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