EP237 - Always Day One author Alex Kantrowitz Alex Kantrowitzer (@Kantrowitz) is the author of “Always Day One: How the Tech Titans Plan to Stay on Top Forever.” He is an on-air contributor at CNBC and host of the Big Technology podcast. In this broad-ranging interview, we discuss the unique management styles at Apple, Google, and Facebook, as well as doing a deep dive into what makes the Amazon culture unique. Disclosure: links to Amazon are affiliate links. Don’t forget to like our facebook page, and if you enjoyed this episode please write us a review on itunes. Episode 237 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded live on Thursday, September 24th, 2020. http://jasonandscot.com Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, Chief Commerce Strategy Officer at Publicis, and Scot Wingo, CEO of GetSpiffy and Co-Founder of ChannelAdvisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing. Transcript Jason: [0:24] Welcome to the Jason and Scott show this is episode 237 being recorded on Thursday September 24th 2020, I’m your host Jason retailgeek Goldberg and as usual I’m here with your co-host Scott Wingo. Scot: [0:40] Hey Jason and welcome back Jason Scott showed listeners tonight on the show we are really excited to have the author of the book released, this April always day one so if you’re familiar with Amazon that maybe a hint of what we’re going to talk about tonight and he’s also the host of the big technology podcast. Alex kantrowitz welcome to the Jason Scott show. Jason: [1:05] We are three of the have you Alex I’m not remotely implying that this is why you wrote the book but Scott is a sucker for anything Amazon so it’s the fastest way to get on our podcast is to write an Amazon book. Alex: [1:17] Well you don’t even need to imply it I mean it was absolutely the goal and I’ve waited a long time but I’m glad to finally fulfill it here with you guys tonight. Jason: [1:25] Yeah well very well played also for for folks that have already read the book or are going to read the book as a result of this interview, so as not to trick you the book is actually about more than Amazon but you wisely chose to elevate the Amazon portion to the title of the book which totally worked with Scott. Scot: [1:42] Wait wait the whole books not about answer. Jason: [1:45] Scott’s pretending like he hasn’t read the book but obviously being the consummate professional he is he’s read everything you’ve ever written. Before we jump into the book Alex the first thing we always like to do on the show is get a little background I got about the guests and kind of find out how how you came to your current role so could you tell us a little bit about yourselves. Alex: [2:05] Definitely so I started my career buying digital ads right at the moment where Facebook was surpassing Myspace in the social media Arena, and just watched it happen as a practitioner bought those ads and I spent about a year selling ad Tech, in New York and just it was writing about it on the side and a certain point realized that this world was changing so fast that I’d much rather write about it professionally, then do what I was doing it might have been just a function of the companies I was at but for me I saw there were so many stories that the media were was either getting half right or missing completely and, you know I love doing the work and you’re digging up what was going on and finding a way to tell it to an audience and just kind of made the leap so I covered the advertising industry in particular at first working for ad age then went to BuzzFeed to cover like Facebook and Google and Snapchat and Twitter, and while I was there just decided to go ahead and write this book always day one which looks really at the different Tech Giant work cultures that, exists out there and the whole point of the book is these companies are moving to where the future of work is is going and we have two options one is we can like sit and fear th