Matt Garman began as an intern for Andy Jassy at Amazon Web Services (AWS) in 2005 when the unit operated as an internal startup and had not yet sold IT infrastructure services externally. Two decades later, Garman leads AWS, which last year reported revenue of $107.6 million, nearly 17% of Amazon's 2024 sales. Amazon's culture enabled rapid product launches such as S3, EC2, and SimpleDB. Founder Jeff Bezos established tenets including customer obsession, frugality, bias for action, ownership, and hiring great talent, which evolved into formal leadership principles. Interns could present to Bezos and be evaluated on ideas rather than rank, enabling freedom to build.
When Matt Garman interned for Andy Jassy at Amazon Web Services (AWS) in 2005, the unit was still considered an internal startup and had yet to begin selling IT infrastructure services to other companies. Twenty years later, Jassy is president and CEO of Amazon, and Garman is CEO of AWS, which last year reported revenue of $107.6 million-nearly 17% of the e-commerce giant's 2024 sales.
Amazon's ability to mint new products and services at scale-early in Garman's time at AWS, the unit launched Simple Storage Services, or S3; Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2); and Amazon Simple DB in quick succession-is attributable to its distinctive and "peculiar" culture. From the outset, founder and executive chair Jeff Bezos emphasized tenets such as customer obsession, frugality, bias for action, ownership, and hiring great talent. These evolved into a set of leadership principles that guide the company.
For some, the environment can be incredibly energizing. Garman, for example, says he learned quickly that good ideas matter more than hierarchy. "When I was an intern, I had a couple of meetings where I presented to Jeff Bezos, and he didn't care that I was an intern," he recalls. "He cared that I had interesting or good ideas
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