Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said on Tuesday that he is actively working to root out bureaucracy from within the company’s ranks as part of a broader effort to reset its culture. Speaking at Amazon’s annual conference for third-party sellers in Seattle, Jassy argued that bureaucracy is “anathema to startups and to entrepreneurial organizations.” He noted that as a company grows larger, it is “really easy to accumulate a lot of bureaucracy that you may not see.”
To help with this effort, Jassy has announced the creation of a “no bureaucracy email alias” where employees can flag unnecessary processes or excessive rules. In the past year, Amazon has received about 1,500 emails through this channel and has changed approximately 455 processes based on the feedback.
Operational Changes and Cost-Cutting
This push to flatten the organization and reduce bureaucracy is part of Jassy’s overarching strategy to operate like the “world’s largest startup.” A year ago, Jassy set a goal to increase the worker-to-manager ratio by at least 15% by the end of the first quarter of this year, in addition to a mandate for corporate employees to work in the office five days a week.
Jassy, who took over from founder Jeff Bezos in 2021, has also been on a campaign to slash costs across the company. Amazon has laid off more than 27,000 employees since 2022 and has ended some of its more unprofitable initiatives. At the same time, the company is heavily investing in artificial intelligence, with Jassy urging employees to “do more with less.”
Transforming a company as large as Amazon into a startup-like environment is not an easy task. The company operates sprawling businesses in retail, cloud computing, advertising, and other areas, and it is the U.S.’s second-largest private employer with over 1.5 million employees globally. Jassy acknowledged this challenge, saying, “You have to keep remembering your roots and how useful it is to be scrappy.”
What The Author Thinks
The rhetoric of a “scrappy startup” from a company of Amazon’s size is a powerful but paradoxical one. While Jassy’s efforts to streamline processes and cut red tape are understandable for a company of this scale, the heavy-handed methods, such as layoffs and return-to-office mandates, are more about top-down corporate restructuring than fostering a truly entrepreneurial spirit. This approach may succeed in improving efficiency and cutting costs, but it risks creating a culture of fear rather than the nimble, innovative environment of a true startup. The challenge for Amazon will be to prove that it can not only talk like a startup but also act like one in a way that empowers employees rather than simply making them feel like a disposable part of a massive machine.
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