Amazon in Seattle

Sarah’s been working at Amazon Web Services since February of 2019, so she invited us to “Take Your Parents To Work Day”, where we had a chance to see her in action, and absorb some of Amazon’s philosophy. For example, per Jeff Bezos, any team should be small enough that it could be fed with two pizzas!

: For years, Amazon headquarters has been handing out free bananas to anyone who wants one, as a way to share a healthy portable snack. And you can pick up a friendly fact or two from one of the “banistas”!

: Security was tight – we had to badge in and out of all secure areas, following Sarah’s lead.

: Sarah works in “Cognito” which is all about authentication, authorization, and user management for their user’s web and mobile apps.

: Amazon SCOUT delivery bots are being tested. The goal is to avoid vans and cars in a one mile radius from a delivery truck.

: Amazonians can procure headphones, ethernet cables and other tech goodies from a vending machine with a simple badge swipe.

: Amazon Prime Air is a service that will deliver packages up to five pounds in 30 minutes or less using small drones. We’ll be looking for you!

: Amazon’s Leadership Principles have evolved since the company’s founding in 1994. Many of these were culled from Jeff Bezos’ first ever letter to his shareholders.

: Sarah hard at work on a conference call. Her computer wrap is a word cloud of the leadership principles.

: AWS=Amazon Web Services is a subsidiary of Amazon for cloud computing. In 2018, it pulled in MORE revenue that Amazon.com. We’re here to tell it like it is, all in AWS orange.