[epolanski]

> To clarify, that doesn't mean "don't have multi-year roadmaps", it means "your multi-year roadmaps must deliver wins at a consistent cadence".

What you describe is exactly the opposite of research: which is collecting neverendin failures.

An environment that lives by such logic cannot really lead to major technological breakthroughts. And in fact, Amazon has very little of those to show compared to the rest of the SV.

[bigstrat2003]

Not all places are doing research. In fact most are not! Knowing whether you're at a company willing to bet money on R&D, or whether you're at a company that wants you to come up with actionable, is pretty crucial. As you said, Amazon is not really out there doing research - so engineers working there would do well to assume they need deliverables to keep managers happy.

[epolanski]

I agreed but in the case of the news we're commenting this feels an awful lot like an effort that would've benefitted from a proper R&D team where only the leadership would've had to be involved in company politics, goal-setting, etc.