The Origins of Tenets

Source: David Glick Published: February 2020

Source: David Glick
Published: February 2020

The Origins of Tenets

Circulated: February 07, 2020

According to David Glick who led the Pricing Software team, tenets originated at Amazon in 2006. To avoid rehashing previous decisions about pricing strategy, Jeff Bezos asked the team to summarize their strategy “so we remember what we decided last time.” And thus, tenets were born.

“While a team charter explains what a team does, a list of tenets explains how they do it.” — Llew Mason, VP, Consumer Engagement

Pricing tenet #1 from 2006: We believe by keeping our prices very, very low, we earn trust with customers over time, and that actually does maximize free cash flow over the long term. (Harvard Business Review)