Ron Kohavi (from Microsoft) made a recent visit to eBay. From his description, Amazon has an efficient organization in some aspects and does well evaluating certain metrics and making certain kinds of advancements. Part of this success is driven by their "two-pizza" team culture of 8-person teams with group goals.
However, I think the grass isn't always greener. Amazon is limited in its exploration of spaces which require a breadth of functions and cooperation across teams larger than 8 people. Amazon has limited cross-border trade, and I would expect their attempts to compete with PayPal to be less effective. Teams pushing broad kinds of products have trouble if limited to 8 people, given the diversity of merchants. Amazon's stumbles in auctions and initial attempts at zShops I think reflected a lack of breadth.
Not every project fits in an 8-man box, or is easily sliced into that level of atomic components. Part of eBay's challenges are fitting *some* projects to smaller (narrower) teams. Part of Amazon's challenges are building larger teams for some projects. The Manhattan project in WWII, or the Apollo program, would have taken much longer if only 8 people could communicate amongst themselves. The iPhone, new versions of Microsoft products, and broad visionary products often are better served by less insular teams. Bezos' statement: "You can't do big, clean-sheet invention unless you are willing to invest for long periods of time" shows a subtle limitation in his thinking and in his company. I believe it is possible to do big, clean-sheet invention through shorter term and broader investment. Technology is an amplifier and compresses time, large important clean sheet inventions involve effort, and a *LOT* of imagination.
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