Andy Jassy has a big decision to make, it usually comes at the Chop.
Originally the name of a physical conference room next to his office at Amazon's Seattle headquarters - short for "Charterhouse of Parma," a book Jassy read in college - the Chop has also come into use as a catchall term for the meetings where Jassy holds his most important brainstorming and planning sessions.
The Chop is also where big ideas, and sometimes employees, go to get chopped down to size, according to people familiar with the company.
"If you go to a Chop meeting with Andy, you better be ready," one former senior-level employee told Insider. "He has a tremendous amount of trust in his team, but you have to be at the highest levels of diligence and preparation for any meeting with him. He's a shark who will smell a drop of blood from 100 miles away if you're not ready."
(With inputs from agencies)