# Amazon pursues new businesses with dedicated teams and clear hurdles

Markdown copy of https://realalpha.app/s/amazon-pursues-new-businesses-with-dedicated-teams-and-clear/ on Real Alpha, the best minutes from long interviews with the people building AI. Cite and link the page, not this copy.

- Speaker: [Andy Jassy](https://realalpha.app/people/andy-jassy/) · Andy Jassy is CEO of Amazon. · Founded and led AWS, then became Amazon's CEO in 2021, steering its $220 billion AI buildout.
- Host: [Ben Horowitz](https://realalpha.app/people/ben-horowitz/) · Co-founder, a16z · Co-founded a16z and Opsware, sold to HP for $1.6 billion; wrote The Hard Thing About Hard Things.
- Host: [Erik Torenberg](https://realalpha.app/people/erik-torenberg/) · General partner, Andreessen Horowitz · Helped build Product Hunt; founded On Deck, Village Global and Turpentine.
- Show: a16z Podcast
- Episode: [Amazon CEO Andy Jassy on the $220 Billion AI Buildout](https://realalpha.app/v/-YMMRQ1qscI/), Oct 23, 2026
- Moment: 56:14 to 1:00:19 of the episode (4 min), playing on https://realalpha.app/s/amazon-pursues-new-businesses-with-dedicated-teams-and-clear/; the episode from there: https://realalpha.app/v/-YMMRQ1qscI/?t=3374

## Quote

> “we organize in this **decentralized, single-threaded** way, if you have the right leaders”
> — [Andy Jassy](https://realalpha.app/people/andy-jassy/) at [58:53](https://realalpha.app/v/-YMMRQ1qscI/?t=3533) · a16z Podcast

## Takeaways

1. Amazon avoids assigning the same group to manage multiple businesses.
2. Jassy looks for differentiated ideas in markets that are not well served.
3. The opportunity must be large enough to move the needle.

## About this segment

Dedicated teams let Amazon pursue several businesses in parallel. Andy Jassy looks for strong leaders, a differentiated idea, an underserved market and enough potential to move the needle.

From “Amazon CEO Andy Jassy on the $220 Billion AI Buildout”, Oct 23, 2026. [Watch the full episode](https://realalpha.app/v/-YMMRQ1qscI/)

## Transcript

Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.

[56:25](https://realalpha.app/v/-YMMRQ1qscI/?t=3385) Yeah. Yeah. I, gearing towards closing here, you know, you guys are in businesses as diverse as satellite connectivity, robotics, healthcare. I mean, the ambition, it's incredible to think this business started as, you know, selling books on the internet. And here it is now. How do you think about sort of, you know, what threads these sort of different sort of business lines together or how you think about what business lines are worth, you know, committing for years or how do you make sure you don't spread yourself too thin or how do you make sense of just the vast range?

[57:00](https://realalpha.app/v/-YMMRQ1qscI/?t=3420) Well, I'd say a few things. You know, first, I think we are living in an era of three of the biggest transformations in our lifetime, and maybe ever, between AI, robotics, and space development. And they're all huge, and they all are going to completely change a number of customer experiences that we all encounter. And we are in the middle of all three of those big transformations. If you look at what we're doing in our retail business and how we use robotics and what we're doing on the AI side, you know, both in making it easier for internal and external builders to be able to build successful AI applications and agents, as well as reinvent all our consumer experiences.

[57:47](https://realalpha.app/v/-YMMRQ1qscI/?t=3467) If you think about Amazon Leo, our low-Earth orbit satellite constellation that we're building for the 500 million households around the world that don't have broadband connectivity, you know, there's an incredible set of transformations that are happening that we have a chance to help customers leverage in a way that makes their lives better. And, you know, and we do it in a way that, you know, help customers but also lead to long-term sustainable businesses for ourselves as well.

[58:19](https://realalpha.app/v/-YMMRQ1qscI/?t=3499) And we've, you know, I think we have a chance to be much more relevant in helping customers across many more areas. And that, you know, I'm not even mentioning what we're doing in grocery and what we're doing in, you know, autonomous driving, ride hailing, and health care. And, you know, the way we organize, we've often had over the years this internal debate, but also a lot of external folks have asked the same type of question, which is what's being spread too thin?

[58:50](https://realalpha.app/v/-YMMRQ1qscI/?t=3530) I think some of that depends on a combination of how you organize yourself and what you're willing to invest. And so because we don't try and have the same group of people manage multiple businesses and we organize in this decentralized, single-threaded way, if you have the right leaders and the right builders on those teams and you have an experience that if it's big enough could move the needle and you have a differentiated idea and a space is not being that well-served, you have the opportunity to pursue a lot of these things simultaneously.

[59:24](https://realalpha.app/v/-YMMRQ1qscI/?t=3564) And we have over a long period of time. And then it just comes down to how much you're willing to invest. You know, there are some companies, very understandably, who say, we're going to stick to our knitting. You know, we're going to stick to the core business that we have and we're going to grow that. And that, by the way, can be a very successful strategy. And we are very intent on our existing businesses continuing to grow them and build them.

[59:50](https://realalpha.app/v/-YMMRQ1qscI/?t=3590) I think we've done so pretty successfully, a good clip. But there are so many other customer experiences that we know customers really want us to help solve that we can. They're going to help our customers. customers and change our business long-term and, and, you know, we'll keep pursuing those. That's an inspiring note, note to end on, uh, sort of endless ambition. Andy, thanks so much for coming on the podcast. Yeah. Thank you.