and pricing range27:43 Placing ads on Google pre API33:21 Running Google Ads on corporate credit card exceeding the limit35:28 Amazon’s first version of a Pizza Team36:24 The most cringe-worthy moments 39:10 Screening automation on non-profitable ads40:46 The confluence of two bugs42:22 Tips for innovators to succeed in their business ventures44:56 Post Amazon business startups and founding Boom Supersonic -
Today, in the Invent Like An Owner Podcast, Dave speaks with Colleen Byrum and Jane Slade. The discussion surrounds how the Customer Service team wasn't just the people in the Customer Service department, but everyone who joins the company. In the early days, almost all employees got trained in Customer Service support, even engineers and SVPs!
Jane Slade, former director of Customer Service Strategy - Customer Experience, Product Development, Finance, and Operations. Colleen Byrum, former director of Customer Service and former VP for Amazon.de and Amazon.co.uk. Recently, both were working at Freightera.
Episode Resources:
Colleen Byrum’s LinkedInJane Slade’s LinkedInFreightera Freight MarketplaceSubscribe to our NewsletterFind Dave on LinkedIn and TwitterWhat to Listen For:
00:00 Intro02:03 What customer service support was like in the early days04:09 Varying questions from Amazon’s early adaptors05:58 Training for customer support was done basically side by side06:57 Mid-May 1996 was the first flood of customers08:40 Early customer support was phone-only before email became dominant09:45 Jeff Bezos liked to hire smart people (advanced degrees were a good proxy)12:00 The number one Customer Service question12:32 What happened after the Wall Street Journal surge?19:04 Jeff looked for intuitive qualities in people20:57 Massive search to fill up shortage in Customer Service headcount22:50 Amazon Customer Service support scaling up25:33 Third party CS software could not keep up with the existing volume29:15 Customers call because something went wrong31:43 Figuring out which orders should go first34:48 Key metrics in sending and tracking orders36:18 Hands are full during Christmas and people are being sent to distribution centers 39:11 Customer Service is an incubator for other jobs in Amazon40:32 Working around very small vendors for books42:47 What’s the most memorable online complaint?44:07 CS lessons for startup companies -
Today, in the Invent Like An Owner Podcast, Dave speaks with Dwayne Bowman and Ruben Ortega. They discuss the birth of Bowtega Box, maintaining the balance between adding new features and continuous upscaling and customer support, and redesigning and refining Amazon's Search functionality.
Ruben is the former director of Amazon's Mechanical Turk and CTO of A9.com (Amazon’s innovative search subsidiary), and was responsible for its early scaling and technical success. He also participated in designing infrastructure that could dynamically scale from hundreds to thousands of transactions per second. Dwayne, a former software engineer at Apple, was Amazon’s former Director of Engineering and took part in redesigning Amazon's Search engine.
Episode Resources:
Dwayne Bowman’s LinkedInVisit Woodlawn SchoolRuben Ortega’s LinkedInCheck out TonalHelp support devcolor.org and NDRCSubscribe to our NewsletterFind Dave on LinkedIn and TwitterWhat to Listen For:
00:00 Intro01:40 How Amazon’s Bowtega Box came to be06:52 Making it easier for customers to navigate such as browse tree for relevant searches08:13 Why was the alphabetical algorithm the only option in 1996-1997?09:47 Sales jumped significantly when Bowtega Box was launched11:21 Fixing Amazon’s Search feature for better user experience15:23 Building a catalog for a new book consumed a lot of time17:53 Balancing new features versus scaling and support19:08 Preventing downtime while Search updates are ongoing 22:03 Hire people who take the problem and solve it24:08 Without A/B Testing, take the right signal for the next step25:45 Where did the Bowtega name originate?26:44 What was Amazon like in 1997 - 1998?28:10 The Bar Raiser team 30:48 Amazon’s Search team set the bar for hiring engineers32:06 How did the product mix change search complexity?34:22 Amazon’s first word-based ad product36:18 Expanding the accessibility of Search in e-commerce -
Today, in the Invent Like An Owner Podcast, Dave speaks with Joel Spiegel - the former VP of Engineering and VP of Auctions & Marketplace Businesses at Amazon - and currently a Trustee at Grinnell College. He is one of the leading figures in Amazon's transition from a retail-centric business model to a marketplace-driven business model.
Joel worked at tech pioneers including Visicorp, HP, Apple and Microsoft before joining Amazon.com in 1997. He talks about his busy years after joining Amazon as well as the seemingly endless challenges of restructuring the company to cater to both buyers and sellers along with the technical aspects that made all these changes possible.
Episode Resources:
Joel’s LinkedInVisit WorldreaderSubscribe to our NewsletterFind Dave on LinkedIn and TwitterWhat to Listen For:
00:00 Intro01:52 How it all started for Joel06:09 Other big contributors in the early days07:34 What made Joel decide to join Amazon?09:31 The first projects and early web development11:32 Splitting database and different technical issues every month14:27 How Amazon became a third-party seller marketplace21:02 From a general manager to supervising the marketplace21:49 Why Amazon Auctions were necessary 26:29 The introduction of the Best Seller List28:32 Evolution of selling through Auctions and zShops to creating Amazon Marketplace34:26 Convincing retail customers to try out Amazon Marketplace38:43 Seller Central: building tools for sellers 41:54 Launching of Single Detail Page made buying products from Marketplace Sellers work for Amazon shoppers45:05 It wasn’t easy to get buyers and sellers in the early days48:12 What future entrepreneurs can learn from Amazon’s transition to a Marketplace-driven business model -
In our first ever episode, Dave speaks with Kim Rachmeler, former VP Worldwide Discovery and member of the S-Team at Amazon.com, Inc. She’s a skilled engineer and web developer whose efforts helped build and develop Amazon literally from the ground up. She shares the challenges of working with a small team of engineers when tech engineers were scarce and some of the iconic steps the company has taken to cope with consistent monthly growth.
Episode Resources:
Visit Upaya Social VenturesCheck out Kim’s LinkedInSubscribe to our NewsletterFind Dave on LinkedIn and TwitterWhat to Listen For:
00:00 Intro02:16 How Kim started at Amazon04:50 What three things do you need to want something?07:14 Working as a Technical Project Manager for the first time09:41 Figuring out different process and running experiments13:39 On the 3rd version release of the Amazon website15:40 It started with more or less 35 people doing everything17:20 A 30% monthly growth had created several technical issues 20:31 Preventing downtime while website maintenance is ongoing23:13 Adding categories and other big changes26:15 Engineers are difficult to hire back in the day28:56 It was mainly an engineering problem for a long while 29:53 From being an engineer to becoming a TPM34:20 Nightly builds prompted people to pay more attention37:16 The service-oriented architecture40:24 Just Do It Award: how it came to be41:44 “Bias for Action” as a core value45:24 Overworking resulted in success, but it’s unhealthy 47:59 Tips for young entrepreneurs -
Welcome to the Invent Like An Owner Podcast, where I’ll talk with the Amazonians who helped build Amazon.com into one of the world’s most valuable companies.
The goal of the podcast is to capture the Amazon Creation Stories and create a historical archive... before we forget all the details -- that’s it.
And if you’re a little old school and would like email updates, sign up for my email newsletter at www.InventLikeAnOwner.com
Onward!
~ Dave Schappell
