Amazon boardroom meetings begin with 'half an hour of silence'

Head of Amazon Bazos has encouraged thr 'weird' culture
AP
Chloe Chaplain1 May 2018

The head of Amazon has revealed that boardroom meetings at the firm begin with half an hour of silence.

Jeff Bezos, the company's chief executive, has enforced rules including banning PowerPoint presentations and replacing them with lengthy memos.

Staff are then encouraged to sit in silence at the start of each meeting and read the whole thing thoroughly before any discussion can begin.

He once said in an interview that his company has “the weirdest meeting culture you ever encounter”, adding he encourages staff to write memos in a narrative form to make sure everyone can fully understand.

Such meetings are "so much better than the typical Power-Point presentation for so many reasons", Mr Bezos said.

According to the Times, he said in a recent letter to shareholders that the six-page memos are read in silence “in a kind of 'study hall'”.

"Some [memos] have the clarity of angels singing,” he wrote. “Sometimes they come in at the other end of the spectrum.

He added that the meeting memos could not be crafted in a couple of days and that he would expect a good one to “take a week or more”.

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