The document summarizes Amazon's culture of innovation. It discusses how Amazon starts with the customer and works backwards to drive innovation. Amazon believes in being stubborn on long-term vision while being flexible on details, and is willing to be misunderstood for a long time. Amazon's architecture supports innovation through mechanisms like loosely coupled microservices and self-service platforms without gatekeepers. The company organizes for innovation through experimentation in small teams and a culture of hiring builders and entrepreneurs.

1. P U B L I C S E C T O R
S U M M I T
Bogotá

2. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved.P U B L I C S E C T O R
S U M M I T
TheCulture of Innovationat
Amazon: DrivingCustomerSuccess
Mauricio Muñoz
Principal Solutions Architect
Amazon Web Services

3. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
P U B L I C S E C T O R
S U M M I T
Culture of
Innovation
Enabling Innovation
for Everyone

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S U M M I T
4

5. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
P U B L I C S E C T O R
S U M M I T
Jeff Bezos
CEO, Amazon.com
“Invention comes in many
forms and at many scales.
The most radical and
transformative of
inventions are often those
that empower others to
unleash their creativity – to
pursue their dreams.”

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P U B L I C S E C T O R
S U M M I T

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P U B L I C S E C T O R
S U M M I T
Amazon Started with Books…

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P U B L I C S E C T O R
S U M M I T
Drone Development
Advanced Shopping
Kindle Reader
Home
Entertainment
Grocery Delivery
Video Streaming
Home Automation Cloud Computing
…And Expanded into New Areas

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P U B L I C S E C T O R
S U M M I T
OUR MISSION
We want to be earth’s most
customer centric company

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P U B L I C S E C T O R
S U M M I T
OUR COMMITMENT
We make our customers’
lives easier

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P U B L I C S E C T O R
S U M M I T
« …innovation is now recognized as
the single most important ingredient
in any modern economy…In short, it
is innovation – more than the
application of capital and labor –
that makes the world go round »

12. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved.P U B L I C S E C T O R
S U M M I T
“Any company big enough to have a research lab is too
big to listen to it”
Alan Kay

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P U B L I C S E C T O R
S U M M I T
WHERE INNOVATION STARTS
We start with the customer
and work backwards

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P U B L I C S E C T O R
S U M M I T

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P U B L I C S E C T O R
S U M M I T

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P U B L I C S E C T O R
S U M M I T

17. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
P U B L I C S E C T O R
S U M M I T

18. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
P U B L I C S E C T O R
S U M M I T

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P U B L I C S E C T O R
S U M M I T
Ourbeliefsfor
buildingaculture
ofinnovation
»Customer obsession
“Start every process with the customer and work backwards”
»Long term thinking
“Be stubborn on the vision but flexible on the details”
»If you want to be inventive, you have to be willing to fail
“We are willing to go down on a bunch of dark alleys and occasionally we find
something that really works”
»You have to be willing to be misunderstood for a long time
“We are very comfortable being misunderstood”

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P U B L I C S E C T O R
S U M M I T
Amazon’s Growth Flywheel
Value
Selection
Convenience

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P U B L I C S E C T O R
S U M M I T

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P U B L I C S E C T O R
S U M M I T
STUBBORN ON THE VISION
But flexible on the details

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P U B L I C S E C T O R
S U M M I T

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P U B L I C S E C T O R
S U M M I T
WILLINGNESS TO BE
MISUNDERSTOOD
For a long period of time

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P U B L I C S E C T O R
S U M M I T

26. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved.P U B L I C S E C T O R
S U M M I T
f(innovation) = (org * arch)
(mechanisms * culture)

27. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
P U B L I C S E C T O R
S U M M I T
» Mechanisms
Working Backwards Process
Press Release
FAQ & Visualizations
» Architecture
Micro-services Architectures
Loosely Coupled Applications
Self Service Platforms – No Gatekeepers
» Culture
Our People: we hire builders, innovators, entrepreneurs
Our Beliefs: Amazon Leadership Principles
» Organization
Experimentation
Two Pizza Teams
How do we
organize for
innovation?

28. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
P U B L I C S E C T O R
S U M M I T
ALWAYSWORK
BACKWARDS
FROMTHE
CUSTOMER
CUSTOMER OBSESSION
© 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved.

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P U B L I C S E C T O R
S U M M I T

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P U B L I C S E C T O R
S U M M I T
Write the press release

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P U B L I C S E C T O R
S U M M I T
Include both Customer FAQs and
Stakeholder FAQs
Include the hard questions
Share your press release early to gather
questions
Customer FAQs - Customers ask the best
questions because they are fundamental to any
experience:
How much will this cost?
What type of support will I get?
Where can I find this?
How do I cancel this?
Stakeholder FAQs - What will your VP, partner
teams, internal Amazon resources ask about your
idea?
What is the underlying technology?
What will customers be most disappointed
about in your initial release?
How does this impact current systems?
What is the business impact?
How do we know what the customer needs?
How can we launch this more quickly?
What is provoking the most internal debate?Write the FAQs

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P U B L I C S E C T O R
S U M M I T
Visualize the user interaction and
write the manual

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34. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
P U B L I C S E C T O R
S U M M I T
» Mechanisms
Working Backwards Process
Press Release
FAQs & Visualizations
» Architecture
Micro-services Architectures
Loosely Coupled Applications
Self Service Platforms – No Gatekeepers
» Culture
Our People: we hire builders, innovators, entrepreneurs
Our Beliefs: Amazon Leadership Principles
» Organization
Experimentation
Two Pizza Teams
How do we
organize for
innovation?

35. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
P U B L I C S E C T O R
S U M M I T
Amazon.comServices(theory)

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S U M M I T
Amazon.comServices(reality)

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P U B L I C S E C T O R
S U M M I T
Divide and conquer:
‘Loosely Coupled Systems’
The looser they are coupled,
the bigger they scale,
the less dependencies,
the faster you innovate.

38. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
P U B L I C S E C T O R
S U M M I T
Single-purpose
Connect only through APIs
Connect over HTTPS
Largely “black boxes” to
each other
“Microservices”

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P U B L I C S E C T O R
S U M M I T
Self-service Platforms without Gatekeepers
“We are creating powerful self-
service platforms that allow
thousands of people to boldly
experiment and accomplish
things that would otherwise be
impossible or impractical."

40. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
HYBRID
ARCHITECTURE
Data Backups
Integrated
App
Deployments
Direct
Connect
Identity
Federation
Integrated
Resource
Management
Integrated
Networking
MARKETPLACE
Business
Apps
DatabasesDevOps
Tools
NetworkingSecurity Storage
Business
Intelligence
ENTERPRISE
APPS
Virtual
Desktops
Sharing &
Collaboration
Corporate
Email
Backup
IoT
Rules
Engine
Device
Shadows
Device
SDKs
Registry
Device
Gateway
DEVELOPMENT & OPERATIONSMOBILE SERVICESAPP SERVICESANALYTICS
Data
Warehousing
Hadoop/
Spark
Streaming Data
Collection
Machine
Learning
Elastic
Search
Queuing &
Notifications
Workflow
Search
Email
Transcoding
One-click App
Deployment
Identity
Sync
Mobile App
Testing
Push
Notifications
DevOps Resource
Management
Application Lifecycle
Management
Containers
Triggers
Resource
Templates
API
Gateway
Streaming Data
Analysis
Business
Intelligence
Mobile
Analytics
Single Integrated
Console
TECHNICAL & BUSINESS SUPPORT
Support
Professional
Services
Account
Management
Partner
Ecosystem
Solutions
Architects
Training &
Certification
Security &
Billing Reports
GAMING
3D Game
Engine
Character
Designer
Multiplayer
Service
Twitch
Integration
Cloud
Integration
Regions
Availability
Zones
Points of
Presence
INFRASTRUCTURE
CORE SERVICES
Compute
VMs, Auto-scaling, Load Balancing,
Containers, Cloud functions
Storage
Object, Blocks, File,
Archivals, Import/Export
Databases
Relational, NoSQL,
Caching, Migration
CDN Networking
VPC, DX, DNS
Access Control
Identity
Management
Key
Management &
Storage
Monitoring
& Logs
SECURITY & COMPLIANCE
Resource &
Usage Auditing
Configuration
Compliance
Web application
firewall
Assessment and
reporting
AWS: Most Robust, Fully-Featured Technology Infrastructure Platform

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P U B L I C S E C T O R
S U M M I T
Public Sector Innovations powered by AWS
70PB of Earth data
Analyzes 75B financial
record daily
Enables 1000s of online
businesses in Asia
Unite a global research
community
Digital services for
constituents
Fighting child
trafficking

42. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
P U B L I C S E C T O R
S U M M I T
Public Sector Innovations powered by AWS

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S U M M I T
ESU – Empresa para laSeguridad
Urbana
Santiago Giraldo
CTO
ESU

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S U M M I T
ESU – Empresa para laSeguridadUrbana
State-owned Industrial and Commercial Company focused on public
safety issues in urban contexts, that supports security and coexistence
public policy, through the rendering of specialized security and logistics
services.

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S U M M I T
LivevideoAPPfortransmissionto123

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S U M M I T

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S U M M I T

49. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved.P U B L I C S E C T O R
S U M M I T
Requirements

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S U M M I T

51. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved.P U B L I C S E C T O R
S U M M I T

52. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved.P U B L I C S E C T O R
S U M M I T
Results

53. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved.P U B L I C S E C T O R
S U M M I T
ESU – Empresa para laSeguridad
Urbana
Santiago Giraldo
CTO
ESU

54. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
P U B L I C S E C T O R
S U M M I T
» Mechanisms
Working Backwards Process
Press Release
FAQs & Visualizations
» Architecture
Micro-services Architectures
Loosely Coupled Applications
Self Service Platforms – No Gatekeepers
» Culture
Our People: we hire builders, innovators, entrepreneurs
Our Beliefs: Amazon Leadership Principles
» Organization
Experimentation
Two Pizza Teams
How do we
organize for
innovation?

55. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved.P U B L I C S E C T O R
S U M M I T
55
“Culture eats strategy for
breakfast”
Peter Drucker

56. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
P U B L I C S E C T O R
S U M M I T
Every one of us
is a leader on
our mission.

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P U B L I C S E C T O R
S U M M I T
The
Institutional
YES!

58. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Learn from Failures…

59. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
P U B L I C S E C T O R
S U M M I T
» Mechanisms
Working Backwards Process
Press Release
FAQs & Visualizations
» Architecture
Micro-services Architectures
Loosely Coupled Applications
Self Service Platforms – No Gatekeepers
» Culture
Our People: we hire builders, innovators, entrepreneurs
Our Beliefs: Amazon Leadership Principles
» Organization
Experimentation
Two Pizza Teams
How do we
organize for
innovation?

60. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
P U B L I C S E C T O R
S U M M I T
“We have the good fortune of a large, inventive team and a
patient, pioneering, customer-obsessed culture – great
innovations, large and small, are happening everyday on
behalf of customers, and at all levels throughout the
company. This decentralized distribution of invention
throughout the company – not limited to the company’s
senior leaders – is the only way to get robust, high-
throughput innovation. What we’re doing is challenging and
fun – we get to work in the future.”
Jeff Bezos
2014 Annual Letter to Shareholders

61. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
P U B L I C S E C T O R
S U M M I T
Decompose to Primitive Problems
Single-threaded Focus
Enables Self-directed Teams
Fosters Ownership & Autonomy

62. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
P U B L I C S E C T O R
S U M M I T
How do we
organize for
innovation?
» Mechanisms
Working Backwards Process
Press Release
FAQs & Visualizations
» Architecture
Micro-services Architectures
Loosely Coupled Applications
Self Service Platforms – No Gatekeepers
» Culture
Our People: we hire builders, innovators, entrepreneurs
Our Beliefs: Amazon Leadership Principles
» Organization
Experimentation
Two Pizza Teams

63. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved.P U B L I C S E C T O R
S U M M I T
f(innovation) = (org * arch)
(mechanisms * culture)

64. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
P U B L I C S E C T O R
S U M M I T

65. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved.

66. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
P U B L I C S E C T O R
S U M M I T

67. Thank you!
© 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved.P U B L I C S E C T O R
S U M M I T
Mauricio Muñoz
Principal Solutions Architect
Amazon Web Services

68. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved.P U B L I C S E C T O R
S U M M I T
TheCulture of Innovationat
Amazon: DrivingCustomerSuccess
Mauricio Muñoz
Principal Solutions Architect
Amazon Web Services