By Sonia Thompson
In January 2020, Amazon crossed a $1 trillion market cap. Because of its behemoth size, it is no wonder entrepreneurs from around the globe keep a watchful eye on what Amazon does, trying to extract insights into what makes it so successful. The good news is its CEO Jeff Bezos has been very upfront about the core operating principles that fuel Amazon’s growth. In particular, he credits the company’s success to its commitment to the following three areas.
1. Accept Occasional Failure as the Price of Innovating
Most companies avoid failure like the plague. Intuitively, they understand the need to innovate to stay relevant, yet they often get lulled into competing in a way that is safe to minimize losses. But, Bezos notes that you can’t be innovative if you aren’t willing to fail. Here’s his commentary on the topic from one of his annual reports:One area where I think we are especially distinctive is failure. I believe we are the best place in the world to fail (we have plenty of practice!), and failure and invention are inseparable twins. To invent you have to experiment, and if you know in advance that it's going to work, it's not an experiment. Most large organizations embrace the idea of invention, but are not willing to suffer the string of failed experiments necessary to get there.
