Guest: Jeff Wilke, former CEO of Amazon Worldwide Consumer and chairman of Re:Build Manufacturing

Jeff Wilke worked more than 20 years at Amazon, overseeing the million-person team that speedily gets packages from warehouses to doorsteps. In hindsight, he observes that Amazon Prime’s exponential growth was actually an incremental daily process.

“I used to say things like, ‘If God was running this plant, whoever is your God ... they can’t violate physical laws. How well would they do?’ And then we know where we are,” Jeff says.

“If we’re perfect in it, compounding over all this time, we’re going to get there. But when you’re in the middle of it, it can feel almost impossible.”

Chapters:

(01:37) - Grit and longevity
(02:24) - Flow state
(07:29) - Refining mental models
(12:29) - The ivory tower and the shop floor
(16:49) - Gnarly holidays
(20:41) - Identifying grit
(24:28) - Reflecting and learning
(27:36) - Christmas 2000
(31:06) - The duplicate bug
(34:01) - Incremental progress
(38:36) - Prime Video
(43:05) - Organizing the day
(46:42) - Amazon’s leaders
(49:55) - The Whole Foods acquisition
(53:33) - Amazon Fashion
(59:54) - The great Kindle battle
(01:02:40) - How to work with Jeff Bezos
(01:05:11) - Leaving Amazon
(01:09:48) - Re:Build Manufacturing
(01:14:35) - What “grit” means to Jeff

Mentioned in this episode: Peloton, Andy Jassy, Daniel Kahneman, Zoom, Allied Signal, Toyota and the Gemba Walk, MacKenzie Scott, Bob Thomas and Crucibles of Leadership, David Risher, Toys “R” Us, Amazon Prime, Jeff Blackburn, Louis Pasteur, Netflix, Bill Carr, Steve Kessel, Larry Bossidy, Rick Dalzell, West Point, John Mackey, Liesl Wilke, Tony Hsieh, the Met Gala, Anna Wintour, the Pittsburgh Steelers, Tim Tebow, the New York Jets, Shopbob, Gucci, Zara, Cathy Beaudoin, Walmart, Dave Clark, John Doerr, Bill Baumol, and Bing Gordon.

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This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm

#220 Former CEO Amazon Worldwide Consumer, Jeff Wilke: Exponential