Dropbox CEO is a ‘fan’ of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ ‘Memo-First’ meeting culture: In that 10 or 20 minutes, you … – Times of India

Dropbox CEO, Drew Houston, has revealed his company’s adoption of a unique meeting strategy popularised by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos: the “memo-first” approach. By sharing detailed memos before meetings, participants can come prepared and engage in more focused discussions. Houston explained that this method eliminates the need for lengthy presentations and allows for deeper understanding and collaboration.

Dropbox CEO explains the benefits

“We’ve all been in those meetings where someone’s presenting, you’ve already read the slide, but you have to wait for the person verbally to catch up, or someone interrupts and asks a question, but the question’s answered a couple slides later. And one way or another, the presentation format kind of limits how many people you can have in a room to have an effective conversation,” said Houston at an episode of the podcast The Logan Bartlett Show.
Houston added that PowerPoint presentations can often shift the focus from the content to the delivery. This can lead to less effective and efficient meetings. “How compelled you are by the presentation is less about the merits of their arguments and more about their skill at presenting and thinking on their feet, so there’s a bit of a distortion or bias that comes in that way,” added Houston.

Following the Amazon playbook

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos famously banned bullet points and PowerPoint presentations from senior leadership meetings in 2004. Instead, he requires executives to submit six-page narrative memos. These memos are then silently read by all attendees at the start of the meeting, fostering a more focused and productive discussion.
At Dropbox, meetings start with a 10-20 minute silent reading session of the shared document. Attendees are encouraged to leave comments and feedback directly in Dropbox Paper. To further streamline the process, the company has even implemented a form at the end of the document for attendees to provide overall feedback and ratings.
“In that 10 or 20 minutes, you can get much higher fidelity download to everybody in the room than you could get in an hour of just talking about it and interrupting each other,” said Houston.
The memo-first approach may not be a one-size-fits-all solution. However, its adoption by leading companies like Dropbox and Amazon underlines its potential benefits.