Interesting. I had only heard this in the context of Apple before and not Amazon. There is a clip from a Steve Jobs video describing how you need to work backwards from the end user experience and then figure out the technology

Toyota did it before either. Part of their A3 process is asking "what's the problem (discrepancy between expectation and observation), and is it stated from the customer's point of view?"

"the classic Amazon-popularised method of working backwards from the user benefit."

They do not implement that for everything, though. My last order done with a mobile browser, I could not checkout my order, without also choosing amazon prime. I had to activate "desktop mode" that it let me proceed. And I am pretty sure that is intentional to nag more users into prime.