Episode 2: An Inside Look at How Amazon Keeps Getting Faster

Welcome everyone to our Learn and Be Curious podcast. I'm

super excited to have Kandace Kapps here today, who's a director in our same- day operations network, and we're going to talk about speed. And I love speed. I love speed because our customers love speed.

Customers love speed.

And I know they love speed because the faster we make our service, the more they shop with us. We've

been studying this for a long time actually, and it's super interesting. When we speed up the service, the probability

super interesting. When we speed up the service, the probability that somebody buys a product from us goes up. So

when they're on the detail page or when they're in checkout, the faster the promise is, the higher the probability that they're going to buy that product. And what's even more interesting is that if they buy it, they're going to come back sooner and they're going to shop more when they do, and so we get both effects going on.

It's been a huge focus. I saw this come to life actually when I first started Amazon, it was to launch our consumables business, which is our word for groceries and everyday essentials. And I remember when we first put toilet paper on the site. So we started selling toilet paper.

And back then it was pre- Prime. Prime was about five minutes old, I think there was like 1, 000 members.

So almost everybody else was getting our Super Saver shipping promise.

That was five to eight days.

Five days.

Yeah. And it was really interesting to watch because there is a set of people who will wait five to eight days to get their toilet paper when they've run out, but it's actually a very small set of people. And

what we've seen is that as we've increased the speed, as we got Prime with two day and then eventually Prime one day, and now what we're delivering, of course, is same day and in a matter of hours, the number of people willing to buy and able to buy toilet paper from us has shot up. In fact, this morning when I was looking, like I do every morning on the what's the top sellers, the second item was

of course a toilet paper item. But I'm going to start where I always like to start. You're going to know because you've been with me on a couple of these site tours, but tell me your Amazon story.

So I started in 2011.

2011. 15-

Almost 15 years.

15 years ago.

Yeah.

Congratulations.

Thank you. As a college hire area manager. So in 2011, it was a new program where we were hiring undergrad students, fresh bachelor degree to come in and run shifts essentially within our fulfillment center network. So I was a area manager at a building in Sumner, Washington.

You're 22- 22 at the time, yeah.

... when you come out.

I- You had never run a fulfillment center before.

No.

And maybe an area manager, just give everybody a little taste, what are you managing?

Yeah. I was on night shift and I was responsible for roughly 100 associates.

Amazing.

And making sure we- Had you ever managed anybody in your life?

No, not really. I think I had prior jobs for Jamba Juice as an assistant manager and an internship with Nordstrom during college years, but never managed anyone. And it was a really difficult time to be 22 in general. It was a hard time to come straight out of college and step into a

managerial role, that we were all learning together and our building was brand new. It was just launched. So there's a lot of new learning curve for everyone, not just me.

And then 100 people looking at you as the leader.

And then 100 people looking at me.

Amazing.

And also some of them probably questioning why am I the authority figure in this- Yeah. Maybe you were asking the same thing.

Yeah. Maybe you were asking the same thing.

Yeah, I at times, was definitely asking the same thing.

That's fantastic.

And I always value that time because I think that it's been foundational to everything else that's happened in my career. So

I was an area manager for three peak seasons is how I'll describe it. My second peak, we had already purchased Kiva Systems now famously.

Oh my gosh. Yeah. Our robotics.

Amazon Robotics. So I was there on day one of us finding out that we were going to be the first site with Amazon Robotics and then getting to influence what those processes look like today, it's pretty amazing to see how far we've come.

Yeah. Amazing.

And then by the third holiday season, we were a sortable.

So our smaller items, people can think of it as AirPods, very popular for us, or iPhone cases. So we were now an Amazon Robotics sortable building. So in three holiday seasons, we were three different types of buildings, which was an amazing learning opportunity and consistently keeping you on your toes.

So at that point in time, I was ready to try something new. So I actually went and worked for Amazon Robotics and moved from Seattle to Boston.

In Boston?

To Boston, yeah.

Oh fantastic.

I never lived outside of the state of Washington.

Isn't that place like Willy Wonka's factory? I love-

Now it is.

It's just amazing. Around every corner, they've got some new new- New technologies brewing.

New technology, new device, something that helps the associates kind of move packages from the sorter out to the dock or something that helps sort packages on the line. So

fun to go to.

At that time it was our classic orange robots, now they're blue, but I- Big change to go from orange to blue.

Big change.

Yeah.

Massive. Prime blue, I think. But at the time, I remember talking to my GM and he was like, " You're going to be an ops manager soon," which is the next promotion level in a fulfillment center.

And I remember saying, " I want to go and try something new. And if worst case, it doesn't work, I

something new. And if worst case, it doesn't work, I can come back and I can work my way into an ops manager role." It was a two- way door. And I think a couple folks looked at me funny like, " You're skipping on a sooner promotion."

And I was like, " No, I'm betting on myself that it'll happen regardless."

Wow, that's great.

So I went and I took a leap also to Boston.

I'd never been to Boston. People are like, " Why?" And

I was like, "I don't know. I just feel in my body that it was right."

But that team must have loved having a real Amazonian operator on the team.

Yeah, I was I think probably one of, if not the first, one of the first that had flipped from Amazon to ...

I literally had a Kiva Systems email alias and really flipped over. And my role was a launch program manager.

flipped over. And my role was a launch program manager.

So it was like to take your Amazon experience and you know how to operate a building to an extent, right?

And how do you take that knowledge and now go and teach the rest of the buildings that we're about to launch? And this is going into 2014, so we

to launch? And this is going into 2014, so we were about to launch our large sortable Amazon Robotic building, which is like a first for us. Now we have hundreds per se, but it was like the first of those opportunities. So

we had created this content when I was an area manager.

My role was a lot of like, how do we operationalize this and scale this out to the network so we can go? So I launched Amazon pantry buildings, we launched non-

can go? So I launched Amazon pantry buildings, we launched non- sort buildings, we launched sortable buildings. And across the US, I had that chance to go to Poland in that role.

Amazing.

It was like a really awesome experience. And it's particularly funny because that role was 90% travel and I had never gotten on an airplane before my Amazon interview.

What. Never.

Yeah. No, I interviewed- Where did you grow up?

Here in Washington.

Really?

And ironically, I interviewed for Amazon in Phoenix. That's where

we were doing our area manager interviews, and so they sent me from Seattle to Phoenix- I see.

... and I was like, "But isn't Amazon based here? Do I have to get on a plane?" And they're like, " Yes, you do have to get on a plane."

Wow.

So I interviewed- You made up for it though in that final role then.

Yeah. First airplane with Amazon, interviewed on my birthday, which is also double. They're like, " How's your day going on?" "

It's good, it's my birthday."

Yeah, this is, yeah. What a way to celebrate.

Yeah, exactly. I'll take a job. That sounds like a great birthday gift to me.

It must feel good though to go around the network now and see what Amazon Robotics has become.

It's eye- opening. I think we all believed in it in 2012 and quickly saw the value in it.

We were all very optimistic about it, but there was also skepticism about could we actually do this? Could we put these ...

Nobody had tried to put in robotics at this kind of scale for what we were doing.

No.

And now when you walk out into a building, it's a given.

Yeah.

And beyond the simple drive units that we were working on back then, there's just a whole host of technologies.

Yeah, that was just the foundation.

The foundations. So that's really cool that you were there at the beginning.

Yeah, it was remarkable. I think it's also really remarkable to see how many of the stations and some of the designs that we created back in 2013, 2014 still have been paying dividends out to the network and have just continued to, with small tweaks, get better and better. So

then I took an opportunity to go to Treasure Truck Ops Integration.

Oh my gosh.

Yes.

Treasure Truck.

Yes. One of your favorites.

One of my favorites. So Treasure Truck, I wrote the original PRFAQ for Treasure Truck.

I think you told me that in Charleston, which I did not know. And I worked on that team for two years.

So wow, I guess I was not very famous then for providing that PRFAQ. But our PRFAQ is a press release and any new business idea starts with a press release.

And it's a one- page articulation of what are we going to say about this when it launches? And then

a few FAQs, frequently asked questions that people might have after they read that. That whole process, by the way, was new to me when I joined Amazon. And at

first I thought it was the goofiest process I had ever seen. I was like, " Where's the business plan? Where's

ever seen. I was like, " Where's the business plan? Where's

the business school kind of seven S's and five F's and all the different frameworks?" But I learned to love it because when you are forced to sit down and write what's the idea in one page, if you can't make it something that everybody's excited about, it's probably not going to work as a business. And if you can get excited about it, oftentimes you'll be like, " We'll figure

out the economics. We'll figure out how to turn it into a business if it's a cool idea." That one was particularly strange, the Treasure Truck. And I remember how it started.

Treasure Truck. And I remember how it started.

Our treasure.

Oh, no, actually this one's mine. I just picked it up from the Amazon Treasure Truck.

We've been having conversations with the S team and there was this notion, which sounds even weirder, that we used to offhandedly refer to as the steak truck. And we

had this idea that a truck, we would just load up a truck with as much steak as it could possibly carry and then just drive it down the street and honk the horn and then people would run out and say how much steak they would want to buy.

Now that didn't seem like a particularly good idea, but I remember an email came out and it was from Jeff and he said, " Hey, can somebody pick up the steak truck idea and turn it into a PRFAQ?" So I said, I foolishly raised my hand and said, " I'm going to do it." What came out of that was not focused

do it." What came out of that was not focused on steak, but it was let's build the modern day ice cream truck for adults.

Ice cream truck, yeah.

So the idea was at some kind of indeterminate frequency, once a week, once a month, who knows, a screaming deal would appear, instead of hearing the ice cream truck go down the street, your phone would buzz and say that the Treasure Truck is here and you would go out and do it. So

it might be standup paddleboards or we had a new release for the Harry Potter book. We did actually put steak on it a few times.

We did put steak on it multiple times.

And if anybody wants to go back and look online, the Treasure Trucks were something to behold.

They were How do you describe what they- Yeah. I think when we talked a lot about it, it's kind of like magic on

Yeah. I think when we talked a lot about it, it's kind of like magic on wheels and in essence, right? The first one was very Amazon fulfillment box oriented, right? And then we rebranded them when we went nationwide and they were these gorgeous, probably over the top blue trucks that- Over the top. They opened up.

... had bubbles and they opened and they had a television screen for marketing what was on the truck today.

They were- Music.

Yeah, they had music and custom design art just for that city that was really- Yes. And they opened up, which I loved the ... My finance

Yes. And they opened up, which I loved the ... My finance

partner at the time, in the PRFAQ, it was very specific that said it had a bubble machine spouting bubbles and music thumping out and all. And he would just shake his head every time he read that thing and said, " We've got to put bubble machines in all these trucks?"

Oh, we had bubble machines on all the trucks.

Were you sourcing bubble fluid constantly?

Yes. We did work through some escalations of not having the bubbles going when folks arrived at them.

Yeah, that's right.

Yeah. I look at bubbles a little bit different nowadays after working on them.

That's amazing. Now, as it turns out, and we probably should have figured this out ahead of time, we sold a lot more when we did it online versus when we had the Treasure Truck. And all of a sudden the light kind of went off, it's like, wow, one thing people love more than coming to the truck and picking up all this stuff is having us deliver to their home.

Yeah, the convenience of- And the convenience of that.

OF delivering to them.

We ended up retiring the Treasure Trucks at that point.

And every once in a while I still see one that appears somewhere. My wild Treasure Truck story, we had set up a Treasure Truck event and we were doing it here at Lumen Field in Seattle and with Marshawn Lynch.

Marshawn Lynch was a famous running back for the Seattle Seahawks and Marshawn Lynch is like, " Treasure Truck?" He's like, " Can I drive it? " And I can't remember if it was me or somebody else said yes. And I remember the keys going over into Marshawn Lynch's hands.

Slow motion.

Yeah. I can remember in all that we had the press there and it was a big hurly burly and there was all these people running around.

Beast mode. Beast mode.

And he gets in this Treasure Truck, starts driving it in the parking lot of Lumen Field. And all I could imagine was like, this is how the Treasure Truck enterprise ends, when Marshawn Lynch crashes it into some crowd at the end. Thankfully, Marshawn turns out to be an excellent driver, in addition to being an excellent running back and we had a wonderful team. So it all went well.

Beast mode.

What's next?

In 2018, I'd say as a side hustle, I got pulled into scoping the sub- same- day network. So within

our organization, a couple leaders had been pulled in to help scope the PRFAQ, how it's operationally look and ask for permission on what is the design of these buildings going to be. And they started looking a lot more at the robotics side versus maybe the Prime Now style building, which is manual foot picking, picking, walking up and down aisles like you would at a retailer store.

Yeah. So you were at the very beginning of our sub- same- day network.

Yeah.

And we're probably going to have to unpack two important things.

So first of all, the name, which you're going to hear us talking about it as SSD, sub- same- day network, or just same- day network. I must admit sub- same day is the funniest name I've heard yet to describe it, but maybe what is- The sub- same- day network?

... the sub- same day network? What is an SSD building and what makes it different than a traditional Amazon building?

Yeah. So the sub- same- day buildings are intentionally designed buildings that are located as close as possible to our customers so we can get to them with the fastest speed viable. They are

different than our large fulfillment networks in a few ways. One,

the selection we carry is our top roughly 100, 000 SKUs in the network, so the things that our customers are telling us they want the most at the fastest speeds.

They actually cover a wider array of selection. In our

large network, we would cover sortable, non- sortable, hazmat, grocery.

Those are four different building types and we've put them all together in a singular building, which is a new operational model. And then we are also a delivery station.

operational model. And then we are also a delivery station.

Yeah, that's what I think is cool too.

It's a combination of our fulfillment side with our delivery station model together so that we can do the last mile directly out of our buildings and get it to customers within hours.

Yeah. It's an amazing change. I think it's been one of the ways that the teams have done a fantastic job on speed. We hit delivery speed records in '23, '24.

We just closed up '25, hit new records and knock on wood, we're going to hit records again. And a

big chunk of it has been the growth of this same- day network and it really is ... I love our big buildings.

They're fantastic. They are often located far away from population centers, so you've got a distance there. They have tremendous selection.

But you go into one of these same- day buildings and you can watch an order, a customer can place an order. It can drop on the floor and be

an order. It can drop on the floor and be picked and packed and on the dock within 15 minutes.

It was a bit controversial at the beginning. Did we

need a new network to do this? Was this the right way to do it?

We faced a healthy amount of friction. The thing we found is there's ways for all of us to do this together. The dedicated network is one of the offerings

this together. The dedicated network is one of the offerings that we have to hit speed. But really, across that same- day space and race to speed, we have a menu of options that we provide to customers, right?

What's hard about running an SSD?

I think the part that's complex about running an SSD is all of the integration types. So when I talk about multiple selections in the building, we have multiple different business lines in our buildings as well. So we do the AirPods and the diapers, and we've gotten very good at that because we've done it for a few years. We've now added our

grocery offering and that adds a new complexity to just how you run a building. Those are two vastly different operations for the grander part of the Amazon network, but in SSD, they are one operation. So how do we make sure your tomatoes and cucumbers get to the driver at the same time that your AirPods are getting there, so we

send you ideally a singular driver to your doorstep? We

have Amazon Pharmacy integrated with us. We have the drones, which are all new offerings that just change a little bit each day, like how an operator does their role and making sure that we're focused diligently on how do we simplify those processes for, as our field team is also our customer? And I always say, if my team can

make it easier on the fields, then they will execute flawlessly for the Amazon customer and the flywheel just continues to go around.

Yeah. It's been amazing. I think those buildings, we built them, like you said, originally they were kind of the top 100,000 items and we did have the complexity of both our sortable, which is the small items, and our non-sortables coming together.

And we just said, " Hey, the customer's going to order this stuff. They don't care-

this stuff. They don't care- Maybe not.

... if it's big or it's small. They just want it to arrive quickly." So we said, " This is all about allowing a customer to order anything they want, have it arrive quickly." And because we had those, all of a sudden as we thought about these new other things, we said, " Wow, could we use these buildings for these also?"

And then more recently as we said, " Hey, can we put the perishable products in there? Can we put the avocados and the steak and the asparagus into these buildings?"

And yes, the team has figured out how to reset that building and put those in. And then the last couple years, we've started putting our pharmacy operations in here too, and those are a ton of fun to go see.

But it's coming all together in this amazing experience of, as a customer, I can go on and I can do my shopping. I was honestly doing it yesterday. I'm

just trying to think if I covered every one of the product categories you just talked about. I think my daughter needed some packing supplies. I ordered that. I needed

a refill on a medication that I had. I ordered that.

And then I had some grocery items that I wanted to get for the next day. All of them arrived by 10: 00 PM that night. It was kind of an amazing kind of magical experience how it all came together.

Yeah. As a newer mom, I've come to realize, I think before I was like, " We're all busy Amazonians, we've got 1, 000 things on our to do list," and so you focus on how do you use the Amazon services to avoid a trip to the store? But as a new mom, I think even more, you realize how much you want to force multiply your time and how painful it is

to get a little tot in and out of the car, in and out of a stroller or whatnot, and how convenient all of the services are. And I order two or three times more now.

Well, you are kind of our target customer.

Yeah.

I think families with kids are actually some of the biggest customers we've had because, especially in the consumables, grocery, everyday essential space, the number of mouths you have in the house is basically defining how much you need to buy.

And that includes not only the parents and the kids, but the dogs and the cats and everybody else.

Oh absolutely.

And those families kind of drive a lot of the household shopping that needs to occur each week, and so we're trying to make it kind of better and easier.

How old is your ... Do you have one?

She's almost two.

Two. Fantastic.

She's almost two. Yeah.

And then your husband is also an Amazonian?

My husband is also an Amazonian. Yes. Ben and I worked together early, crossed paths, I should say. So when

I was an area- Sounds like he more than crossed paths.

Well, yes. We crossed paths originally and when we met when I was an area manager doing the School of Bots part, we trained him as he was moving from Indiana to Dallas.

That's great. And we only have 20 years before your daughter joins us as a- Yeah exactly.

... an area manager.

Yeah. Yeah, she's probably overhearing all these conversations so that she can just ... She'll have a leg up on everyone else.

That's great. Okay, one last SSD question. What's next?

What's next? I think our big focus this year is continuation of speed. So we have expanded already, right?

Yeah.

Our three- hour offering.

Oh, I used that last night. It's awesome.

Yes. Yeah. So it's deliver, for customers who aren't familiar, it is the click now and deliver within three hours. And then

we also have the one- hour service, so click now and deliver within one hour. On the full selection of everything in our building, so all the product categories we've discussed today, and really making it even faster for customers to get those need it now items, especially for the last minute, like you're packing for a trip and you just need the- That was last night's problem.

... the adapter for Europe or Europe and Asia are all different, whatever it might be and being able to get it. So

I think customers are going to continue to get magically surprised by how fast we can deliver at their doorstep.

Great. We've hit record speeds, '23, '24, '25. What's really cool is that we've done it while getting safer as well. So

all those years, we've been hitting record safety as well, which is great. A lot of people think that when we're speeding up the network, that the individual people are actually working faster. And that's not what's going on as well.

When you go into a building, the picking activity is the same whether or not you're working on a same- day order or an order for four days from now.

And the delivery activity is actually the same as well.

You're doing the exact same things, whether or not this is the same- day delivery or this is a delivery from four days ago. What really makes speed happen is all the connections between the different processes. I'm really proud of the team, again, not just for the speed performance, but for the safety performance as well.

Yeah.

I love talking to people who've worked in the field because I do, as you kicked us off, I think the folks in the field really have a tremendous amount of leadership experiences and challenges, and they think a lot about leadership.

So I learn a lot when I go out to the field from those folks about how to be a better leader. So is there any piece of advice that

better leader. So is there any piece of advice that you've gotten along the way that you've found kind of impactful for you?

Some of the most important advice that I've received along the way, and I think I had this from one of my early ops managers, it was like, it's not what you're saying, it's how you're saying it, and the power of the perception of how a message comes across. So an example is when you're a very green area manager that I was, it

wasn't like I was giving direction and it was the wrong direction. It was more like it's very direct in

wrong direction. It was more like it's very direct in tone or it's missing the why this is important. And stepping

back and making sure that your teams understand the why behind a ask that a leader is directing upon. I

think my team today would say I'm like a very transparent leader and I like to try and step back and say the why, or even when we do change communications to our field, it's like, why is this important?

Why should I care about this is really important, and softening the tone to make sure you kind of come down to where your team is at to communicate that message has really stuck with me. And I think it applies- Everywhere.

... everywhere.

I think both of those are great. I do think the why. One, it can often just remove a lot of misperceptions because people quickly jump to conclusions when they hear a message. And then if you can tell them why you're giving it to them, it usually diffuses a whole bunch. And it's a teaching mechanism for them as well. And then I like the idea of tone. When I took on this role and

I started visiting the field a lot, in the beginning I was actually, I felt a little nervous I was out there. I had not been a lot out in

out there. I had not been a lot out in the field. I was afraid I was going to be

the field. I was afraid I was going to be using the wrong words to describe things or come across as like I didn't know what the hell operations was all about. But I did find that I probably did

all about. But I did find that I probably did use the wrong words and explain things in the wrong way, but just coming across as kind of genuinely interested in what was going on and genuinely thankful went a long way.

And like you said, most people don't remember the specifics of what we talked about, but they do remember the emotional content of the visit and kind of what we talked about. And I think about that one a lot too.

talked about. And I think about that one a lot too.

And I'm like, don't worry so much about the specifics, but worry about what's the message, the bigger message that you're trying to deliver when you go to that fulfillment center?

We do one thing here, which is we give you an opportunity. I ask like 10,000 questions and then I

an opportunity. I ask like 10,000 questions and then I give you the opportunity to ask a single question.

Perfect.

So I'll give you the opportunity. Is there anything you would like to flip the script on me and ask about?

Sure. Yeah, I think kind of along the same lines of the last question there, and in the spirit of growth and continuation of growth, what's a piece of feedback that you've received through your career that's stuck with you?

And then maybe what's a piece of feedback that you find yourself giving to the organization or organizational leaders more often than not that you think the audience would- Yeah. Well, your story kind of reminded me when I

Yeah. Well, your story kind of reminded me when I first joined Amazon, I had a team of 23. They'd

been put in place to focus on consumables and everyday essentials, and I was brought in to be their leader. And

when I first came in, I was getting immersed in the business. And I went out, actually visited the field,

the business. And I went out, actually visited the field, I visited, we had like six fulfillment centers at the time.

I visited all of them. I went through all the numbers.

We have this process here, the weekly business review, the WBR.

I would get the deck in advance, and that is a deck which usually has 50 to 100 pages of metrics that we go through as a group every week. I would

go through it ad nauseum and do all my own research and look up things and go through that. As

a result, when we got into those WBRs, I was actually pretty quiet because I had actually answered all my questions, I had kind of read everything in advance. So I

spent all this time doing that, working on the bigger idea, the bigger plan of where we were going. And I

remember my manager, Diego Piacentini, kind of four to six months in, did a quick kind of check- in review and he got feedback, just kind of verbatim feedback from folks on the team and who I was working with.

And there was a bunch of nice stuff in there. "

Doug's a big thinker and he's very optimistic and he's like Mr. Innovation, he's leading forward." But it says, " But he doesn't appear to be close to the operating details of the business. And he doesn't appear close to the, or that interested in the operating metrics." And I went

back to my HR partner and I was also a little frustrated. I was like, " Oh my gosh, I actually

little frustrated. I was like, " Oh my gosh, I actually know these metrics better than anybody because I'm all -" You're doing your homework.

"All my time is spent on this. In fact, I have more time because I've just come in new, so I don't have other responsibilities." And my HR partner, who was wonderful, she said to me, she says, " Well, first, how would they know? If you don't tell them, how do they know that you're connected?" She goes, " Let's think about that WBR session where you are actually quiet the

whole time and other people are talking and asking questions, how are they going to understand?" And she says, " I think you should really think about improving your visible leadership skills."

And I was like, " Visible leadership." And she was like, " You are so lucky because you have some amazing teachers here for visible leadership. Just look at, watch what Jeff Bezos does when we do the big WBR. Watch what

Jeff Wilke does when we do the big WBR." And

for me, that was like a light switch moment. I

had really been thinking about what I had to accomplish and how I was going to understand everything and all the metrics and that idea that think about what it means to be a visible leader, to demonstrate connection with the business for your team, and then to do a lot of the stuff that you talked about, which is ask questions, not just to show that you care, but ask questions,

even when you might know the answer, ask questions to teach or ask questions to demonstrate what's important. What should

we all care about as leaders? To kind of learn, to help develop kind of common mental models. So I

remember very clearly that discussion and then going off from there and just Just using every interaction with, let's say, Jeff to watch how he would question and answer and engage with teams to get everybody pulling in the same direction and thinking about things in the same way. And I

could see that he would often ask the same question again and again and again in different forums, but it was all trying to get people to think about the same way. And for me, it was super powerful, I

same way. And for me, it was super powerful, I think that was the ... I talk a lot about how I like the idea of service- oriented leadership where you're less focused on what's important to me and what can I do to help the rest of the team? And

that was, I think, the beginning of that journey for me.

And I give that advice to people when I see them a lot. Sometimes I see leaders, and especially in this environment where people can be on Zoom calls and they're kind of not really participating. They may or may not come on the screen, they may or may not blink in. And I have this conversation too with them.

blink in. And I have this conversation too with them.

It's like, " Wow, it's probably not important to you to get on the screen. It's probably not important to you to engage because you might be three steps beyond what everybody's talking about, but it's actually, you're giving so much back to the organization if you do become a more visible leader, explain the why and explain why is this important?

How are you thinking about it? Where do you think we should be going?" And try to get leaders to think not about just themselves and what they need to be successful, but their teams and kind of how they can be successful too.

Yeah, our teams are taking cues from us, right? And

every opportunity that they see me sitting at a table, my team is looking at me, it's thinking if I'm multitasking and not paying attention, they're going to think that's acceptable for them when they have an opportunity, but we can be missing opportunities to recognize we have a seat at this table for a reason. We should use our voice to be inquisitive or learn or maybe even direct

the conversation depending what the topic is, right? And each

of those are learning opportunities for ourselves or for the peers around us.

All right, good question. But you only get one, so that was it.

Yes, only one.

Kandace, you've done so many different things. You've been in the SSD world for a while. Why do you like it so much?

I think the thing that has kept me here is no year has been the same. Each year has presented a different challenge, and so no years felt stagnant or I've never felt like I knew everything. And I was like, " I got to go try something else because it seems to keep coming to me," which is a beautiful spot to be. And I get to dabble in a lot

to be. And I get to dabble in a lot of different industries, but I think speed is ultimately changing how customers shop with us so significantly that I feel like I'm making the biggest impact in the role I have today. And that's kept me around.

have today. And that's kept me around.

That's cool. I do agree. The SSD network is always changing and evolving. And I love the teams that run those buildings because they are so open to change. I walk into, about half of them usually have construction going on and I say, " What's this construction?" And they're like, " Oh, we're adding a pharmacy. Oh,

we're adding a perishable grocery. Oh, we're adding a drone launch."

And they all take it in stride and they're all super excited about it too. And of course, we were together in Charleston and saw some of the new automation, which is quite significant that we were looking at, which has the opportunity to kind of dramatically expand the assortment that we have there and make it even easier to operate those buildings. And I would guess too, that we've not seen the end of the evolution of those buildings,

so it's going to be pretty exciting to watch.

Completely agree. And I think the evolution of how they're unfolding is just, it's super engaging and it's keeping all of our central teams and field teams engaged in what they're doing because they know that they're on the front end of something new and something cutting edge.

Thank you, Kandace, so- Of course.

... much for coming. Thank you for everything you've done for Amazon for the last 15 years and for our customer.

Now that I've heard your whole journey, I'm like, " Wow, you've had your fingerprints on so many of the big important things that we've done and things like Treasure Truck."

And things like Treasure Truck. It was a learning experience.

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