Amazon is the company known for requiring six-page narrative memos in place of conventional slide presentations for many important meetings.
The practice is strongly associated with founder Jeff Bezos and Amazon’s preference for written reasoning. Meeting participants typically read the memo silently at the start of the meeting, then discuss the proposal, evidence, risks, and alternatives. The format is intended to force clarity before conversation begins and to make the quality of an idea less dependent on presentation skills.
Amazon’s six-pagers generally use prose and may include data, but they are not merely long reports. Writers are expected to explain the customer problem, the proposed decision, expected results, trade-offs, and unresolved questions. The discipline reflects Amazon’s broader emphasis on customer obsession, analytical decision-making, and high standards.
The wording can be overgeneralized: not literally every Amazon meeting requires a six-page memo. The practice is most associated with senior or high-stakes decision meetings. Another neighbouring Amazon tradition is the “two-pizza team” idea, which concerns team size rather than meeting documents.