Most organisations shroud their strategy in secrecy, worried that revealing their blueprints and tactics could erode competitive advantage or diminish their ability to adapt to changing market conditions. One notable exception is Amazon, the online retailer that has achieved near-ubiquity in the way that we buy, sell, compute, read, search and, with its recent acquisition of Whole Foods, eat. Tech companies like to talk about changing the world. In most instances, this can be dismissed as hyperbole or braggadocio. In the case of Amazon, however, it's true. Since it was founded in 1994, the Seattle-based company has fundamentally altered the lives and behaviours of hundreds of millions of people – and forced any entity that attempts to compete with it to innovate.
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Competitors should note that Amazon founder Jeff Bezos laid out his vision from the start. The company's strategic roadmap was revealed in a letter to shareholders in May 1997 when it went public and was valued at $18 (£14) per share (as I write, those shares are trading at $1,001 each). At the time, Amazon had 1.5 million customers and revenue of $148 million, up 838 per cent on the previous year. But Bezos was only getting started.
"This is Day 1 for the internet and, if we execute well, for Amazon.com," he wrote. "We have a window of opportunity as larger players marshal the resources to pursue the online opportunity and as customers, new to purchasing online, are receptive to forming new relationships… We will continue to make investment decisions in light of long-term market leadership considerations rather than short-term profitability considerations or Wall Street reactions."
Over the intervening 20 years, Bezos has been true to his word, always choosing to invest in aspects of the business that he feels will deliver value for customers and investors alike – whether that's cloud services, infrastructure or AI.
In April this year, Bezos published another letter to shareholders. "Jeff, what does Day 2 look like?" it began. "That's a question I just got at our most recent all-hands meeting. I've been reminding people that it's Day 1 for a couple of decades. I work in an Amazon building named Day 1, and when I moved buildings, I took the name with me. I spend time thinking about this topic. Day 2 is stasis. Followed by irrelevance. Followed by excruciating, painful decline. Followed by death. And that is why it is always Day 1."
In this month's cover story, WIRED commissioning editor Liat Clark captures Amazon's insatiable taste for long-term innovation. The piece reveals an organisation investing heavily in a bid to embed its technology ever further in our everyday habits through the Echo home device and Alexa, its AI interface. It's a timely piece that offers observers deep insight into what might prove to be the dominant interface of the next few years – and an organisation that feels that it's only just hit the road.
If you're a competitor, don't pretend Bezos didn't warn you. I hope you enjoy the issue.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
