117 Words

Two Pizza Team

A Jeff Bezos concept – If your team can't be fed on two pizzas, then cut people.


The idea of a "two pizza team" was coined by Jeff Bezo, founder of Amazon.com, and it's become something of a mantra in the business world:

"If Bezos's personality is decidedly noncorporate, so are some of his ideas about how to run a large organization. One of Bezos's more memorable behind-the-scenes moments came during an off-site retreat, says Risher. "People were saying that groups needed to communicate more. Jeff got up and said, 'No, communication is terrible!' " The pronouncement shocked his managers. But Bezos pursued his idea of a decentralized, disentangled company where small groups can innovate and test their visions independently of everyone else. He came up with the notion of the 'two-pizza team': If you can't feed a team with two pizzas, it's too large. That limits a task force to five to seven people, depending on their appetites." - Fast Company