Is the world’s most dominant retail engine as calculated as we think?
Jeff Cohen, Chief Business Development Officer at Skai and former Amazon Tech Evangelist, believes the belly of the beast is driven by a force most outsiders ignore: unintended consequences
For years, sellers and brands have viewed Amazon as a meticulous puppet master, but the reality is often far more chaotic.
The veteran marketer helped us explore the transition from simple keyword attribution to a non-linear, omnichannel shopper journey.
Jeff talked with us about:
Jeff observed that many leaders treading into the e-commerce space get too enamored with the idea of a grand conspiracy, forgetting the sheer scale of the platform they are playing on.
“Amazon isn't as calculated as people want to believe that they are,” he explained. “Most of the time what we see as sellers or tech providers or brands are unintended consequences.”
Jeff highlighted that Amazon’s primary focus is building rigor and mechanisms to solve massive problems, which often leaves smaller players caught in the wake.
When Amazon writes an algorithmic formula to stop bad actors from posting paid reviews, for example, the sheer volume of the marketplace ensures that some legitimate users will be impacted.
“They captured 95% of what they need, but maybe 5% of people get caught up in that,” Jeff told our host, Intevity CEO George Jagodzinski. “Those small percentages at Amazon, because of the scale of the business... can impact a lot of people.”
Jeff warned brands that viewing every glitch or policy shift as a targeted strike is a recipe for frustration.
Instead, he argued that the platform is simply managing a system where “unintended consequences... weren't initially thought of” during the design phase.
One of the most compelling parts of Jeff’s journey was the manifestation of his role at Amazon.
He told a recruiter, who was actually a former Amazonian trying to pull him elsewhere, that there was only one job he would take.
“I said, ‘The only company I would ever go do that for is Amazon,’” Jeff recalled.
Since he had spent years teaching the market how to use Amazon Advertising before it was a household name, he knew he was the right fit for an evangelist role.
This clarity led to an informal Amazon “coffee chat” where he said he made the hiring manager nervous.
“The hiring manager said, ‘You scare me.’ And I said, ‘Is that good or is that bad?’” Jeff laughed.
The manager’s reasoning was simple: Amazon was filled with engineering talent but lacked the “product marketing” connectivity needed to link developers to the market.
Jeff believes this kind of career negotiation is only possible when you build a safety net through deep market connections.
“That is an unbelievable level of confidence that you have when you go into your next conversation because you don't need what they're offering,” he argued. “You can really, truly like sit down with somebody and talk about, ‘How do we build something great together?’”
While Jeff is an advocate for the transformative power of AI, he has come to see it as a tool that requires strict human validation, or “parallel pathing.”
Unlike organizations that jump blindly into new tech, Jeff coaches his team to run their legacy processes alongside new AI models to find the point of statistical relevance.
“I've asked our team for this quarter to do everything the old way while also asking the data lake the question,” he suggested. “How often is the data lake right? How often is the data lake wrong?”
For Jeff, the goal is to reach a 95% accuracy threshold before abandoning the manual work. This pragmatic approach allows brands to embrace innovation without risking the fallout of a flawed data set.
He also emphasized that modern retail growth requires a specific mental allocation of time to ensure you aren't just reacting to the present.
“25% of your time should be on your administrative stuff. 50% should be driving to what you have and what you're doing for the here and now, and 25% of your time should be working on the future,” he said. “If you're not planting the seeds for future revenue or the future growth, then you're never going to get around to actually getting to them.”
Ultimately, Jeff believes the future of industry belongs to those who can manage their current workload while remaining obsessive about the next inflection point.
Whether you are a brand dealing with Amazon's scale or a professional navigating a career shift, the secret lies in owning your growth and learning from every hurdle.
The core philosophy of Jeff’s approach to both leadership and life can be summed up by a lesson from his first internship regarding professional honesty.
“Mistakes are part of how you're going to grow. It's more about learning from the mistake that you made,” Jeff stated. “Failure is not a bad word. Own mistakes when you make them, learn, and be able to demonstrate how you're going to not make that mistake in the future.”
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