Working Backwards

What Hacker News says

1. marniewebbDec 2022
   Fiction: - Lost Children Archive by Valeria Luiselli: mixes the personal and political so skillfully - The Magician by Colm Tóibín: Thomas Mann, the German, author is the main character. Shows our own moment in history in relief.

   Non-Fiction, work: - The Pragmatic Programmer, 20th Anniversary Edition by David Thomas, Andrew Hunt: I’m not a programmer and still found this one of the most useful books I read this year. - Working Backwards by Colin Bryar, Bill Carr: The Amazon/Bezos love choked me a couple of times but I’ve put in practice some of what learned in this book to good effect.

   Non-Fiction, history: - Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin by Timothy D. Snyder: This is a hard book to read. Not slow hard. Terrifying and apocalyptic and true hard. Gives a lot of context to current events. - The Enemy of All Mankind by Steven Johnson: Pirates. The seafaring kind.

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2. jpswadeJun 2022
   I think "Working Backwards: Insights, Stories, and Secrets from Inside Amazon" by Bill Carr puts this better.

   Their idea is that you start with what the press release might be, something everyone can get excited about, and then work backwards from that.

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3. BOOSTERHIDROGENDec 2021

      Working backwards
      Visual MBA

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4. atombenderApr 2024
   This is just Amazon's "Working Backwards" methodology [1] expressed simplistically. There's also a book about written by key Amazon people. [2]

   A core part of the Working Backwards idea is to start out by writing a fake press release, even for internal projects. This helps crystallize exactly what is important and what isn't, as it forces you to express your goal precisely and succinctly as well as define what it brings to the table.

   [1] https://youtu.be/aFdpBqmDpzM?si=NFM9N62VpWmRi8Jp

   [2] https://www.amazon.com/Working-Backwards-Insights-Stories-Se...

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5. the_arunNov 2021
   “Working Backwards: Insights, Stories, and Secrets from Inside Amazon” - https://www.amazon.com/dp/1250267595 by Amazon executives. Gives overview of Amazon’s core practices that made them successful.
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6. flakinessJun 2021
   I wonder how widespread this is outside Amazon. Compare it to, say, Google: In Bay Area, the cultural influence of Google is strong both in good and bad ways. Things like OKR, monorepo, snippets, go links etc. seem to be adopted by many younger companies. I don't think it means these cultural artifacts are always superior. It'd be more about familiarity for ex-Google employees.

   There must be a lot of ex-Amazon talents, but I haven't heard or read this outside the context of Amazon. If this is unique to Amazon, why?

   Maybe the book "Working Backwards" [1] is changing the situation? I'm very curious, and honestly, a bit envious.

   [1] https://www.amazon.com/Working-Backwards-Insights-Stories-Se...

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