I'm going to open The Alchemist. Watch, see the book open in red. It then transforms into this beautiful, readable temperature on your screen. Soft on your eyes, no blue light. And now you're into like the reading experience. Turn the page is pretty cool. You see how I'm controlling the page. And as I turn it, it feels rad. If I want to read here, remember the center of gravity on this product, perfect. So you can hold it in any posture. Whatever might work better for you is fine. Two pages versus one page, exactly what you'd expect. So one is folding the book back. One is holding it open depending on how you read. All right. I think that's rad. I'm going to close it now. I'm going to close the book and see how it just comes right back to blue. Isn't that stunning? That's how you know you're in the mode and you're out of the mode. Yeah. And, like, all of a sudden you've got this tablet that became truly your Kindle. Like, it is an emotional experience.
Panos Panay, how are you doing?
Not too much. I mean, actually, not too much with me, but there's a lot going on. There's a lot going on. With you guys today. So before we talk, you have new tablets, as you can see behind us. But before we talk about that, we're here in the Day One building.
It's a cool building. Here at Amazon.
It's a rad building. If you've not been to Day One, the building's like we're at Amazon headquarters. It's rad. And we're in our smart home lab right now.
This is where we design products, build products. And we have a secret lab back there that Andru hasn't been in.
I didn't know about that.
I'd walk you over there and you can glance, because I don't think with a glance you'd be able to see enough.
But I'm going to do that. And you can tell your users at a high level that you saw it.
But we don't let people in that room. Unless you have a badge straight up, and not every badge can get through that door.
It's where we design and create.
I'll take you up on the glance. But I wanted to ask you, so Day One.
I'm going to have to really control the glance. All right.
That's a philosophy at Amazon.
I'll tell you what it means to me. First off, it's incredibly energizing. It's straight up energizing. The concept is you wake up every day and you're like, it's Day One again, which means you're starting from zero. Everything is new again. And you don't want to be complacent. You don't want to be like what you would call Day Two, which is just comfortable. And when that's the case, if you're always in Day One, it's basically thinking like a startup. Like, what do we got today? We're hustling and we're building and we're creating. You don't want to be enamored by like yesterday. It's just new today. And I think it's a philosophy that runs through the team and the company. And I can't speak for everyone. But for me, that's exactly what it means. Like we're starting new every day. And it's crazy cool energizing. And when you're creating and making, we talk about ourselves. We talk about ourselves as product makers. Everyone's a product maker. Day One is the core of that.
One thing about you that I've noticed over the years.
It's been a while. We've known each other a while.
Yes, actually, we met. I looked it up. We met when you were doing an interview with GeekWire at the Microsoft store in Bellevue.
I was going to say 2014. 2015. Yes. Wow.
And even back then, the one thing I noticed about you, both in person and when you were doing keynotes, was you seem to have a really strong affinity for, even today you gave me a briefing, and I was noticing like, what does something feel? Like connecting with a product. It's more than just being on stage and talking about what it can do, what the specs are. You know, you'll take a few steps, go into the audience, and, Joanna, hold this. Check it out.
No, I don't think I've offended her a few times. Sorry, Joanna.
What is it, though, about the physical product for you in particular? Because I don't know how many. I've watched hundreds of keynotes.
And it's pretty, I feel like it's pretty unique to Panos Panay to be like, wait until you get this in your hands. Wait until you feel this.
That's what we do, though, when we design a product. And it's not, I don't think it's just the hardware, it's the feeling of the product. And of course, I believe you can't have great software without great hardware. I just, it's just an inevitable truth for me. I can't get away from that. The manifestation of the bits is in the atoms. And so like that, that truth is when you pick something up, it's not just what you see, it's what you feel. When you touch the screen, it's not the feeling of the screen, it's the feeling you get that you've touched the screen. And it's pulling emotion out of people. Products are a reflection of people that make them. If the people that are making them love what they're doing, I believe that the customer is going to love what they're using. You've got to love what you're building. So when I pick it up, there are certain details in every product. And there's a lot of details that come together to make a product. But there are certain details. And if they're all pivoted perfectly and just right, it creates a feeling. And so I will say it. Like on this, we're looking at a tablet. I know you haven't asked me about it. But if you look at this screen, there's something about it that makes you feel different. Like the screen is, this screen's unmatched for a tablet. It's got a NanoMat display. It's a photolithography process, never been done before. And the pixels come to the top of the glass. That's what it feels like. It feels like the pixels, if I show you, if we go to books, it feels like these books are sitting on top of the glass.
Like you can almost pick it up off there.
You almost feel like you can peel it off.
And you're like, what is that? Like, you don't, you're not going to look at that and say, it looks like it's coming off the glass. You're just going to feel awesome. And so when you ask, I think it is part of making a great product. It's not about, did you see it? It's not about, did you touch it? It's, do you feel it? And if somebody feels great, they're going to love your product. That's it. It's that simple. And like, I always like it, we were just doing a brief earlier and you're kind of looking at it and you go, just hold it. Because I need you to feel it. But it wasn't just feeling the product and how light it is or how good it feels in your hands. It's the collection of all of it that you're like, God, this feels great. I don't want a customer to pinpoint why. I don't actually want that.
You don't want them to know. You just want it inside.
I don't want it. Like, if you look at this screen, we didn't talk about it earlier. Like, look closely at this screen. Now, if you watch it long enough, this is a subtlety. It's a badass subtlety. Okay. This Alexa ribbon that's running through it. And Alexa's built throughout this entire product. Now, you haven't seen it yet, so I'm going to just put you on the spot.
Stare close at the ribbon, and what do you see?
Ah, I see slight movement.
It's not supposed to be big. It's not water moving. You're like, oh, look at the wall. That's kind of cool. The water's moving. Nope, nope, nope.
It does. And you can't actually pinpoint it until I did that to you. Right. You've looked at this tablet for the last 20 minutes. Did you notice it?
You didn't know it, and so like the combination of all those things coming together, that is a design point for product. Like if you, when I fall in love with a product, like you say, okay, so you're on stage, P or whatever, like fair, Andru, but here's the truth, I fall in love with the product and then I go, okay, now I have a lot of passion for it, and the passion comes for the team that built it and put their heart and soul, and you know, you want your customers to know that. I think they appreciate it. I think they appreciate that you thought about every detail, that the team worked unbelievably hard to get it perfect for you. And I think part of what I try and do is, I don't try, it's just part of it, but I express it. That's it.
So when you're designing, obviously someone like me, I can pick up any consumer electronic. Yeah. And you pick up a lot. I don't even need a briefing. I'll probably figure it out within five minutes, right? And I assume, same for you, you're making these things. How do you design something, kind of how do you step out of your own echo chamber, I guess, and design something not for or including me, but really for the average person as you're falling in love with something? How are you remaining cognizant of you're falling in love with something that, you know, millions of people need to fall in love with as opposed to just you?
I have two filters I'll give you. You may not like them. They may be terrible answers, I'm not sure about. These are just truths. One, it's so easy. You just have to listen to your customers. I swear to you, like just listen. That's one. The second filter, and if you're listening, then you know where your trade-offs are. You know where to put your energy. On this product, we were going to give you the perfect screen no matter what. It was going to be performant no matter what. Customers have been asking for every app they could possibly have on the product, just gave it to them. Because they're asking, you know you're making the right product because you're delivering. It's not always true that the customer's asking for what they want because they can't see what's next sometimes. They can't see the future of the tech. So the harder part is like, well, what else are you doing that they can fall in love with that they didn't know they needed or they wanted or that was coming that they're in a demand? And so that's part of it. It's in the nuance. But the truth is, if you want to know, you just listen to your customer. Sometimes they're asking for things. They're not sure what they're asking for. But you can translate it with what you know where the tech is going. That's one. The second piece is, if you don't like using the product yourself, just stop. It's like the simplest test.
And sometimes there's, I remember, there's like philosophies, man, that come together that are like, people are like, you shouldn't be building anything for yourself. And it doesn't matter who you know that uses it. It's the customer. I'm like, if you don't think you're the customer, you've missed the plot. If you don't want to use your own product, stop making it. It's just a super simple concept. And by the way, there are products that we make sometimes and I'm like, I don't use it. And then guess what?
We stop. Because you realize like, there's just a better alternative. Why? Because there must be because I'm using the alternative. And so in this case, like as a team, you think about it two ways. Like what does the customer want, need? Where's the technology going? And how do I serve both those things and bring them together? And then the other side is, do I love it? Do I want to use it? Am I using it? The answer is no. Then you're clear. And if the answer is we can't serve what they're asking for, then you're clear. It's very easy. So having passion around what you finished assumes those two things.
One line of yours that came back to me in my research. Hey, I do my research. If every person is happy with what you built, you didn't push it far enough. But if everybody's pissed, you push too far.
I'm sure. That sounds like something I've thought.
No, we're going to get into the new devices in a minute. But my question, at $499, which is a great price for the product you're announcing, for the customer, because you said they're asking for this, is there a customer that is used to a Fire tablet that you are potentially, using your words, pissing off with something more premium now? Or is this where things are just leading?
Here's how we designed the product. It didn't matter what OS you were coming from, including Fire. So the Fire tablet, if that's what you used, if you use something in any of the other ecosystems, the design point on this tablet was we're going to design it in a way that no matter where you came from, when you get here, you're going to be blown away. There'll be no switching cost. It'll be easy to use. It'll be intuitive. And then we get you that shot to fall in love with it.
Well, it's two and a half years in the making. This is not something where it's like three months ago we had an idea. We've been designed. The design point on this product is two and a half. You can argue three years, but two and a half years where a team has said, we're moving off of Fire. We're moving to a core Android OS. So people have all their apps, but we're going to integrate Alexa into the entire product. So we make AI easy for everyone. And AI has been moving so fast that the team's been evolving with like, what do you have to do? Like, where does Alexa watch the screen with you? How do you use her while you're watching a video? How to use her while you're writing a paper? How to use her while you're reading a mail? And it just sits side by side and it does the work with you. That the power of that is a design point that has been in the making for a couple of years. And all along, no matter what, the principle of when somebody picks this up and it didn't matter if they were coming from Fire or coming from any of the other platforms that you know, that I'm talking, we're talking from PCs down to other tablets and pads, it wouldn't matter. You're going to pick it up and be like, oh my God, this thing's awesome. What makes it awesome? It's not just that the screen is perfect, that the weight is there, that the product's balanced, that when you hold it, it feels great, that the center of gravity feels like it's been magically done, that the battery life is 16 hours, that you can go to Kindle mode, that you can watch videos, that you have the best screen you put your eyes on. It's none of that. It was just you picked it up and you're like, damn, this thing's easy. That's it. It's just that. You pick it up, you're like, oh my God, this is easy. You did it. You just touched it. You're like, oh, I know what to do. I didn't have to coach you. I didn't have to walk you through. I didn't piss you off.
