We here at RealClearLife have looked at Amazon before. We’ve covered everything from how they triggered a robot arms race to how CEO Jeff Bezos continually seeks out new ventures. Amazon seems determined to innovate constantly, often with superb results. It’s worth looking at why they’ve proven so successful with these efforts, leaving even elite competitors in the dust.
Timothy B. Lee explores this topic for Vox in the provocatively titled article, “How Amazon Innovates in Ways that Apple and Google Can’t.” He writes:
“Amazon has shown a remarkable ability to succeed in a wide variety of different product categories. That’s a contrast to most other high-profile tech companies that are really good in one area—Google’s dominant online services or Apple’s extraordinarily profitable hardware—but struggle when the quest for growth pushes them outside their zone of core competency.”
Understand: Lee in no way denies how successful those other companies are. He simply observes that although they make extraordinary profits when focused on what they’re good at, when they attempt to expand their expertise, the results are mixed. Meanwhile Amazon has “figured out how to combine the entrepreneurial culture of a small company with the financial resources of a large one.” As a result, they can “tackle problems most other companies can’t.”
To read the full article and learn more about Amazon’s unique corporate culture, click here. Below, watch a video on one of those innovations that got everyone talking: Amazon Prime Air.
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