In a leaked recording, AWS CEO warns employees about a ‘Day 2’ mindset creeping in, saying his biggest worry is ‘ourselves’

• Amazon Web Services CEO Adam Selipsky said he’s worried about the company itself when employees asked what keeps him up at night.
• Amazon is under pressure over its slowing growth and bloated culture.
• Selipsky told employees to stay curious, restless, and dissatisfied with the status quo.

The biggest challenge facing Amazon may be the company itself.

That’s according to Amazon Web Services’s CEO Adam Selispky, who was asked during last month’s internal staff meeting about the company’s biggest challenge for the next 3 to 5 years and what keeps him up at night.

“The thing that I think is worth stressing out about most is ourselves,” Selipsky said, according to a transcript of the meeting obtained by Insider. “I sometimes joke that my deepest fear is that I wake up in the morning and I find out I actually work for a big company. We are a big company, but I never wanted to feel like we’re a big company.”

Selipsky continued, “I’m confident that if we keep acting the way we acted, you know, 5, 10, 20 years ago, that we keep our culture intact, we keep our priorities intact, that we will deliver great things in the future for our customers as we have done in the past. And so it’s really, for once, about us. We say it’s all about customers. To me, it’s about us because that’s how we’re going to enable ourselves to continue doing this for customers.”

Amazon is under pressure as its growth slows and its culture bloats — or the loss of its “Day 1” mindset, the speedy, risk-taking entrepreneurial zeal found on the first day of the company. The giant retailer is in a major cost-cutting campaign, eliminating at least 27,000 jobs in the past year.

Amazon employees in recent years have complained about the so-called “Day 2” mindset creeping in, as Insider previously reported. The company even created a new “builder experience” team to address those concerns. These fears were only amplified when Amazon CEO Andy Jassy failed to mention “It remains Day 1” in his annual shareholder letter this year, perhaps for the first time in company history.

Amazon’s spokesperson did not comment.

At last month’s meeting, Selipsky alluded to the Day 2 culture by mentioning the difference between “incumbents” and “insurgents.” Incumbents “try to protect the things they have,” while insurgents “are worried about disrupting” and “solving problems.”

“That’s Day 2 culture and you start circling downwards in a very slow and unpleasant fashion,” Selipsky said, referring to the incumbent mindset. “It’s just so important for us to keep that mentality about we are going to be the insurgents, we are going to disrupt.”

To keep that creative spirit, Seplisky told employees to stay “restless and dissatisfied.”

“You can only do that if you’re curious. You can only do that if you’re restless and dissatisfied. Builders are restless and dissatisfied. They’re dissatisfied with the state of things that they see around them because if you’re satisfied with what you see around you, there’s not really that much motivation to try and disrupt it,” Selipsky added.

“And if we do that, we’ll be fine. And again, we’ll continue to do what we’re all here for, which is to deliver incredible groundbreaking innovation to customers, which is what AWS has done for over 17 years.”