"Impossible to Predict" How Consumers Will React to a Truly New Product, AWS Head Says

"What we've learned over time at Amazon, is that very often at the beginning of something really different and really new, it's impossible to predict how customers are going to react to the offering," says Andy Jassy, Amazon Web Services CEO.

That's why Amazon, as a company, doesn't focus on the first wave of feedback to any product,

Few firms have enough financial depth, or patience, to do so. But that approach resembles what Apple used to do, under Steve Jobs. Famously, Jobs believed consumers could not really judge whether they would like a new product they never had experienced, so market research was useless.