Amazon CEO Jassy Aims for Startup Agility by Slashing Bureaucracy

In a bid to reignite Amazon’s innovative spirit, CEO Andy Jassy is aggressively targeting internal bureaucracy, aiming to reshape the tech giant’s corporate culture. Speaking at Amazon’s annual gathering for third-party sellers in Seattle this week, Jassy outlined a series of measures designed to streamline operations and foster a more agile, startup-like environment.

“Bureaucracy is anathema to startups and entrepreneurial organizations,” Jassy stated, emphasizing the insidious nature of red tape that can accumulate unnoticed within large corporations. “As you get larger, it’s really easy to accumulate bureaucracy, a lot of bureaucracy that you may not see.”

This initiative builds upon Jassy’s previous mandate for corporate employees to return to the office five days a week, a move initiated a year ago partly to facilitate the flattening of organizational structures. As part of that mandate, Jassy challenged divisions across Amazon to increase worker-to-manager ratios by at least 15% by the end of Q1 2025.

Further demonstrating his commitment, Jassy established a dedicated “no bureaucracy” email alias, encouraging employees to report cumbersome processes and unnecessary rules. According to Jassy, Amazon has received approximately 1,500 emails through this channel over the past year, resulting in the modification of around 455 processes.

These changes are integral to Jassy’s broader strategy to revamp Amazon’s corporate culture, aiming to operate as the “world’s largest startup” and maintain a competitive edge amidst a rapidly evolving technological landscape. The drive to eliminate bureaucracy is about more than just efficiency; its about fostering a culture where innovation flourishes and decisions are made quickly.

Since succeeding founder Jeff Bezos in 2021, Jassy has been actively cutting costs across the company, which included laying off over 27,000 employees since 2022 and discontinuing less profitable ventures. However the streamlining also comes as Amazon continues to strategically invest heavily in key areas such as artificial intelligence to further advance its broader business objectives.

However, transforming Amazon, a sprawling enterprise encompassing retail, cloud computing, advertising, and other diverse sectors, is a monumental undertaking. As the second-largest private employer in the U.S., with a global workforce exceeding 1.5 million, its scale presents unique structural challenges.

“You have to keep remembering your roots and how useful it is to be scrappy,” Jassy concluded, underscoring the importance of maintaining a startup mentality even within a corporate giant.