S10-Ep16: How Moonshots & Robots Put Packages on Your Porch

Innovating Leadership: Co-Creating Our Future

Guest: Steve Armato, VP of Middle Mile & Tech at Amazon

Whether leaders accept or ignore new tech makes the difference between it disrupting their organizations – and transforming them.

Amazon’s use of new technology is a clear and major component of its success. It’s a big part of what puts packages on your porch. And, as Steve Armato reveals, Amazon wants to share that tech with others. Steve is their VP of Middle Mile and Tech. In this episode, he talks about the ways Amazon shares AI and other technologies – and how they develop that new technology in the first place.

Here's what Steve and Maureen cover:

1. The techniques Steve uses with his team to foster new innovations from the bottom up;
2. How the resulting innovations help people beyond his team, from employees system-wide to customers; and
3. Steve’s own remarkable journey at Amazon, taking him from intern to Vice President.

Dive deeper into Amazon’s leadership lessons with these episodes:

• To Err Is to Innovate with Beryl Tomay
• Delivering the Future: Amazon’s Innovation Culture with David Carbon, John Love, Dr. Vin Gupta, & Tye Brady
• Leadership Is Relationships with Kvon Tucker

For daily wisdom from our guests, be sure to follow us on LinkedIn. We’re on TikTok, Threads, and Twitter, too!

RESOURCES:

Our host Maureen Metcalf posts a newsletter every week on LinkedIn. You can subscribe here.

Maureen’s latest book is Innovative Leadership & Followership in the Age of AI. You’ll find details about it at https://bit.ly/LeaderInAI. Her other 10 books are available on Amazon here.

Books we’re reading for fun or personal development right now include:

• Everyday Ubuntu: Living Better Together, the African Way by Mungi Ngomane. Hardback (https://amzn.to/48Doh6j) and audiobook (https://amzn.to/48YCRF4)
• Nerve: Lessons on Leadership from Two Women Who Went First by Martha Piper & Indira Samarasekera. Paperback (https://amzn.to/3tOtzg4) and audiobook (https://amzn.to/41OYdT5)
• Jilly Truit murder mysteries by Beverley McLachlin:
  • Full Disclosure – https://amzn.to/46TxW6Q (paperback) https://amzn.to/46VDL3Q (audiobook)
  • Denial – https://amzn.to/46YCbhs (paperback) https://amzn.to/3GJc0AA (audiobook)
• Women and Leadership: Journey Toward Equity by Sherylle J. Tan & Lisa DeFrank-Cole

NOTE: As an Amazon partner, we may make a small commission from books you buy through these links.

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OUR PODCAST TEAM:

Host & Executive Producer: Maureen Metcalf

Editor & Executive Producer: Dan Mushalko

Video & Graphics Editor: Devon Mushalko

Assistant Editor & Raconteur: Luigi Morelli

(Information requiring higher security clearance than you have): Jenna Reik & Mike Morrow-Fox

Theme music by Pavel Bekirov from Pixabay.

CONNECT WITH US:

YouTube: @InnovatingLeadership

Threads: @innovativeleaders

X/Twitter/Whatever New Name It Has This Week: @IL_Institute

LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/ILI-LinkedIn2

TikTok: @innovativeleadership

Website: InnovativeLeadershipInstitute.com

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About Our Guest:

Steve Armato is Vice President, Amazon Transportation Services and Technology. His team works with over 50,000 service partners – many of whom are small- and medium-sized businesses – enabling them to grow their businesses by transporting items on behalf of Amazon.

With over two decades of experience at Amazon, Steve has a passion for innovating on behalf of customers, particularly at the intersection of technology, science, and operations. Prior to his current role, he spent a decade in Amazon’s Fulfillment and Supply Chain Optimization group, building large-scale predictive systems and optimization algorithms to optimize Amazon’s inventory supply chain. Steve holds a B.S. in Computer Science from Duke University.