You cannot persuade an Amazon executive by simply selling the benefits of your idea. You earn their support by demonstrating your ability to seek truth, look around corners, and identify why your idea deserves support in spite of weaknesses and challenges.
This mindset is also embedded in the leadership principles. Leaders are expected to be “right a lot,” which includes actively working to disconfirm their own beliefs. It’s also part of “Customer Obsession,” “Dive Deep,” and “Think Big,” which explicitly calls on leaders to “look around corners” on behalf of customers.
Pitching your ideas without first engaging in truth-seeking runs counter to these principles. One of the mechanisms Amazonians use to operationalize this kind of thinking is the PR/FAQ (Press Release/Frequently Asked Questions) process.
The PR/FAQ is a document and review process designed to surface challenges before a product is built. It forces teams to imagine the future in detail, first by writing a hypothetical press release to define the customer value proposition, then by drafting a FAQ to anticipate hard questions. Teams are required to dig for weaknesses, blind spots, and risks early.
Unlike PowerPoint decks or prototypes, which are often engineered to win buy-in, the PR/FAQ is structured to disconfirm assumptions. It compels teams to articulate the customer problem in specific terms, quantify it where possible, estimate TAM, and identify the core elements of viability: technical feasibility, business model soundness, unit economics, customer application, distribution channels, and partnerships.
In this process, both “internal” and “external” (customer) questions are surfaced. The external ones are often obvious—“Who is this for?” or “How does it compare to X?”—but the internal questions are where truth-seeking really happens.
These questions are often “Where are we likely to hit a wall? Will it be technical, legal, financial, or something in customer acquisition?” Jeff Bezos used to say “We want to know whether we’re turning a corner into a boulevard—or a blind alley.”
It seems simple on paper—like many of Amazon’s principles. But in practice, this type of thinking is rare. Many executive teams have been conditioned to expect a pitch, something crafted to win approval or secure funding. As a result, decisions are often made based on influence rather than evidence. The loudest or most senior person often wins, even when they’re wrong.
The PR/FAQ process breaks that pattern. It allows leaders to evaluate the idea on its own terms and to find issues earlier, letting them course-correct faster.
We once worked with a large Bay Area tech company to implement this approach. Initially, their product teams produced documents that read like internal sales pitches. But once they adopted the PR/FAQ process, the tone shifted.
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