Earth’s Most Customer-Centric Company

When Amazon.com launched in 1995, it was with the mission “to be Earth’s most customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything they might want to buy online, and endeavors to offer its customers the lowest possible prices.”

This goal continues today, but Amazon’s customers are worldwide now, and have grown to include millions of Consumers, Sellers, Content Creators, and Developers & Enterprises. Each of these groups has different needs, and we always work to meet those needs, innovating new solutions to make things easier, faster, better, and more cost-effective.

Still Day One
Amazon’s evolution from Web site to e-commerce and publishing partner to development platform is driven by the spirit of innovation that is part of the company’s DNA. The world’s brightest technology minds come to Amazon to research and develop new technologies that improve the lives of our customers: shoppers, sellers, content creators, and developers around the world. Because that's what being Earth's most customer-centric company is all about, and it's still Day One at Amazon.

To learn more about Amazon today, you can also visit our investor relations and PR sites to review our last annual report and read recent announcements about partnerships and product launches.

Consumers
Technological innovation drives the growth of Amazon.com to offer customers more types of products, more conveniently and at lower prices. Since 1995, Amazon has significantly expanded its product selection, international retail websites, and worldwide network of fulfillment and customer service centers. Today, Amazon retail websites offer everything from toys and video games to MP3 downloads and collectible items.

The company entered the e-book hardware industry in 2007 with the release of the original Kindle reader. The Kindle family has now grown to include Kindle Fire HD 4G LTE Wireless, with HD display, Dolby Digital Plus, and 4G connectivity; and Kindle Paperwhite, the world’s most advanced e-reader.

Amazon has teams across the world working on behalf of its customers at Fulfillment Centers, which provide fast, reliable shipping directly from Amazon’s retail websites, and Customer Service Centers, which provide 24/7 support. In addition, Amazon’s technology teams are located in Seattle and in International Development Centers designed to tap the world’s best technical talent.

Sellers
In 2000, Amazon.com began to offer its best-of-breed e-commerce platform to other retailers and to individual sellers. Today, hundreds of thousands of world-class retail brands and individual sellers increase their sales and reach new customers by leveraging the power of the Amazon.com e-commerce platform. Partners work with Amazon Services to power their e-commerce offerings from end-to-end, including technology services, merchandising, customer service, and order fulfillment. Other branded merchants leverage Amazon.com as an incremental sales channel for their new merchandise. Over 2 million third-party sellers participate in Amazon where they offer new, used, and collectible selections at fixed prices to Amazon customers around the world.

Content Creators
Amazon continues to drive innovation by empowering content creators as well as consumers and sellers. Kindle Direct Publishing and Amazon Publishing give authors innovative means to bring books to readers. Amazon Studios is developing feature films and episodic series in a new way, one that's open to great ideas from creators and audiences around the world. CreateSpace makes it simple to print and distribute books, music, and video through Internet retail outlets, personal websites, bookstores, retailers, libraries, and academic institutions--on-demand.

Developers and Enterprises
Amazon Web Services (AWS) provides Amazon’s developer customers with access to in-the-cloud infrastructure services based on Amazon’s own back-end technology platform, which developers can use to enable virtually any type of business. Some examples of the services offered by Amazon Web Services:

• Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2)
• Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3)
• Amazon SimpleDB
• Amazon Simple Queue Service (Amazon SQS)
• Amazon Flexible Payments Service (Amazon FPS)
• Amazon Mechanical Turk
• Amazon CloudFront

Our Leadership Principles

Our Leadership Principles aren’t just a pretty inspirational wall hanging. These Principles work hard, just like we do. Amazonians use them, every day, whether they’re discussing ideas for new projects, deciding on the best solution for a customer’s problem, or interviewing candidates. It’s just one of the things that makes Amazon peculiar.

Customer Obsession
Leaders start with the customer and work backwards. They work vigorously to earn and keep customer trust. Although leaders pay attention to competitors, they obsess over customers.

Ownership
Leaders are owners. They think long term and don’t sacrifice long-term value for short-term results. They act on behalf of the entire company, beyond just their own team. They never say “that’s not my job."

Invent and Simplify
Leaders expect and require innovation and invention from their teams and always find ways to simplify. They are externally aware, look for new ideas from everywhere, and are not limited by “not invented here." As we do new things, we accept that we may be misunderstood for long periods of time.

Are Right, A Lot
Leaders are right a lot. They have strong business judgment and good instincts.

Hire and Develop ‘The Best’
Leaders raise the performance bar with every hire and promotion. They recognize exceptional talent, and willingly move them throughout the organization. Leaders develop leaders and take seriously their role in coaching others.

Insist on the Highest Standards
Leaders have relentlessly high standards - many people may think these standards are unreasonably high. Leaders are continually raising the bar and driving their teams to deliver high quality products, services and processes. Leaders ensure that defects do not get sent down the line and that problems are fixed so they stay fixed.

Think Big
Thinking small is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Leaders create and communicate a bold direction that inspires results. They think differently and look around corners for ways to serve customers.

Bias for Action
Speed matters in business. Many decisions and actions are reversible and do not need extensive study. We value calculated risk taking.

Frugality
We try not to spend money on things that don’t matter to customers. Frugality breeds resourcefulness, self-sufficiency, and invention. There are no extra points for headcount, budget size, or fixed expense.

Vocally Self Critical
Leaders do not believe their or their team’s body odor smells of perfume. Leaders come forward with problems or information, even when doing so is awkward or embarrassing. Leaders benchmark themselves and their teams against the best.

Earn Trust of Others
Leaders are sincerely open-minded, genuinely listen, and are willing to examine their strongest convictions with humility.

Dive Deep
Leaders operate at all levels, stay connected to the details, and audit frequently. No task is beneath them.

Have Backbone; Disagree and Commit
Leaders are obligated to respectfully challenge decisions when they disagree, even when doing so is uncomfortable or exhausting. Leaders have conviction and are tenacious. They do not compromise for the sake of social cohesion. Once a decision is determined, they commit wholly.

Deliver Results
Leaders focus on the key inputs for their business and deliver them with the right quality and in a timely fashion. Despite setbacks, they rise to the occasion and never settle.

Benefits and Employee Stock

There are many things to consider when deciding on your next employer. At Amazon, we offer employees the chance to work with great people on exciting projects with lots of opportunity for growth. We also provide a full range of benefits for you and your eligible family members (including domestic partners). While the benefits may vary slightly from location to location, these are the basic benefits for regular full-time, U.S. employees:

Health Care:

• A choice of four medical plans, including prescription drug benefits, designed to meet your individual coverage needs
• Dental plan
• Vision plan

• 401(k) savings plan with a company match
• Company-paid basic life and accident coverage as well as optional additional (and dependent) coverage at a low cost
• Company-paid short- and long-term disability plan
• Health-care and dependent-care flexible spending account

• Employee assistance program including dependent-care referral services and financial/legal services
• Child and Elder care assistance
• Pet care assistance

• Employees earn vacation time, and up to six paid personal days per year
• Six company holidays

• At Amazon, employees have the opportunity to become owners of the Company. We want employees to think like owners, and awarding equity provides an ownership opportunity to our employees. Eligible Amazon and subsidiary employees receive Amazon Restricted Stock Units.

We’re a citizen of our local communities and the planet

At Amazon, we are proud to be a part of many different communities around the world. We're constantly looking for ways to further reduce our environmental impact. We’re contributing to the communities where our employees and customers live. We’re innovating on behalf of our customers with initiatives like frustration-free packaging. We’re building tools for nonprofits and NGOs. We also dedicate homepage placement and donate use of our payments technology to enable our customers to offer support to communities in need, in times of disaster.

For more information about our community and environmental activities, please visit our “Innovations for Our Planet” and “Amazon in the Community” pages.