Level Up with Ethan Evans (retired Amazon VP)

Level Up with Ethan Evans (retired Amazon VP)

Level Up is your source for career growth solutions by retired Amazon Vice President, Ethan Evans. In my 15+ years at Amazon, I led global teams of 800+ and invented businesses such as Prime Video, Amazon Appstore, Merch by Amazon, Prime Gaming, and Twitch Commerce. I hold 70+ patents. Have reviewed 10,000+ resumes, conducted 2,500+ interviews, and made 1,000+ hires. I was an Amazon Bar Raiser and Bar Raiser Core Leader. And I helped advocate for and draft the Amazon Leadership Principle (LP) “Ownership” — the words, “They never say ‘that’s not my job.’” are mine. I've promoted 8 reports from Senior Manager (Amazon L7) to Director (Amazon L8), contributed to 25+ Director promotions, hired 10+ Directors internally and externally, and drove the promotion of 3 engineers to Principal. Of my former reports, 2 are current Amazon VPs (L10) and 5 are C-Suite outside Amazon. I retired from Amazon as a VP in September 2020. Before Amazon, I spent 12 years at 3 startups. Now I am building Level Up: Your source for career growth solutions & community. Subscribe to my newsletter for ongoing career advice and consider becoming a paid member to unlock access to exclusive events, career talks, and our private leadership community for networking: https://levelupwithethanevans.substack.com/

Episodes

July 18, 2024 77 mins

​​​​​​​​​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 e...

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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

29:0...

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​​​​​​​​​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, ...

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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.

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January 19, 2022 12 mins

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

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January 14, 2022 100 mins

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.

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November 10, 2021 62 mins

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 ...

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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 i...

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October 28, 2021 36 mins

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 standar...

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October 26, 2021 47 mins

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 ...

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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...

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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 h...

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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 responsibilit...

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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 Pr...

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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 ...

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June 17, 2021 16 mins

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 h...

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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 ch...

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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 ch...

Mark as Played

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 ch...

Mark as Played

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 ch...

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