How to Experiment at Scale Without Wasting Time, with Leandro Balbinot, CTO at Whole Foods & VP of Technology at Amazon
Description
What does real innovation look like inside a tech giant like Amazon? And how do you make it work inside a physical business like Whole Foods?
In this episode, we sit down with Leandro Balbinot, CTO at Whole Foods and VP of Technology at Amazon, to explore how world-class companies approach experimentation, failure, and scaling innovation.
Leandro has held senior leadership roles at Kraft Heinz, McDonald’s, and now Amazon, giving him a rare perspective on how innovation works—or fails—inside some of the world’s biggest companies.
We dive into:
✅ Why most companies confuse experimentation with rollout
✅ How to prioritize fast, cheap experiments that generate real signal
✅ The balance between data and gut instinct in product decisions
✅ How to earn trust inside legacy orgs to unlock big rollouts
✅ What “minimum lovable product” (MLP) means—and why it matters more than MVP
✅ How Amazon structures teams to move fast without chaos
If you’re leading innovation inside a large company—or trying to work with one—this episode is packed with hard-won lessons you can actually use.
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