Sarah Cooper, a seasoned executive at Amazon Web Services (AWS), has forged an extraordinary professional path characterized by initiative, experimentation, and self-direction. Although her career portfolio includes founding multiple companies and assuming leadership roles at organizations as prestigious as NASA and AWS, she has formally interviewed for only three positions throughout her entire career. Rather than following a traditional route of responding to posted job openings, Cooper frequently initiates her own opportunities. She explained to Business Insider that most of her career transitions originate from detailed written proposals — documents in which she articulates the kind of work or mission she wishes to undertake. These proposals are addressed to potential investors, cofounders, or senior executives, and upon acceptance, they effectively crystallize into the very roles she then occupies. This proactive approach transforms the typical hiring process into a creative act of professional authorship.
Reflecting on her creative energy, Cooper describes herself as someone overflowing with inspiration — she possesses, in her own words, “a million ideas,” a trait she acknowledges as both a source of vitality and occasional frustration. These ideas frequently manifest in the form of formal documents that she uses to define problems, propose bold solutions, and chart actionable paths forward. Her method has yielded impressive results; many of her writing-based proposals have not only been approved but have also directly shaped her own career trajectory. In fact, both her past and present leadership positions at AWS were conceived through well-structured proposals she personally developed and presented.
Previously, Cooper served as head of AWS Industry Products, where she collaborated intimately with customers to create and refine sector-specific solutions within the expansive AWS cloud ecosystem. That role enabled her to translate complex industrial needs into scalable digital frameworks, allowing clients to leverage cloud technologies more effectively across manufacturing, healthcare, financial services, and numerous other industries. Now, she leads the team responsible for “AWS AI-Native,” a forward-looking product organization uniquely focused on helping businesses understand and anticipate how artificial intelligence will reshape their operations. In essence, her leadership continues to center on envisioning technological futures and guiding organizations through their transitions toward them.
Cooper explained that she composed formal written proposals to secure each of her last two positions at AWS, and she draws inspiration from one of Amazon’s most iconic managerial practices: the six-page narrative memo favored by company founder Jeff Bezos. Unlike traditional PowerPoint presentations, which often rely heavily on bullet points and visual slides, these memos consist of coherent, prose-based narratives that must be read silently by meeting participants at the beginning of a session. Bezos has long championed this format, asserting that written narratives demand greater intellectual rigor and eliminate the temptation to conceal gaps in reasoning behind polished slides or superficial summaries. Typically, these six-page memos — written in a concise ten-point font — serve as the comprehensive foundation for discussing new business initiatives. Bezos has also emphasized, in his annual shareholder letters, that great memos undergo numerous drafts and revisions, requiring patient refinement rather than being dashed off in a few days.
In tandem with this memo structure, Cooper frequently employs Amazon’s foundational PR/FAQ framework — a system designed to help teams discover, define, and justify new ideas with clarity and customer-centric focus. PR/FAQ, which stands for “Press Release and Frequently Asked Questions,” begins with a hypothetical press release outlining the product or initiative as if it were already launched. This part of the document highlights what benefits the end customer will experience and why the innovation matters. Following that is a FAQ section, typically five pages or fewer, in which the author delves into practical considerations — including business implications, expected challenges, and technical requirements. The process encourages deep thinking and highlights the necessity of transparent explanation. According to Amazon’s own documentation, once a draft PR/FAQ is complete, the proposer schedules a one-hour meeting with relevant stakeholders to review the document collectively, gather feedback, and iterate on the idea. This method cultivates fact-based decision-making and constructive debate around ideas, helping teams refine concepts before executing them.
To date, Cooper estimates she has written more than fourteen PR/FAQs and investment narratives that ultimately received funding and organizational support. Beyond those, she has drafted numerous other proposals — some of them ambitious thought experiments — that the company chose not to pursue. Despite the mixed outcomes, she continues to view the act of writing itself as central to innovation and leadership. Having spent over nine years at Amazon, Cooper integrates the company’s core values directly into her proposal process. Specifically, she strives to embody Amazon’s well-known principle of “customer obsession,” which prioritizes serving customer needs as the primary goal of every initiative. The broader methodology she follows, called “Working Backwards,” instructs teams to begin with a clear definition of what the ideal customer experience should look like and then reverse-engineer the internal processes, tools, and technologies necessary to deliver that outcome. Cooper explained that this focus allows her to think expansively about long-term impact — to consider not only the immediate needs of a particular team but also the broader customer benefits that justify an initiative’s existence.
However, Cooper’s history of writing ambitious proposals is not solely one of triumph and positive reinforcement. Early in her career, during her late twenties while serving as the Chief Technology Officer of another company, she faced a far more precarious outcome. In that instance, she drafted a proposal arguing that the firm should direct its limited resources toward scaling its supply chain operations, focusing specifically on on-mine extraction processes necessary to fulfill upcoming contractual obligations. Her recommendation sparked disagreement among leadership about where the company should allocate its capital and operational focus. The conflict escalated to the point that Cooper found herself effectively pushed out of the organization as a result of defending her strategic perspective. Reflecting on that experience, she acknowledges the risk inherent in putting bold ideas on paper — while writing can open new doors, it can also challenge existing power structures and provoke significant resistance.
Across her remarkable career, Cooper’s methodology reveals a profound belief in the written word as a tool of vision and agency. Through structured documents — proposals, memos, and PR/FAQs — she has consistently transformed thoughts into tangible opportunities, reshaping not only her own career path but also the way large organizations conceptualize and evaluate new directions. Her story stands as a persuasive testament to the notion that leadership is not merely about waiting for opportunity to appear, but about crafting those opportunities through insight, persistence, and disciplined creative articulation.
Sourse: https://www.businessinsider.com/aws-executive-writes-6-page-proposal-for-new-jobs-2025-12
