How did Amazon, worth an estimated $797 billion, become America’s richest company? By introducing new technologies and new processes—and doing it faster than the competition. “Back in 2005, it launched its Prime two-day service, and nobody saw that coming,” says Maria Trujillo, Ph.D., program director for Georgetown University’s master’s programs in Technology Management and Systems Engineering Management. Then, in 2012, it acquired a company with 15,000 warehouse robots that could pick orders to be assembled and dispatched by humans. In the future, look for robots to do the assembling and dispatching as well, Trujillo says. Here, she talks with Assistant Dean Joshua Meredith about some of the innovations that Amazon has pursued.
Learn more
