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...
Jul 14, 2021•1 hr 8 min
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...
Jul 07, 2021•1 hr 8 min
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 ...
Jun 30, 2021•55 min
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 Integ...
Jun 23, 2021•1 hr 1 min
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...
Jun 16, 2021•1 hr 4 min
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 Am...
Jun 09, 2021•1 hr 1 min
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....
Jun 02, 2021•1 hr
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 pur...
May 26, 2021•54 min
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 dev...
May 19, 2021•50 min
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 misst...
May 12, 2021•53 min
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 direc...
May 05, 2021•48 min
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 desi...
Apr 28, 2021•42 min
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 Amazo...
Apr 21, 2021•52 min
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 Ventures Check ou...
Apr 14, 2021•52 min
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...
Apr 01, 2021•1 min
