Alyssa Henry is the former CEO of Square, a financial services company providing products and services used by over 4 million merchants. Formerly at Amazon, Alyssa led the development and growth of Simple Storage Service (S3) at AWS. Alyssa now serves as an Independent Director at Intel and Confluent.
—
In today’s episode, we discuss:
Lessons from Amazon, Microsoft, and Square
“Minimum Remarkable Products” versus Minimum Viable Products
Navigating different work cultures in big tech
Insider reactions to the disruptive launch of AWS
“Pioneer” versus “fast-follower” companies
—
Referenced:
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com
Amazon Web Services: https://aws.amazon.com
Bill Gates: https://www.linkedin.com/in/williamhgates
Block, Inc: https://block.xyz
Cash App: https://cash.app
Fast Company - Back To Square One: https://www.fastcompany.com/3033412/back-to-square-one
Gokul Rajaram: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gokulrajaram1
Jack Dorsey: https://twitter.com/Jack
James Hamilton: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jameshamilton4
Jeff Bezos: https://twitter.com/jeffbezos
Microsoft: https://www.microsoft.com
Oracle Corporation: https://www.oracle.com
Sarah Friar: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarah-friar
Square: https://squareup.com
Tom Szkutak: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tom-szkutak-4b59817
WSJ - Mobile-Payments Startup Square Discusses Possible Sale: https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702303825604579513882989476424
—
Where to find Alyssa Henry:
LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/alyssa-henry-0905692
Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/alyssahhenry
—
Where to find Brett Berson:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brett-berson-9986094/
Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/brettberson
—
Where to find First Round Capital:
Website: https://firstround.com/
First Round Review: https://review.firstround.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/firstround
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@FirstRoundCapital
This podcast on all platforms: https://review.firstround.com/podcast
—
Timestamps:
(00:00) Introduction
(02:20) Lessons from Microsoft and Amazon
(08:29) Noticeable consistencies in the human condition
(10:50) Differences in culture at Amazon, Microsoft and Square
(13:27) Why “customers come first,” even above employees and community
(14:01) Why fast-followers can be less customer-focused
(15:50) The challenge of commercializing research projects
(18:58) Joining Square and “building a picture” of the org
(24:55) Knowing what to replicate from past companies
(27:45) Questioning norms in new companies
(28:41) The importance of effective communication systems
(31:31) How to operationalize company values
(33:38) Why shared beliefs are crucial for good company culture
(37:05) Building Minimal Remarkable Products at Square
(38:13) How to scale an aesthetic
(42:46) Org design lessons from Square
(50:06) How to align different teams behind business priorities
(52:57) Lessons learned from fierce competition
(57:39) The “fast follower” vs “pioneer” playbook
(61:05) The original thinking behind AWS
(66:08) The unlikely origin of Amazon CloudFront and other products
(73:47) How Jeff Bezos influenced Alyssa
