Hear from the Folks who built Amazon.com
This section of the website includes all of my audio interviews with Amazon.com employees who were Invent Like An Owner podcast guests. Visit the Blog to read more in depth articles about topics discussed on the podcast. For your convenience, I have also created a list of Amazonian interviews on other podcasts.
Sign up for the podcast in your favorite store:
Today, in the Invent Like An Owner Podcast, Dave speaks with Colleen Byrum and Jane Slade, who both joined in 1996 (when Jane joined Amazon, they only had 3 Customer Service people!). The discussion surrounds how the Customer Service team wasn't just the people in the Customer Service department, but everyone who joined the company. In the early days, almost all employees got trained in Customer Service support, even engineers and Senior Vice Presidents! Colleen Byrum was the former director …
[Read more...] about Building Amazon’s Customer Service Organization | Colleen Byrum & Jane Slade
Today, in the Invent Like An Owner Podcast, Dave speaks with Dwayne Bowman and Ruben Ortega. They discuss the birth of Bowtega Box (image below), 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. …
[Read more...] about Refining Amazon’s Search Engine | Dwayne Bowman and Ruben Ortega
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 …
[Read more...] about Setting Up Amazon Marketplace | Joel Spiegel
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: What to Listen …
Welcome to the Invent Like An Owner podcast where I 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. My name is Dave Schappell (and no, I’m not the comedian). I first joined Amazon in 1998 as a Product Manager. Over two stints working at Amazon, I spent more than 11 years building innovative …
