The Power of Layering Product Choices
How Amazon Leverages Compound Interest in Decision Making
Recently, I shared some lessons from my 1st week at Amazon, which was focused on quickly making a critical CX decision. In my experience, getting great at decision making can really super-charge an organization, and not being good at it is the root of all dysfunction. Our group at Box recently shipped a meaningful UX change, which was the output of stitching together a series of smaller improvements from the last 3 months; one of the PMs on my team described it as “compound interest paying off.” The insight was spot on, and it reminded me of a pattern of decision making I learned at Amazon.
First, let us hear from famous ex-Amazonian Albert Einstein:
“Compound interest is the 8th wonder of the world. He who understands it, earns it; he who doesn't, pays it.”
There are 2 takeaways from this, product-wise:
you can layer product choices over time to compound value
you can exacerbate product debt over time by carrying it
If you spend enough time at Amazon, you start to build this pattern-matchi…
