Level Up with Ethan Evans (retired Amazon VP) – Details, episodes & analysis

​​​​​​​​​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)

It doesn’t matter if you’re in the interview process or years into your career, eventually you will have to negotiate your pay. As your career grows you take on more responsibility, however how do you make sure your pay increases along with your career? The main problem is simple: most people never ask for a pay raise, instead they wait for their company to give it to them. Watch Ethan Evans, former VP of Twitch Prime (Prime Gaming) at Amazon; talk with returning guest Kristin about how to get the pay raise that you deserve. In this 1 on 1 discussion, they will go over mentorship, leadership, and most important, how to negotiate a pay raise.

Major General Chris Hughes led 49,000 soldiers at Ft. Knox as well as all army officer recruiting and education. The Army ROTC program has 36,000 college cadets while the high school program has over 300,000 participants. Come learn the key leadership traits that go General Hughes through six combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan and allowed him to transform army education. Learn how military service can lead to free education and how you can apply the same principles yourself independently.

Everyone seems to agree that lifelong learning and skill improvement is critical to success in the modern business world. Technology, business models, and global conditions change rapidly enough that your speed of learning, as individuals and as companies, matters. However, most companies have not figured out how to support individual self-development. The good news and bad news is that self-education is an individual responsibility. So what are some things you can do to self-educate? Watch Ethan Evans, former VP of Twitch Prime (Prime Gaming) at Amazon; discuss why (and how) to self-educate. Ethan will discuss how to turn this into a win for you and how to maximize the benefits.

There are multiple streams about how to use LinkedIn, how to build a network, why it’s important to have a network and the list goes on. Whether you’re seeking a new job, an entrepreneur looking to bring attention to your idea, or simply looking to connect with other professionals, networks such as LinkedIn are important. But are they? Well it’s time to test if having a network is worth it. Watch Ethan Evans, former VP of Twitch Prime (Prime Gaming) at Amazon; discuss how a problem he was dealing with for months was not getting resolved. He tried face-to-face meetings, email, phone calls, and nothing. Come watch Ethan discuss the outcome of this ordeal and answer, is having a network worth it?

A little background, a couple months ago the idea was formed to start a mentor network. This was based on feedback from the community (previous streams go through each step of the journey). Now we are at the point in the mentor network where it is being opened up to the applicants. How will be the pilot mentees be selected and who will be their mentors. Watch Ethan Evans, former VP of Twitch Prime (Prime Gaming) at Amazon; discuss what is in-store for the applicants to the mentor network. Ethan will discuss what is expected from the mentor and the mentee. There is more to being a good mentor than simply giving advice and there is more to being a good mentee than listening. Come watch Ethan discuss the ins and outs of what makes a good mentee and how to maximize a mentor relationship.

I share my resume, written as best I can to follow the advice I talk about in other videos, as an example. The resume contains 25+ years of experience in two pages, with an optional partial third page that can be cut if desired. It focuses on showing impact (demonstrating through accomplishments what I have done and thus what I can do for another employer). Over the years I have reviewed over 2,500 resumes and can tell you what I have found recruiters are looking for and more importantly, what hiring managers want.

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 problems they solved. As a former VP of Amazon (Newly Retired), watch Ethan Evans talk about what makes a great resume. Learn simple changes that you can implement now that could get you more interviews and job offers. Over the years Ethan has reviewed over 2,500 resumes and can tell you what recruiters are looking for and more importantly, what hiring managers want.

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 problems they solved. As a former VP of Amazon (Newly Retired), watch Ethan Evans talk about what makes a great resume. Learn simple changes that you can implement now that could get you more interviews and job offers. Over the years Ethan has reviewed over 2,500 resumes and can tell you what recruiters are looking for and more importantly, what hiring managers want.