Amazon CEO Andy Jassy is pushing to eliminate bureaucracy within the company as part of his broader mission to reset its culture and keep the tech giant agile. Speaking at Amazon’s annual conference for third-party sellers in Seattle, Jassy emphasized that cutting unnecessary red tape is essential to speeding up innovation and operating more like a startup.
He noted that bureaucracy often creeps in as companies scale, slowing decision-making and stifling creativity. To combat that, Jassy introduced several initiatives aimed at simplifying operations and empowering employees. Among them is a “no bureaucracy email alias,” created so staff can directly flag inefficient processes or redundant rules. Over the past year, Amazon has received about 1,500 submissions through the alias, leading to 455 changes in company procedures.
Jassy tied the initiative to a larger effort to restructure Amazon’s workforce and streamline management layers. Last year, he set a mandate to flatten organizational hierarchies by boosting worker-to-manager ratios by at least 15% by the end of the first quarter. The goal, he said, is to make Amazon more nimble and better equipped to act like the “world’s largest startup.”
The push comes during a time of transformation for the company. Since taking over from founder Jeff Bezos in 2021, Jassy has embarked on aggressive cost-cutting measures, including the layoff of more than 27,000 employees and the closure of less profitable ventures. At the same time, Amazon is investing heavily in artificial intelligence, signaling its intent to stay ahead of rivals in a highly competitive industry.
Despite its size—Amazon is the second-largest private employer in the United States with over 1.5 million employees worldwide—Jassy believes the company must retain a scrappy, entrepreneurial mindset to thrive. He stressed that remembering the company’s roots as a lean, inventive startup is critical, even as it operates across diverse sectors like retail, cloud computing, advertising, and logistics.
Transforming a massive corporation into a more streamlined, startup-like organization is no small feat. But Jassy remains committed to stripping away the layers of bureaucracy that slow innovation. His message to employees underscored a simple principle: agility and scrappiness are key to sustaining Amazon’s long-term success.
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