A million small steps + learning from missteps = Amazon's Success

Nice article from CNN on Jeff Bezos's history with Amazon, its success through hard times, and its ventures ahead in digital media. One interesting thing for me is that they used the exact same principles we consider successful for agile software development to be successful with the business - many small steps followed by learning from each little misstep and corrective action. This is the concept of emergence in agile development.



From the article:

So how did he avoid the fate that befell so many dotcoms and turn Amazon into a real business? It's easy to believe that Jeff Bezos is one of the great innovators. But that's not exactly the case. His rise into Fortune 500-dom actually has little to do with innovation and more to do with iteration. If anything, Amazon demonstrates how a cutting-edge Internet company - of all things - can succeed slowly. The trick is taking a million tiny steps - and quickly learning from your missteps.