Amazon VP On Stack Ranking & PIPs, Working With Bezos, His Promotions | Ethan Evans

As a manager, I could get rid of any one

employee I wanted. This was the most

brutally honest interview I've done so

far. I think most pips are a combination

of dishonest and or psychologically

unrealistic.

>> This is Ethan Evans. He went from being

fired twice to being promoted to a VP at

Amazon with a team of over 800

engineers.

>> After it happened twice, I damn sure

looked at like, who's the common element

in this? It's me. I asked him about his

experience working with famous Amazon

executives like Jeff Bezos and Andrew

Jasse.

>> I've probably had about 50 meetings with

him and about 50 with Andy. The biggest

difference is Jeff's

>> I also asked them about the behind the

scenes of performance management at

Amazon. What is stopping a manager from

painting their report in an unfair

light? People won't like to hear this.

I'm actually willing to tell you the

truth and tell you that almost

everyone's doing what I'm doing. They're

just not telling you. Before

we get into, you know, the juicy parts

of you kind of growing to a VP at

Amazon, I think that's a level that a

lot of people can only, you know, dream

of or imagine of. Really curious to dig

into what is even happening at those

levels. I'm curious to kind of lay out

your full career story. I know there's

some interesting stories about you being

uh fired in the com boom prior to

joining Amazon, and I imagine there's a

lot of interesting learnings there. So

let's get into the beginning of your

story which is your experience before

Amazon.

>> Yeah, absolutely. So just to your

original point, I never expected to be a

VP at Amazon. That just kind of evolved

like many careers do. I started working

and that's where I ended up and I'm very

happy with it. I wanted to be an

engineer and I grew up right when home

computers were beginning and so I

actually wrote Apple a letter, a

physical letter pre- email and said,

"Hey, I want to come work at your

company. how do I do that? And they

explained to me that at that time they

only hired engineers from five

universities. Uh Stanford, Caltech,

Berkeley, all in California. I was in

Ohio, so that seemed far. Uh Carnegie

Melon and MIT. I didn't get admitted to

MIT. I did go to Carnegie Melon. And so

I was like on this plan of I will go

work at Apple. What actually happened is

uh I did a master's degree at Purdue and

then I started going through startups

basically all with a thread of

high-speed networking. So the first

company was a physical layer networking.

Had an incredible run there. Got

promoted a couple times, not unlike your

early story. Then I joined an internet

search firm that was acquired by LIOS,

one of the original search engines. From

there I went to a network management

company that worked at the management

layer of large networks for Telos. From

there I went to internet advertising and

audio streaming. The internet couldn't

handle video at that point. I had a

short detour at a company that made

lighting, entertainment lighting, like

dance club stuff. Uh, which an

interesting detour. And then Amazon

hired me and asked me to build Prime

Video based on the the work I had done

streaming uh music. And so there is a a

chain of one after the other, but the

startups were all very different, you

know, very small, very high growth. And

candidly, most of them other than the

first one flamed out right before the

dot. And that's also where I managed to

get myself made redundant twice. So it

wasn't just once, it was really twice.

Both times helped along by the fact that

I was abrasive.

>> I'm kind of curious cuz a lot of people

early in career, there's the decision

between going to smaller companies

versus more established ones. What was

your thinking behind working at

startups? Well, like a lot of people, I

guess my original thinking was driven by

my friends. I had friends who had joined

this startup that was local to Carnegie

Melon in Pittsburgh. It was founded by

some professors who'd left. Uh they were

talking about how cool it was and they

were getting me things called stock

options, which at that time, because I'm

older, no one I'd never heard of and

they were explaining it. I'm like, "Wow,

that seems amazing." And so, it wasn't

really a conscious choice of small or

big. It was this apparent gold mine and

my roommate who had joined a little

earlier. So my college roommate who then

was my roommate when I started in in his

company also he joined a little earlier

than I did. He joined before that

company IPOed and he made his first

million dollars by the time he was 25 or

26 with inflation. Now that would be

like two or three million. You know it

worked incredibly well. It was the

startup dream. I joined a little later.

I only made enough money to put a down

payment on a house. But still, I think

the real estate agent was pretty

surprised when I was probably 25 and,

you know, putting cash down on a house.

I went that way because that's where my

friends went. It wasn't until later that

I really started understanding what does

a career look like and making

intentional choices.

>> You mentioned being made redundant twice

or I assume that means exiting the

company,

>> let go, laid off. Yeah. You mentioned it

was because you were abrasive. Did you

see it coming? And what's the story

behind uh those layoffs?

>> Oh, I'd love to tell you I saw it

coming. It's not that people didn't try

and warn me. My very first performance

review I ever got, my manager said, I

think sometimes Ethan's solution to

problems would be, "Let's knock their

heads together." You know, so I was I

was pretty combative. He saw it. I

didn't get let go at that company, but

you know, this was a consistent theme. I

used to say uh you probably know the the

phrase, "Oh, that person's a loose

cannon." Well, I modified it as, "Oh,

yeah, people say I'm a loose cannon, but

that's only because I'm pointed at them,

right? I'm I'm busy telling them how

wrong they are." Uh, so obviously that

whole statement, I'm busy telling them

how wrong they are, is very arrogant.

That was me. So, as I went up in

leadership levels, I rose based on

ability and and jumping into projects. I

rose to a vice president in startup

level. But then I had conflict with my

peers. The first peer was a product guy.

He was basically saying, "We are

dreaming that we're going to build all

the things we're going to build in the

time we're going to build them." He was

predicting that our product was

impossible to put together with the time

and resources we had. He was actually

right. I was fantasizing. I I was mad

that he wasn't committed to the mission.

So, I ended up fighting with him because

he was saying something that was true,

but it wasn't lined up with my religion,

which is, "But we're a startup team

together. We're gonna do it." And he was

pushing back on that enthusiasm. So, we

argued that company hit hard times. I

wasn't let go only because of that, but

we were downsizing and I had an

opportunity at another startup. And so

part of what I did is I talked to the

CEO and I said, 'Look, I have the chance

to just bounce to this other startup and

you can save someone else. And he's

like, "That sounds great." Well, in

hindsight, of course, he was probably

also pretty glad to get rid of the

contention in his team. Fast forward to

the next startup, classic situation. I

was leading engineering and the sales

VP, we were short on money because it

was the.com bus. The sales VP was lying

about what the product would do. He was

talking it up and making a sale based on

stuff we hadn't built. And of course, as

the head of engineering, I'm like, we

don't we can't, you know, I was arguing

with him about we can't do that. The

thing I didn't realize was it was either

sign that contract or go out of

business. And so, you know, the the fact

is the truthfulness there matters, but

he needed to promise the sun, the moon,

and the stars, and then we would have to

do our best to deliver it or go under.

Well, again, in that case, I really was

um let go and it was technically a

layoff, but I was the only person laid

off in the layoff. So, they called it a

layoff. They presented it to me as a

layoff, but you know, you're the only

one in the room being laid off. I'd call

that being fired. That was 100% about

removing conflict. So, you asked, did I

see it coming? The important thing I

would say is no, but after it happened

twice, I damn sure looked at like, who's

the common element in this? it's me and

why why is that? And while I was sitting

around in a in a bad period of the

economy trying to find a new job and

struggling to do so, I absolutely asked

what do I need to change? What do I need

to be do differently? And so it was

after that I completely yeah completely

I very significantly changed my

personality. I changed how I interacted

at work to not get into you know

arguments and shouting matches with

people. Now I just handle those very

differently. I ask questions. I listen.

People don't steamroll me, but I don't

escalate confrontation.

>> You mentioned that, you know, soft

skills obviously became an important

part of you being a leader, but when you

were earlier in your career, you were a

little bit more abrasive. You kind of

went in the direction that you thought

was right. No one would doubt that soft

skills are important, but I'm kind of

curious like early career. Do you think

being abrasive and super aggressive on

your direction was actually better or do

you think it would have been even better

if you had soft skills? I mean, I think

if I had had soft skills with that

energy, it would have been the best. But

even today, I tell people, look, you

have to be somewhat pushy. The best

phrase someone recently taught me or

used, they called it being strategically

annoying. And I like that because

annoying isn't as bad as abrasive or

confrontational, but it gets at that you

can't just be compliant or helpful.

You've got to have an opinion and be

willing to fight for it. It's really a

question of how do you fight? I was

fighting more in the classic way of

getting red in the face or raising my

voice or using critical terms of like

that's a dumb idea. There are better

ways to argue or to debate and I was

doing it the bad way. I think I got away

with that for a long time because I was

right many times uh or driven. But

ultimately the best way is to have the

skills to do that. Well, you mentioned

in some of your writing that when you

lost your job as a VP at the startup

that one of the big sources was sneaky

corporate politics and let's say you

someone was in a leadership role and

they want to kind of get ahead of that.

What's the story behind the politics

there and how do you do it right or how

do you do it well to prevent that kind

of situation?

>> Well, there's two things going on.

First, when you're loud and abrasive and

confrontational, if you are, if you push

too hard, people who disagree with you

will stop telling you. They'll just stop

talking to you and start talking to

others about you instead. So, you want

to be careful when you are strategically

annoying that you aren't so much in

people's faces that you shut them down

and they go behind your back instead.

So, I kind of cause those situations by

causing people to say, "This guy's

crazy. we'll just go see if we can get

him removed. The second thing is I

didn't build enough alliances with

others. So let's say I disagreed with

person A very strongly. I didn't have

enough alliances or close enough

relationships with B, C, and D so that

when A would go to them, they would tell

me. Instead, when A went to them,

they're like, "Yeah, we see he's a

problem." And you know, it became,

again, I literally dug my own grave in

hindsight. And what I would say you need

to do is yes how you interact with

person A matters having the social

skills there but the other part is

building your set of allies or at least

people who respect you enough to include

you in the conversation and I failed to

do that. I didn't realize as an engineer

and I think many engineers fall into

this. We think that being right is what

matters and we don't realize that

relationships and how other people feel

about it matters just as much. Even to

the point where people will pick a worse

solution that feels more comfortable.

That happens all the time.

>> It sounds like you got repeated feedback

through situations that happened in your

career early where soft skills might

have been something that could have been

better and later in your career it

sounded like it was one of your

strengths. So I'm curious what made you

flip the switch?

>> Yeah, it is this incident of being let

go the second time where I was a layoff

of one. It was more direct than the

first time I left a company. It was very

pointed and I also had trouble because

it was right after 911 and and sort of

the first dot bubble. I had trouble

finding another job. And so that really

there was an interviewer. I was at an

interview and I was telling the story of

all my accomplishments and trying to get

the job. And he said, "Everything you

say sounds fine, but I just really

struggle to believe that if you were

that valuable, these companies, even

though they were struggling, wouldn't

have found a way to keep you around."

And I actually realized he was kind of

right. Like if I were that valuable,

they'd have kept me around. And so I

asked that caused me to think, okay,

what's the gap? The gap isn't my

technical skills. It isn't my ability to

drive and get projects done. It's my

ability to work well, play well with

others. And so then I got deeply into

and I recommend this to people, the

psychology of work and what motivates

people. Of course, how to interact, how

to ask questions, how to draw people in.

Um, as an engineer, we love, we're

taught in school to make statements. The

statement is the answer is this, the

method is that, the code should be this,

as opposed to ask questions. Once I sort

of realize, oh, look, this works. I can

lead and motivate people and inspire

them and and this is a fun puzzle. Then

I was hooked. And so now I study it kind

of full-time in a way. I saw, you know,

after you kind of worked at some

startups, you decided to move across the

country and take the job at Amazon,

which is pretty big move. I'm kind of

curious what the story is behind that

move and how did you know it was worth

joining Amazon?

>> This is a fun story I don't know if I've

ever told. I was working at that search

engine, LOS, and Los had a partnership

with Barnes & Noble. Barnes & Noble knew

nothing about being online at that

point, but they wanted to be. And so

they partnered with this online company

and part of my job was to figure out why

they were losing to Amazon. So I had

some calls with some people at Barnes &

Noble. I talked to them and what they

were doing and what they could do and

what they couldn't do. And so I learned

about Amazon by viewing them as a

competitor to our partner. And that's

what taught me like, oh, this Amazon

company is completely different, way

ahead of what was called bricks and

mortar, right? Like the physical world.

Then when Amazon called me, because they

actually reached out, a recruiter

reached out, I was able to talk about

how I knew Amazon as this competitor to

Barnes & Noble and how I had been

impressed and what I had done with

Barnes & Noble to try and help them

compete and how hopeless that looked.

And I think that probably appealed to

Amazon of like, okay, this guy is seeing

where we're going. As for taking a risk,

you know, I was at yet another startup

that was struggling with product market

fit and funding, and Amazon wasn't. So,

there was both the the being impressed

with them, but also being sick. You

know, Amazon was had IPOed at that

point, was a public company. They were

not profitable, but they still looked

they were 10,000 people, which now

they're way over a million, right? So

10,000 seems quite small. But to me,

working in firms of dozens or hundreds,

it was like, oh my god, this has got to

be stable. Look how big it is.

>> You know, when you when you got to

Amazon, I saw you were hired in as a,

you know, senior manager and eventually

you got promoted to um, you know,

director first and then later to a VP. I

think like there's not a lot of

information on what those jumps even

look like. So, I'm curious, you know,

for instance, the promotion to director.

What What is even the the expectations

like what does a promo like that even

look like?

>> It's interesting. Times have changed.

Amazon was smaller. I remember seeing

the paperwork to become a director and

the paperwork said to be a director in

Amazon, this person should be one of the

100 most important leaders in Amazon.

But of course it was already outdated

and there were well over a hundred

directors uh when I when you know when I

saw this. So things were moving fast

because it was a hyperrowth company.

What they were looking for specifically

was someone who could lead a business or

an effort on their own that only needed

highlevel goals. And in my case my

promotion specifically came from some

good luck and a good decision. So I

could then I think this is common

promotions either happen as what I call

lifetime achievement awards. Someone's

there and they do good work and they do

good work and eventually the process

grinds away or they have an outsiz

event. In my case, two things worked in

my favor. The first is there was a

project that came up. I made a very

high-risk call. My management disagreed

with doing the project, but they had

told me show that you can be the leader.

So, I specifically said to my SVP, I

said, "Unless you order me not to do

this, double negative. Unless you order

me not to do this, I'm going to do it."

And he's like, "Great. Hang yourself."

Well, I built the project and it worked.

And it turned out to be a big success.

So, in my eventual promotion, the key

line was it was a partnership with Teo,

the DVR company. The key line was

without Ethan, we wouldn't have had Teo.

So I kind of made my chops on being a

high judgment decision maker who could

make things happen. The second thing is

my VP in between level uh was leaving. I

had gone to him and said look I want to

be promoted to director and I had

threatened to leave very politely if I

wasn't promoted. Well, it was going to

make him look really bad if he left and

I left cuz the project would fall apart

as opposed to being threatened by my

threat in a way. He had pressure to like

make sure he secured me. And the

specific words I use are interesting.

When I threatened, the learn soft

skills. I was very careful. And the

words I use, I said, well, my career is

very important to me, which no one can

argue with that. my career is very

important to me and I need to know if

it's as important to Amazon because if

it's not as important to Amazon as it is

to me I have to think about that and of

course you can hear the like hey take

care of me or I'm out but I never said

anything that someone could be like

screw you you can't threaten us I just

said my career is really important to me

and if it's not as important to you you

know as the representative of Amazon

then I need to think about that it's led

me to the philos philosophy that you can

find polite and civil ways to raise any

topic. And so my promotion came because

I proved I could lead a business and

move Amazon video forward and because I

again strategically annoying. I was

willing to put pressure on it. That boss

wouldn't have done anything if I hadn't

been pushing. He wasn't the sort of guy

who was just like, "Oh, I should

probably promote Ethan." It was 100%

because I put the squeeze on. I was

like, "Well, up or out." That wording is

is so it's it's subtle, but it's so

good. You know, I could imagine that

have gone way worse if you had said, "I

need this promotion. You need to help

me." Rather than kind of implying it and

being polite with the wording. And I

think I've seen in many people's uh

careers as well that sometimes their

growth comes from being politely pushy.

You know, maybe they not exactly

threatened to leave, but it's it's clear

that they're asking for something and

the manager feels the demand of that.

Not in a stressful way, but just in a

when they're thinking of who to promote,

they kind of that's the first person on

their short list because they're asking.

As a leader, you know, people won't like

to hear this. It's I I believe in

telling the straight truth. It's one of

my tagline. As a leader, there have been

times where I have had two equally

qualified people on my team uh or you

know approximately equal and one of them

is agitating for the promotion and

threatening to leave and the other is a

nice person who's willing to wait and so

they wait. And a lot of people say,

"Well, you just rewarded the jerk."

Maybe, but I had a triage. I'm going to

get one promotion done this quarter or

this year because it takes work and you

only need so many leaders at the next

level. and I have a very realistic

choice of move up this person and keep

them even though I'm a little bit being

held hostage or move up this person and

lose the other one. I'd like to tell you

I always did the right thing and you

know help the team player, but I I can't

actually tell you that's true and I

certainly wouldn't tell you other

leaders do that because we have to think

about our short-term problems to some

degree and it's not a perfect world. And

so, yeah, if you're that person who's

expecting to be rewarded because you're

the silent hard worker who's always

collaborative, you know, maybe you

dislike me for it and you're like, well,

you sound like a bad boss. I'm actually

willing to tell you the truth and tell

you that almost everyone's doing what

I'm doing. They're just not telling you.

So, I don't know, bad, good, it's the

reality. you mentioned in your promotion

story, you said explicitly there's a

wording in your promo packet or

somewhere that said, you know, X would

not have happened unless Ethan was

there. And I think that's a really

important distinction when it comes to,

you know, crediting and and stuff like

that and promos. There's a lot of people

in big companies, there's multiple

people involved and, you know, people

ask, should I hoard it so that I get

credit or what? But really all that you

need is that that narrative is obvious.

If we pull Ethan out of this, that

wouldn't have happened. And if that

narrative is true, you get credit. And

that's often what drives these these

promos.

>> You know, if that project would have

just been fine, it wouldn't have hurt

me. I might not have gotten promoted,

but it wouldn't have hurt me. But if it

had blown up, I was the one who pushed

for it over the leadership's not

disagreement but advice not to do it.

And so had had I gone against that

advice and then it been a big disaster,

you know, that that could have very

easily cut the other way, which I think

gets the part of the point. If you want

to grow rapidly, you're going to have to

take some risks. But the risks are

recoverable. Remember, I was also a jerk

earlier in my career and lost some roles

and I still became an Amazon VP. Like

venture capital, taking some risks and

having some of them work out and some of

them fail still moves you forward faster

than always playing it safe. And if I

have any one regret, it's actually that

I didn't take more risk. I could have

gone further. I think like if I had my

career to do over again, I'd probably

take a lot more risk. By the time I was

trying to become a vice president, I had

been at Amazon a long time, I finally

truly understood how everything worked.

And that was a longded process where I

lined up stakeholders. I got my manager

on board to support me. You know, I had

a good relationship with my manager,

something a lot of people struggle with.

I was lucky enough that my vice

president was stable in his role for

about 2 and 1/2 to 3 years while we

worked the process. My timing was good

because he was reorged within 6 months

and after that. So had I been just 6

months later, I'd have had a new boss

and it would have, you know, been a

setback for sure, you know, rebuilding

trust and all that. So I can go more

deeply into it. The big thing I did

there is I've developed this idea I call

the magic loop which is working with

your leader, your manager to figure out

what they need you to do and then form a

partnership with them that amounts to

I'll do everything you need done. You do

you do one critical thing which is make

sure I'm rewarded for it. And that's our

deal is I can either work for you as a

standard cog in a box or I can really

push and go above and beyond, but

there's got to be a payoff and and can

we line up and agree to that? And my

manager, I remember he came to me one

day, my vice president said, "Okay, I'm

going to try and get your VP promotion

through this cycle. I'm going to do

everything I can. I can't promise you

anything." But he was at a place where

he's like, "Okay, we're gonna take the

shot. I'm gonna lay my reputation on

it." And I had, it took two and a half

years to get him to where he was ready

to put his credibility down. Uh, luckily

that paid off, right? We both got it

done. He was happy, I was happy.

>> That partnership makes a lot of natural

sense. I mean, you help your manager,

your manager helps you, and they want

you to grow. People think managers are

withholding promotions at any level.

That's not true. Speaking as a vice

president, I want all the directors I

can have because the better my team is,

the easier my job is. So, I want high

performers. I want you to be good

enough. I want you to have the skills,

but I can't do that for you. So, people

say, "Why didn't you promote me?" And

I'm like, "You did not promote yourself.

You did not get there." If you can get

there, I want that. It's good for me. I

know you have a story from, you know,

right when you started at Amazon where

there was a high performer on your team

and you established that partnership

with them, but you weren't able to get

their promotion and they ended up

leaving. Yeah. So, I had a star young

engineer who uh made this deal with me

and I made the deal in good faith. He

said, "Oh, I will help ship our very

first version of our product. I'll do

whatever it takes. You get me from what

we called SDE1, which was the new

college higher level to SD2." And I'm

like, great, got it. I'll do that. I had

always worked at startups where when you

wanted to promote someone, you just kind

of went to your boss and maybe HR and

said, "We should promote this guy." And

you did it. Amazon had a process and

they only did promotions twice a year

and they had a cycle. Our project launch

was a mess. Not his fault, but we had

problems. I was busy looking at the

problems and trying to, you know, fix

the product. The cycle came and went.

He's like, "Hey, where's my promotion?"

I went and asked like, "Oh, how do we do

this?" and they're like, "Yeah, you can

do that in the spring, maybe." The the

factor was my and I've written about

this very publicly. I own it. It was my

ignorance. And so, the problem is we

made a deal in good faith that I didn't

know how to keep. So, that's my error.

The advice for someone making the deal

is figure out is your manager a veteran?

Do they know what they're doing? You

know, do they understand the process or

do you? And this is a common problem

because people get new managers very

often. So even if I hadn't been the

idiot in this situation, uh it could

have been somebody else who was hired

in. Can do you understand the process? I

think part of the issue is that

engineer, which is not his fault, but he

also didn't know. And so it was an ugly

discovery for him like, oh, we missed

the date and sorry. He didn't know to

tell me like, hey, Ethan, you got to be

doing this. you know, there's a date and

you got now is that his responsibility?

It's not. It was mine. But the tricky

part is it's your life. And so if you're

the engineer in that situation, probably

people all know the story from scrum and

chickens and pigs, right? The pig is

committed. The chicken's only involved

in the ham and eggs restaurant. The

manager is the chicken in this. Their

life isn't on the line. It's you. You're

the one who's going to get hurt. So know

the process and make sure the manager is

like, "Okay, I'm going to do this." this

and you're like, "Okay, well, by

September 15th, are you going to have a

document done?" And if they say, "Why

does September 15th matter?" That's like

a warning sign, right? Why does that

matter? Oh, that's the deadline. Oh,

there's a deadline. Like that, you know,

that conversation would have been very

revealing if he'd have known to have it.

And I feel terrible about it. It's why

I've written about it publicly is I

don't want it to happen to anybody else.

So, this guy left. He joined another big

tech company. He's had an amazing career

there. It cost him a year. And I I feel

bad about that. But the truth is careers

are 20, 30 years long or more. Things in

life are going to cost you a year

sometimes. That's not fatal. So when you

hit that, I just wasted a year. You can

either mope it and be depressed or you

can move on. He moved on and was

successful. I've moved on and been

successful. You can you can make that

change.

>> So after you got promoted to VP, I saw

that you switched business verticals. or

you went to the Twitch partnerships or

managing the Twitch partnership and then

later into gaming. I'm curious, it

sounds like the Twitch acquisition was

right before you became kind of in that

role. Were you the VP in charge of

plugging them in or what's the story

behind that role?

>> Amazon's a big company. So, it had a

process that every time it bought a

company and we spent 970 million on

Twitch, so a billion dollars. They take

a VP and they make them kind of what

you'd call the integration liaison, the

the person who's going to facilitate

making sure you get your billion dollars

worth. The trick is they leave the CEO

in charge. So IT Shear, we talked about,

you know, you're aware of Imit. Imit was

still in charge of Twitch. I was not his

boss. Instead, I purposefully sought out

that role. We talked about working on

soft skills. I had become vice president

running Amazon's app store and I had a

team of 800. And so I was now very good

at running a global team of hundreds of

people. But that's where I had

authority. I decided to challenge myself

and go take a role where I had a goal,

help Twitch integrate, but I had no

authority. I was simply an advisor to

the CEO. I had no team. And I had to

achieve this goal without being able to

give this guy any orders. And here's a

guy who's just been made wealthy for

life. He's 15 or 16 years younger than

me. He's in a business that served

mostly teenagers and people in their

20s. You know, he's 33 or so. I'm late

40s at that point. How am I going to

influence him in how to run his sort of

millennial Gen Z business when I'm

neither? And I I I wanted that challenge

to work on my soft skills. So I gave up

the team of 800 to go figure out how to

do this. It's a fascinating story that

worked out really well and I really

enjoyed working with EMTT as well as of

course learning to live stream on Twitch

and all kinds of stuff.

>> When I see these founders with, you

know, rocket ship trajectories, I don't

know the exact size of Twitch at the

time, but maybe hundreds maybe low

thousands of employees at such a young

age. I'm curious when you work with a a

young founder like that as a seasoned

manager with tons of experience. What

are the gaps that you notice in someone

that has such a unique management

trajectory or are there none?

>> Oh no, there were plenty of gaps. I

think EMTT would agree with that if he

were with here with us. We might not

agree on what the gaps were. So first to

give you scope, Twitch was several

hundred employees at that point and grew

within the next couple years to be a

thousand. So he was on a very rocket

trajectory. The biggest problem was

Twitch was a classic venture funded

company. It was bleeding cash, you know,

at a huge rate. And in fact, one of the

gaps was in the beginning, Emit and

certainly members of his team didn't

even think this was a problem. Well,

they had always been able to get venture

money. And now the way they originally

looked at it, I remember people in

Twitch on the management team looking at

me and saying, "Well, now that Amazon's

bought us, you guys have lots of money.

Why do we need to worry about

profitability or advertising? Like, why

can't we just focus on the gaming?" And

my job was to help move them to

profitability. So, I'm like, "Whoa,

Houston, we have a problem. They don't

even see it as a worthy goal."

Meanwhile, you know, the management

chain above me, because I ultimately

reported into Andy Jasse, who's now CEO

of Amazon, he wanted profitability quite

soon. So, you're trapped between a a

group of people who are like, "Ah, why

does this even matter anymore? You guys

have all the money in the world." So,

that was one gap. Another gap that I

would say Emit learned the hard way over

time, it's very easy to be loyal to your

early employees, but not all of them can

scale. And so Emit went through a big

learning cycle of I'm gonna have to hire

in somebody over this person who was

with me from the beginning and I'm gonna

have to explain to this person who's a

friend of mine, love you. You're going

to make a lot of money because your

stock options are now Amazon shares, but

you're not going to remain whatever

chief product officer or fill in the

blank. And uh that was a that was a big

discovery I think for Emit that he had

to replace some friends or level them

and a few of them quit and were angry.

>> You you mentioned that you reported to

Andy Jasse the now CEO of Amazon and I

imagine you had some proximity to Jeff

Bezos or had been in meetings with them

comparing and contrasting the leadership

styles between the two. Is there

something that stands out from each or

maybe a story that you think illustrates

those things?

>> Yeah, so I knew Jeff pretty well. Yeah,

I'm not going to claim he's like a best

buddy of mine, but I've probably had

about 50 meetings with him and about 50

with Andy in different contexts. So, I

know them both, you know, spending

dozens of hours with them and working

for them. The biggest difference is

Jeff's the founder. And what that means

is he can take gamles with the company

that others won't. So, a story I

remember is in a budget discussion, our

chief financial officer was trying to

slow down Jeff's spending on something

and he said to Jeff, "Well, you know,

Jeff, we only have so much money in the

bank, trying to like just pump the

brakes a little because Jeff was let's

do this and let's do this and the price

tag's going up." And the CFO said, "You

know, Jeff, we only have so much money

in the bank." And Jeff looked at him and

this was the previous CFO to the current

one. And he said, "Well, Tom, how much

is that? Because I might want to spend

it." And he was just telling his CFO

like, "Thank you. Your job is to count

the pennies and my job is to allocate

them and don't don't confuse your role

and my role." And Andy is a more classic

I don't recall if he has an NBA. I think

he does, but he's a more classic

business leader. He's not going to tell

his CFO, you know, stick a sock in it.

That he's going to see that he has to

partner. And that's because it's not his

toy, right? He is the paid leader, but

it's not his company. And that no matter

how much I respect Andy, that's just

very hard to get over because when it's

your toy, Jeff definitely felt that he

could, you know, sort of take

metaphorically take the whole company to

Vegas and bet it on black, right? That

that like he had that right. I built it.

I can do what I want with it. Whereas

for Andy, he helped build it, but he has

to actually do what the board wants with

it and what Jeff wants with it. And

that's just different. Both Jeff and

Andy put great demands on me and other

leaders. For me personally, for my

style, I felt Jeff was emotionally

behind me and supportive. And I felt

Andy was kind of always waiting to see

if I'd screw up. And so if we brought in

10 executives who work for both of them,

not all of them have had that

experience. I found working for Jeff

much more inspiring and not just because

he was the founder, but because he

seemed enthusiastic. Andy seemed more

ready to ask more probing questions. And

I at least as a personality need that

leader who yes, they ask all the

questions, but then they're like, "Okay,

I'm on board. Let's do it. We'll do it

together." And I never got a like we'll

do it together from Andy. I always feel

like I got okay, it's your plan. You're

on the hook now. Let me know when it's

done. It didn't inspire me the same way.

>> You mentioned being scrutinized and I

saw that you had written about how you

started the prime gaming vertical with

some some peers and you mentioned that

it had failed multiple times. I'm kind

of curious, you know, what does a VP's

performance review look like if the

business vertical they started is

failing? So this is a flaw of big

companies because often when I say

something was failing, we would hit most

of our goals, ship this, build that, add

this feature. We might even hit some

financial goals, but we weren't

achieving the vision. The vision of

Prime Gaming, the original vision Jeff

wanted was to make Amazon a real player

in the video game business. At one point

his vision was how can we be as big as

10 cent which is the largest gaming

company in the world out of China. So we

met a bunch of goals but we were never

on track to become like that. And

certainly Prime Gaming has never done

anything like that. Amazon Game Studios

all the gaming pieces they're very

niche. So when I say it failed multiple

times I think it failed against the

vision. you can get a good review for

ticking all the boxes and hitting like

all these interim goals and not really

be on track for doing anything

significant. Right before I left the

Amazon App Store to join Twitch, I told

a peer I said, you know, this year I'm

going to hit every goal and it's going

to be meaningless. And the proof of that

in some ways is now 10 years later,

Amazon has shut down its app store. They

use it internally, I think, but all

external use has been, you know, for

phones and whatever. They they've given

up after 10 more years. Well, I saw that

coming 10 years ago. But big companies

can get lost in, well, we're hitting the

goals and they confuse hitting the goals

for doing something actually valuable.

The bottom line is I was rated well as a

VP every year of my career. And yet,

when I look at did some of the things I

do really succeed, I'm very proud that

we launched Prime Gaming and we put

Amazon in the game business, but it

hasn't gone anywhere. And it won't

surprise me if in 2, three, or 5 years,

Amazon shutters that. Now, it also won't

surprise me if they get some leader who

figures out how to make it big. But

there's a lot of sort of zombie products

in a big company that no one quite wants

to pull the trigger on shutting down

because that's a big decision and an

admission of failure, but no one really

knows how to make big either. So they

just kind of bump along.

>> It sounds like even forward-looking,

like being in it, you you hadn't

achieved the goals yet and you looked at

the goals and you said these are not

impactful. Did you ever have a thought

of let's make the goals more ambitious

or let's change the goals so that

they're the ones that align with the

vision?

>> Sure. The problem is you know you're

going to be judged on them. So there's a

tension between the goals you think

matter and the goals you have any idea

how to hit. So, I'll I'll I'll tell you

for the Amazon App Store, the goal was

somehow compete with Google on on

Android phones when Google comes

pre-installed and Amazon is a sideload

like that people have to decide they

want and then opt into. I had no idea

how to compete basically with an endemic

store, a pre-installed store on its own

phone. That was the goal. Of course, I

argued strongly against being judged

against that because I didn't know how

to do it. I would say other leaders who

came after me who were quite hardworking

didn't obviously didn't know how either.

For my review and my pay, I want goals I

know I can nail. And for the good of the

company, I actually want goals that I

have no idea how to do. And so, when I

said this, I was like, "Yeah, I'm going

to nail all these goals that I fought to

be measured on, and I'm going to miss

all these goals that actually matter

because I don't know how to do them."

And it turns out maybe they were

impossible. The the you know again if

you think about this aspiration oh

Amazon wants to be 10 cent in games.

Well this is like if you work at some

e-commerce startup saying well you know

Ryan we want you to take a goal to be a

second Amazon. How are you know you

might be like well I get why that would

be valuable. I do understand that's a

great vision but I'll pass. with your

tenure as a manager at Amazon, I kind of

want to talk about, you know, management

practices like, you know, stack ranking,

performance-based layoffs, pips, those

types of things. So, I'm curious, you

know, Amazon's pretty famous for stack

ranking and, you know, really

aggressively managing people out. Yeah.

Um, what are your thoughts on on these

types of systems? About 10 years ago,

Amazon ran an experiment where after

getting years of bad press for stack

ranking, they removed what was called

the unregretted attrition goal. So,

Amazon has a goal every year for what

they call unreged attrition, which means

people, it's a nice way of saying people

we want to leave. Um, and we don't care

if you pressure them into quitting or

they get fired. It's just there's a

number and you put people on a list of

folks you want out and you can either

improve their performance to where you

take them off the list, they can quit or

you can fire them. But you have to hit a

goal and it's usually like 7% a year.

Sometimes it's as low as four, sometimes

it's as much as seven. So Amazon uses

lots of words to kind of cloak this

process, but the bottom line is it's

fire the bottom 5% or so. Here's the

thing. When we remove the goal, managers

immediately stop having hard

conversation and talking to their

struggling performers because without

the pressure of having to do it, it was

just easier to focus on your good people

and let that problem person hang around

because it's not in a big company. It's

not costing your burn rate that you know

about or care about and you don't have

to have that unpleasant conversation and

you also don't have to be the bad guy.

One of the worst things about being a

manager is you may have someone who

isn't very good but is wellliked.

They're friendly. They are outgoing.

They bring donuts. They organize the

parties. Everybody likes them. And so

now you have to not only have a hard

conversation with them, but if you do

move them out or if they talk to other

people like, "Ethan's trying to fire

me." Then everybody's like, "Why are you

trying to fire Ryan? He's awesome. We

love him." Well, it may be that you know

you have lots of performance problems,

but other people aren't feing those. So

when we remove the goal, people stopped

having the hard conversation. So the

next year, Amazon put it back and it's

kept it every year since. So on the one

hand, many managers avoid actually

performance managing if they're not

forced at gunpoint. An unfortunate

truth. On the other hand, because

there's a list and because there's a

goal, you would be then be in a

situation where someone who had a chance

to succeed, maybe you had to put on the

list to make your quota. And you ask how

how how well the pips work. I think most

pips are a combination of dishonest and

or psychologically

unrealistic because once I've decided

that I'm going to put you on this list

or once I've decided you're enough of a

problem that I need to write up this

plan and have this ugly conversation

with you mentally I've already moved to

we have to get rid of Ethan, right? We

have to get rid of Ryan. They're not

good. recovering. It sort of doesn't

matter what you do unless it's amazing.

I've already decided and so my cognitive

bias is going to be self-fulfilling. Um,

so what I recommend, you know, this has

happened. I coach people. I have had

half a dozen people reach out to me for

coaching and say, "I was just put on a

PIP at Amazon. I I really want to

succeed. Help me." And I've tried and

they've all gotten fired. And so now

when people call me, this is funny. They

call me and they say, "I'm on a PIP."

And I'm like, "So, what you need to do

is spend that time on the PIP looking

for your next job because you're going

to be fired." And they're like, "No, no,

I'm going to overcome it." And I'm like,

"Good luck with that. Tell me what

happens." And 3 months later, I get a

note that says, "You were right. I was

fired." And the reason I state both

people I coach and people I don't is, of

course, you could suspect, well, maybe

I'm a lousy coach and I didn't dig them

out of the hole. But the people I didn't

coach got fired, too. It's a self like

once you're at that stage, it's going to

happen. Very few people ever dig out of

them. Now, I believe some managers in

their minds start a PIP with honest good

intentions, but at least in Amazon, you

have your HR business partner and your

boss asking you all the time, "How's it

going? When are we going to exit that

person? I need them on my quota." You

know, if you actually want to take

someone off a PIP, more than likely,

your manager is going to be saying,

"Well, who else are you going to put

on?" Because we still have to meet the

number. So you're then you're looking

around and you're like, well, I put the

lowest performing person on my team on

and now I'm being told if I take them

off of PIP, I have to put somebody else

on. So of course you're like, well, so

the conclusion is companies stink at

performance management. They don't train

managers how to do it. They don't train

managers how to have the conversation

early. They don't create a system where

you can talk to people and say, you

know, this isn't working out. Maybe you

want to leave because that opens you up

to a lawsuit. We just have a

dysfunctional performance system.

>> In your writing, you you wrote something

that said a manager can fire anyone they

want and HR is not there to protect you.

I would have thought there's checks and

balances to this that that is not true

or I guess I would hope that it's not

true. What What is stopping a manager

from from painting their report in an

unfair light? Or is there nothing

stopping that?

>> I love that you called this out. I agree

with what I wrote. The nuance is as a

manager I could get rid of any one

employee I wanted but I can't get rid of

every employee. And so if I create a

pattern where I'm driving one employee

after another out I will eventually get

caught and burned for that because we do

look at what is a manager's turnover

rate. My point was for any single

employee, I can absolutely, if I choose

to end that person's career at my

company. And at Amazon, it's as simple

as put them on this list. It's partly

who strikes first. So, by the time you

go to HR, I've already put you on this

list and told my story of why I think

you're bad. And now you're going, "No,

no, it's unfair. He hates me." Well, the

problem is the people all the people

they've heard from who are legitimately

bad are saying the same thing, right?

They're they're saying, "No, I'm

actually good. It's my boss hates me and

doesn't understand me." So, they hear

that story every day. So, when you

legitimately tell it and it's actually

true and it's just I hate you, you just

you end up sounding like everyone else.

And so, that's why it's stacked in my

favor. Now, I I have never done this,

but I've looked at the system and just

seen I have people all the time who say,

"Well, my boss told a lie about me."

Well, again, it's your word versus mine,

and I'm the one who's got the higher

level, maybe the more tenure. If I

choose to say, "Well, you know, Ryan

looks really busy, but he's mostly just

doing pull requests on other people's

code." I can downplay what you're doing.

Because see, I can tell this story of

Ryan is an amazing engineer. He makes

everybody's code better because he does

all these insightful reviews and he's

upleveling the whole team. That's

narrative one. Same facts. He did 700

pull requests this quarter or whatever.

Narrative two is, you know, Ryan

actually doesn't contribute much. he

thinks he does and he spends all this

time doing code reviews, but look at how

little he's actually written himself and

really he's just busy nitpick nitpicking

people and churning away. And sure, his

numbers look good, but those numbers are

actually a sign of the problem. Now,

I've taken your same performance and

spun it two ways. My point that people

aren't going to like is a manager can do

that. And maybe they're doing that

because they're a jerk and they've

decided you threaten them and they want

to get rid of you. Maybe they just have

a different view. You think you're doing

really valuable stuff and they don't and

they're saying what they honestly

believe. But the point is performance

that you would think is really easy to

measure like look at these numbers. Look

how many valuable code reviews I did can

be used either way. Nothing about

software engineering performance is so

objective. And so bad managers, truly

bad or evil managers do get caught

eventually. But clever managers, you

just want to get rid of one person would

be able to do that because they're in

the driver's seat. And more importantly,

they get to make the preemptive strike.

They get to tell the story about why

that person's a problem before that

person ever knows it's happening. And so

it's kind of like, yes, you can slap the

mosquito after it bites you, but it

doesn't take away being bitten. I mean,

it's it's unfortunate that that's true,

but it also illustrates the power of

storytelling in a way. The exact same

facts can be spun as a bad thing or a

good thing. So, people are going to hear

this and believe like, oh, see, managers

are just like personally firing people

because they hate them. I am sure that

happens. It's not in a manager's best

interest. They they are judged on

accomplishing their goals. that, you

know, good managers are trying to find

partners they can work with that will

help everyone achieve. I just want to be

honest that if you do have a difficult

boss and you make them angry and they're

a vindictive sort of person, beware they

hold like you're bringing a knife to a

gunfight. They're the one with the gun

and you're probably going to lose. If

you have a boss like that, don't get in

the knife or gunfight. Either figure out

what you can allow you to make friends

with them or find a different manager.

That's the actual point. Don't think

that somehow HR is going to come

investigate and rescue you.

>> Definitely

>> that just isn't what they do.

>> Um I want to be mindful of your time and

so I have you know one last question for

you which is that if you could go back

to your career right at the beginning

when you had just graduated and entered

the industry and give yourself some

advice what would that advice be?

>> So I'll answer in two ways. One of them

I did and one of them I really didn't.

The thing I would do is always prefer

high growth. My whole career was in

companies that were growing very

rapidly. And I compare that, people talk

about a career ladder. Well, my ladder

was always an escalator. I could climb,

but it was also moving up for me. And

so, the reason I got where I went is

because Amazon grew 100fold while I was

there from 10,000 people to a million.

Revenue grew like 80 times. The

escalator went up and I rode it. I also

climbed. So, that part I would keep the

same. The thing I would change is

probably not surprising you. I would

wake up much sooner to jobs are still

with other humans. It's great to be an

expert. It's great to be right, but

build the skills to have the

relationships, make the friends, get to

know lots of people, and you don't have

to be an extrovert to do that. I was a

classic introvert. I've certainly

learned to be more extroverted, but with

online tools like LinkedIn or pick your

tool, you can make a reputation and

build connections from the safety of

your keyboard in your darkened room all

by yourself. And so do do whatever works

for you, but get known because it works

so much better. You know, Amazon called

me for the job, not the other way

around. And you want that happening, so

build that reputation.

>> Awesome. Well, thank you so much for

your time, Ethan. Um, you know, at the

end of the interview, like to give you

an opportunity. Where can people find

you or is there something you'd like

people to check out?

>> So, the easiest place to find me is

either Ethan EvansVP on LinkedIn or

Ethan Evans.com, my website. I'm well

known for teaching classes about how to

get past the promotion hurdle we've

talked a lot about. So, if my style of

straight talk in this interview works

for you, then that's what I do all the

time. And if that's your flavor of ice

cream, then I'm your vendor.

>> Thanks so much, Ethan. Really appreciate

your time.

>> Yeah, my pleasure, Ryan. Thank you for

having me.

>> Hey, thanks for watching the show. I

don't sell anything or do sponsorships,

but if you want to support, you can

subscribe on YouTube or you can leave a

review on Spotify. And I'm always

looking for new guests to interview. So,

if anyone comes up who you think you

really want to hear their career story,

uh, let me know and I'll try to reach

out to them and get them on the show.

Thanks for listening as always and I'll

see you next time.