Level Up with Ethan Evans (retired Amazon VP)

​​​​​​​​​Level Up Newsletter & Community paid members and the Scarlet Ink Newsletter paid members were invited to join this live event with Ethan Evans (retired Amazon VP) and David Anderson (former Amazon GM) dissecting Amazon Leadership Principles (LPs) followed by a live audience Q&A.

​David came to work for Ethan in his final role at Amazon (in Amazon Games) kicking off a friendship that has continued to flourish as they both enjoy teaching and writing on career advice in their post-Amazon lives.

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Show Notes:

00:00 Introduction

00:58 David's Career Journey

04:40 The Power of Amazon Leadership Principles

07:44 Evolution and Application of Leadership Principles

18:52 Ownership and Personal Reflections

22:18 Challenges and Controversies in Leadership

40:36 Identifying the Weakest Link

41:50 Hiring for Leadership Principles

44:01 Teaching Leadership Principles

47:49 Addressing the Empathy Gap

51:51 Amazon's Cultural Challenges

56:23 Handling Leadership Conflicts

59:32 The Importance of Company Culture

01:11:11 Final Thoughts and Personal Insights

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About Ethan Evans

​​​​​​​​​​​​​Ethan retired from Amazon as a Vice President after 15 years where he led global teams of 800+ and invented businesses such as Prime Video, Amazon Video, Amazon Appstore, Merch by Amazon, Prime Gaming (formerly Twitch Prime), and Twitch Commerce.

• ​​​​​​​​70+ patents.
• ​​​​​​​​Reviewed 10,000+ resumes, conducted 2,500+ interviews, and 1,000+ hires.
• ​​​​​​​​Was an Amazon Bar Raiser and Bar Raiser Core Leader, responsible for training and maintaining Amazon's group of interview outcome facilitators.
• ​​​​​​​​Helped advocate for and draft the Amazon Leadership Principle (LP) "Ownership" — the words, "They never say 'that's not my job.'" are Ethan's (read the story).

​Ethan retired from Amazon as a Vice President in September 2020.

​Join Ethan's Level Up Newsletter & Community to get ongoing career advice and leadership networking access.

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About David Anderson

​David is the author of Scarlet Ink, a popular technology leadership newsletter.

​He spent more than 12 years at Amazon, moving from the lowest level development manager, to a Technology Director and GM. During the majority of those years, David was also a bar raiser and member of the bar raiser core leadership group (helping direct how the bar raiser program operates).

​At the beginning of the pandemic, David was asked to help Bezos Academy get started as their CTO. He spent a year at Bezos Academy building the Technology foundation for the school system, and hiring an excellent IT leadership team.

​David left the corporate world to pursue his passion for writing, and raising chickens.

Level Up Newsletter & Community paid members were invited to join this live event with Andrew Yeung and Jason Yoong discussing "How to Be a High-Value Connector & Networker".

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Show Notes:

00:00 Introduction and Welcome

00:46 Common Networking Mistakes

01:54 Building Goodwill in Networking

04:03 Effective Cold Outreach Strategies

09:05 Creating and Controlling the Room

24:59 Balancing Corporate and Entrepreneurial Pursuits

29:07 Maximizing Your Efforts

29:30 Navigating Networking

32:20 Internal and External Networking Strategies

34:39 The Importance of Building Relationships

35:04 Soft Skills at Big Tech Companies

36:25 Performance Reviews and Networking

40:02 Building a Personal Brand

42:30 Organizing Successful Events

44:13 Reflecting on Big Company Experiences

50:12 Future Plans and Community Support

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About Andrew Yeung

Andrew is an ex-Google and Meta product leader turned tech and hospitality entrepreneur and investor.

He hosts events and runs Andrew's Mixers (1,000+ person tech rooftop mixers), The Junto Series (C-suite and tech leader dinners), and Lumos House (a multi-day, multi-city experience in a private mansion). Over 30,000 people have attended across 8 cities. Attendees include founders of billion-dollar companies, media personalities with millions of followers, and Olympic athletes turned entrepreneurs.

Business Insider dubbed Andrew the "Gatsby of Silicon Alley." ​

Andrew recently launched The OOO Summit for Owners, Operators, and Outliers to gather for a full-day event, with talks, activities, networking sessions, and of course a "party", for you to learn from the top experts in the biz and meet some of the most ambitious, curious, and inspiring people in New York City on August 17.

Follow Andrew on LinkedIn.

Follow Andrew on Twitter.

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About Level Up ​​​

Level Up is your source for career growth solutions & community by retired Amazon Vice President, Ethan Evans.

Paid members get access to member-only events, all newsletter articles, access to a private Slack leadership networking community, and more. Join here.

Jason Yoong is the operating partner at Level Up (and ex-Amazon).

Connect with Jason on LinkedIn.

Explore Ethan's website.

Ethan's leadership development courses https://maven.com/ethan-evans (live online) and https://ethan-evans.mykajabi.com/ (on-demand)

​​​​​​​​​Level Up Newsletter & Community paid members and the Mariposa Leadership Community were invited to join this live event with Ethan Evans and Sue Bethanis discussing "How to Get Support for an Executive Coach, and Make the Most of It" followed by a live audience Q&A.

Sue was Ethan's executive coach (last and best) when he was an executive at Amazon/Twitch.

​If you're already in executive roles (e.g. Director, Sr. Director, VP) and want to optimize performance or move up further, consider Ethan and Sue's live online course, Cracking the C-suite 'How to Get and Master Key Executive Roles'.

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Show Notes:

00:00 Introduction

03:04 The Importance of Executive Coaching

03:50 Ethan's Personal Coaching Journey

07:48 Key Areas of Focus in Executive Coaching

16:08 Maximizing the Coaching Relationship

30:06 Career and Transition Coaching

41:53 Securing Sponsorship & Making a Business Case for Coaching

44:16 How to Ask for Coaching

45:43 Exploring Company Coaching Programs

46:30 Confidentiality in Coaching

53:15 Deciding Between Company-Sponsored and Self-Paid Coaching

56:55 Choosing the Right Coach

01:13:02 The Importance of Feedback

01:19:57 Conclusion

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About Ethan Evans

​​​​​​​​​​​​​Ethan retired from Amazon as a Vice President after 15 years where he led global teams of 800+ and invented businesses such as Prime Video, Amazon Video, Amazon Appstore, Merch by Amazon, Prime Gaming (formerly Twitch Prime), and Twitch Commerce.

• ​​​​​​​​70+ patents.
• ​​​​​​​​Reviewed 10,000+ resumes, conducted 2,500+ interviews, and 1,000+ hires.
• ​​​​​​​​Was an Amazon Bar Raiser and Bar Raiser Core Leader, responsible for training and maintaining Amazon's group of interview outcome facilitators.
• ​​​​​​​​Helped advocate for and draft the Amazon Leadership Principle (LP) "Ownership" — the words, "They never say 'that's not my job.'" are Ethan's (read the story).

​Ethan retired from Amazon as a Vice President in September 2020.

​Join Ethan's Level Up Newsletter & Community to get ongoing career advice and leadership networking access.

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About Sue Bethanis

​Sue is the CEO/Founder of Mariposa Leadership, Inc., a 15-person San Francisco- based firm, which provides executive coaching and design thinking to high-tech leaders.

​Sue is the author of the well-received business book Leadership Chronicles of a Corporate Sage and hosts the popular show WiseTalk, a monthly leadership forum, and WiseSpace, a Zoom coaching community.

​Sue has worked with many Silicon Valley and San Francisco companies and non-profits, including C-level Executives and VPs at Amazon, Apple, Cisco, eBay, EqCA, Expedia, GoFundMe, Google, Guru, HPE, Intel, LinkedIn, Microsoft, MongoDB, Monite, Paypal, Pinterest, Roku, Twitch, Workday, Yahoo!, and Zynga.

If motivation was summed up to a single sentence it could be, motivation is the difference between short term goals and long-term goals. Basically, motivated people focus more on their long-term goals. They have found the energy to do a little more, every day, that gets them closer to that goal while also not losing sight of it.

What does the perfect resume look like? What works and what doesn't? Here's a tip, there is no one size fits all approach. Resumes are supposed to tell your accomplishments: what you did, how you did it and what was the result. But everyone has different skills, different job history, and different

t's no surprise that when you are doing something useful, you feel good. If that's the case, why is it so hard to find that life of usefulness and connection? Why can't we just be happy all the time? Simple question with a simple answer; being useful is a great motivator that leads to happiness.

We have all heard the saying, "if you want something, you have to work for it". Makes sense, but how do you stay motivated, doing something you really don't want to be doing? How do you get yourself to stop procrastinating when you have a lack of motivation to solve the problem at hand? Instead you want relax, enjoy a vacation while work is telling you to stay focused. Motivation is tricky. You have what you must do, what you tell yourself what you should do and then there is what you want to do. These are not the same for everyone. Watch Ethan Evans, former VP of Twitch Prime (Prime Gaming) at Amazon; discuss how to find motiv

We have all been in the situation at work where there is a rule that doesn't make sense. The problem with rules is that once they are written down, they start to age and not all rules age well. This leads to exceptions to the rules and judgements calls needing to be made. When should an exception to the rule be granted, who should grant that exception, how do you scale exceptions? All these lead to questions about why is the rule in the first place. Watch Ethan Evans, former VP of Twitch Prime (Prime Gaming) at Amazon; discuss how to use good judgement in order to evaluate which rules can be broken.

At some point in your career, chances are you have had some feelings of self-doubt in the workplace. For some it could look like a project that feels a bit beyond your expertise and for others it maybe psychological pattern that hinders a workday completely. Feelings of personal incompetence that persist despite accomplishments, education, and experience may make you end up working harder and holding yourself to unrealistic standards. How can we overcome Impostor Syndrome? Watch Ethan Evans, former VP of Twitch Prime (Prime Gaming) at Amazon; discuss how to fight impostor syndrome. Ethan will walk you through what types of people to surround yourself with, how you can ask for help and how to overcome imposter syndrome.

Most of us work a minimum 40-hour work week. Now with working from home, we tend to put in more eight-hour workdays than we did before Covid-19. We've all heard the phrase "Work Smarter Not Harder", but what does that really mean? What does it look like and how can we work smarter? There are simple things we can do in our workday to work smarter. Watch Ethan Evans, former VP of Twitch Prime (Prime Gaming) at Amazon; talk about how to work smarter. Ethan will discuss (from Rome) how you can start applying a few changes to make your time more productive and how to prioritize your day to get the things done that matter.