A Dozen Grueling Years At Amazon — With Kristi Coulter

Channel: Alex Kantrowitz

Published at: 2023-09-21

YouTube video id: i2QxITGvpVU

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2QxITGvpVU

A 12-year Amazon veteran with a new
revealing book comes on to talk to us
about the company's culture and its
future. All that and more coming up
right after this. Welcome to Big
Technology Podcast, a show for
Coolheaded Nuance Conversation of the
Tech World and Beyond. We are joined by
Christy Coulter today. She's a 12-year
Amazon veteran and the author of Exit
Interview: The Life and Death of My
Ambitious Career. It's out this week.
Definitely encourage you to pick it up.
I enjoyed reading it very much.
Christiey's also uh someone who's worked
at Amazon and definitely one of the more
favorite conversations I've had about
the company. So, I'm very excited to
bring that to you today. And and uh
Christie, welcome to the show.
Thank you for having me.
Thanks for being here. So, you worked at
Amazon for a long time and
yes,
you worked in the beginning, you know,
when merchandising and retail was a big
part of the company and now it seems
like that's almost an afterthought
inside Amazon. So,
you know, on one hand, and that's a book
that I wrote about the company is called
Always Day One, right? And it's all
about how it reinvents and that's a good
thing, but on the other hand,
there it it can seem kind of amorphous
at time when you keep building new
products and new business lines. So, I'd
love to just get your sense as to like
what you think Amazon is today. Like
what what what is it? Because it does
have so many different uh tentacles and
so many different businesses. So, like
how would you even, you know, categorize
the business? Yeah, it's funny that you
said tentacles because I was saying to
someone the other day that I almost
think of Amazon as like an organism at
this point more than an organization,
you know, that it's like this it is very
amorphous and it it's it's I almost
think of it as an idea
more than any specific business. You
know, when I got there, it was I think
already the world's most famous retail
store. Um, but now it's just as like the
Prime offering is harder and harder to
categorize, you know, like sometimes I'm
like, what is Prime now? Prime used to
just mean twoday shipping and now it
means all kinds of things, but not
necessarily two-day shipping. Um, it's
hard for me to categorize Amazon, too. I
I think what they are attempting to do
and have been attempting to do is to
build an ecosystem that people can live
entirely within.
Right. So, when I think about Yeah. So
when you think about like what is Amazon
going to do next like when it's building
out a retail business you know it's
obvious it's like make shipping quicker
or you know uh you worked on for
instance making the packaging less
frustrating. So right um
what when you when I'm trying to get in
the mind of Amazon leadership what do
you think they're thinking of when they
think of okay this should be our next
step like how do they even think about
that when it is like you say an
organism.
Yeah, I think that so what I found in my
time at Amazon was that Amazon, you
know, senior leadership was always like
three steps ahead of me, you know, so
the drones for instance, like I found
out about the drones on 60 Minutes along
with everyone else. Um, that clearly
didn't happen. I think Amazon is moving
to a place where I do think they would
like to take over. I mean maybe not
intent in so many words but to be the
main delivery source for America you
know to be the mail system.
Um I I see it moving more and more that
kind of ops focused way. There seems to
be less and less attention to
the retail side of things in terms of
customers sort of figuring out what they
want. um and more and more on just well
we've got one of everything and we'll
get something to you very very quickly.
I mean when I think about like the the
the airplanes and the whole last mile
idea um it's all about Amazon closing
that gap between what you want and any
you know the time it takes you to get
it. So if I had to speculate I mean
that's kind of it. But I've been wrong a
lot about Amazon too. You know
where have you been wrong? um just in
everything I didn't see coming. You
know, I I never would have guessed um
something like Amazon Go was coming. Um
I'm not necessarily a futuristic
thinker. You know, I tend to live like
in the here and now. So, someone I
interviewed someone at Amazon once and
he said, "What will Amazon be doing in
20 years?" And I just said, "Well,
here's everything that wasn't happening
when I got to Amazon." There was no
Kindle. There was no web services. There
was no Prime. um streaming video didn't
exist. There was no phone. Remember the
phone? Um yes. I said basically all I
know is that it's something that I
probably haven't thought about and you
haven't thought about. Um
I was speculating at one point when I am
interviewed for Amazon Go. They couldn't
tell me what the job was until I had
accepted the job. So I had a whole list
of speculative possibilities and I was
like you know telea medicine, telesa
surgery, health insurance, banking um
they all in their way seemed equally
plausible to me
right and it is interesting because a
lot of this unpredictable energy came
from of course Jeff Bezos and the
systems that he designed to get ideas up
to leadership and also like
there was like when he was there at
least there seemed to be this world
class uh interest in greenlighting
things that were kind of zany and
ambitious and when we talk about the
future okay logistics might be one thing
but it is interesting like if that's the
the direction well they have a person
who
okay started in retail and Jasty running
the company but really grew up in the
cloud services business and you hear
about this from Wall Street folks and
from everybody watching the company that
AWS really is the future so um I I have
a two-parter for you on this one. First,
do you think that era of Amazon
inventing the future might actually be
tailing off given who they put in
charge? And B, um, and maybe that's fine
for the business. Um, it's a little
different from Bezos's vision, but it
might be fine. And B, I'm just kind of
curious now that we're getting into
Jasse, how would you assess his
leadership of the company, you know,
already, you know, a year plus in?
Yeah, it's interesting. I um was
thinking the other day that I wonder if
Jassie I mean I'm being kind of
facitious but sometimes I wonder if he
regrets becoming CEO of Amazon. Uh just
because his tenure has been so I mean
it's just been crazy you know historic
circumstances and just everything he's
facing. Um it's probably not the job he
thought he was walking into. Uh I I
don't know Jasse well. I worked much
more closely with Jeff Wilkey. I've met
Jasse a few times, had some exposure to
him. I think he's super smart. I
actually think he has more emotional
intelligence than well than Jeff did, or
at least that he's willing to show, you
know, more empathy.
But
I don't see that spark of almost manic
um inventiveness in him. you know, he
always struck me as more of like a
steady hand, you know, somebody who can
build but is not necessarily going to
come up with the next crazy idea. And
from everything I'm just hearing from
friends, um, it does seem like that that
era might be tailing off, which makes me
a little sad as someone who likes big
crazy ideas, but to your point, it might
be fine for the company. Um,
it's interesting because all these big
tech companies, they go through this
evolution, right? You have, you know,
Sundar coming in after the founders at
Google played that archetype. Tim Cook
has played that archetype at Apple. I
mean, you would, you could say that
Apple is Apple has definite
vulnerabilities, which we just talked
about on Friday on the show. Uh, but,
you know, they they're doing well.
Google's um Google's kind of
experiencing the downside of this right
now, which is that when you're not like
working on those zany ideas, you you do
open yourself up to disruption.
Yeah. And those zany ideas are what keep
people some people at the company. I
mean, I stayed at Amazon for so long
largely because I realized I had a taste
for working on things that sounded
crazy. Um, you know, I have friends who
stayed at the company and worked and
like saying things like, you know, re
making retail improvements for for 12
years, but I wanted to work on stuff
that sounded nuts. And there's a Amazon
draws those people. And if they don't
get to do that kind of thing, you know,
some of the downsides of working at the
company may become more apparent to
them.
But it could be the smart thing for the
company. What I'm concerned about is
that I see a lot of attention to brass
tax, you know, Andy Jassie sweet spot
kind of stuff, but like the shopping
experience is in my experience, it's
degrading. You know, the the product
pages are hard to navigate. There's more
and more kind of spam advertising
everywhere. I've had like the shipping
promise change between when I put
something in my cart and when I get to
checkout. Um, and so if they don't pay
attention to that kind of brass tax
thing, then I'm I'm worried because
customer trust is you don't get it back,
you know,
right? And this is this is a total
aside, not a total aside, but this is an
aside. The FTC just uh we're going to
talk about the FTC later, but they um
have brought uh uh some charges against
Amazon or some allegations that they
made it impossible to cancel Prime. And
I saw that
and I cancelceled Prime just to see what
the flow was like and okay apparently
it's been updated since this this ch
these charges came came out. So, okay,
there that's one thing. But, um,
I actually found it quite easy to
cancel. And my Prime just expired a
couple weeks ago, and I'm going to try
to see what life is like without it. And
it's kind of like for a while there,
especially during the pandemic, it
seemed like it was impossible to live
without Prime, right? But now, it's
like, okay, you just get your cart above
30 bucks and the shipping is going to be
free anyway. And it might take an extra
few days to get to you, but not that
long.
Well, and Prime shipping isn't what it
used to be. like I don't really know
anymore if I'm getting we'll have
something on our doorstep in two hours
sometimes and other times it'll take
many days. Um yeah, so I read that whole
well so much of that filing was redacted
the FTC document like a hilarious amount
was redacted but I read what I could.
Here is my take on it as someone who
worked there for a long time and worked
closely with UX designers.
Amazon is the rank and file are
genuinely customer obsessed. I heard
every day people talk about what's best
for customers in a completely nonsynical
way. Um really sincere. So the idea that
UX designers would be engaged in a
scheme to make it difficult to cancel
Prime would really surprise me. Amazon,
in my experience, was also vastly
underresourced when it came to designers
and UX writers. And I found confusing
navigation and confusing language all
over the website during my tenure that
mostly happened because they had, you
know, like coders or product managers
doing the design and writing because
there was nobody else to do it. So my
immediate thought when I read that
filing was this is is just lack of
resources and amateurs doing the work
and the FTC thinks it's villain. Um
and I still think there might be
something to that. Now that said, I also
kind of remembered there were
conversations apparently that have been
documented by the FTC about um leaders
saying, you know, we need to make this
hard.
Yeah.
Project like Death Star or some name
the customers motel sounds pretty uh
pretty straightforward on that front.
We'll see how that goes. But it is
interesting to see how like for instance
just the necessity of prime is shifting.
So that's something I think that's worth
keeping an eye on. Um, yeah, we're gonna
get to the culture and some of the other
deep stuff from your book, but I just
wanted to ask this one more question,
then we'll dive into it. So, you
mentioned you were familiar with Jeff
Wilkkey. You and I have actually talked
about this. So,
yeah. Yeah.
You know, it's kind of interesting. He
was the head of Worldwide Consumer.
Andy Jasse, you know, is gets the CEO
job. Wilkkey leaves right around the
same time. And it's interesting because,
you know, uh, Amazon built like crazy to
get get in front of the pandemic and try
to keep up with consumer demand and
almost maybe thinking that this was
potentially going to be behavior change
forever that people would just order
online and not really want to go to
stores. And it built that capacity, but
also overbuilt and sort of left it
itself in like a precarious logistics
and operational place. And
to get out of that, a leader like Wilky
seems like, you know, he would who ran
retail seems like he would be the right
CEO for Amazon. Yet, they
went with Jassie. And I'm kind of
curious, you know, now looking back, do
you think that that was the right
choice?
Yeah, it's it's hard to say. I think I
told you at the time I was like, I don't
know. Um, the circumstances have been so
bizarre that in some ways I kind of want
to see Jasse lead for another year
before I have a sense of it. I will say
I was really surprised that Jeff Wilkey
was not the successor. Um, in my mind he
was he would have been perfect. He had
all that
hardcore logistics and retail knowledge
and he also kind of got the soft stuff
in a way that very few Amazon leaders
did in my experience. Um, he sort of
understood why editorial mattered. He
understood why you didn't want to sound
stupid when talking to customers. He
kind of got all that. So, I was pretty
shocked. Um, and I think it's possible.
I think it's possible that
Jeff picked a CEO for a world that
doesn't really exist anymore. Um, I was
also surprised to learn just the other
day that Dave Clark had been in the
running. I had somehow Yeah, I had not
really thought about that. And so, was
it Flexport that he just left?
Yeah, he just left Flexport. I have
questions for you about that, by the
way. But yeah,
that is it's fascinating. Um, but so in
the stories about Flexport, people said,
"Oh, and he it was painted as it really
being a contest between Jasse and Clark,
not Jasse and Wilky." And that really
that caught me by surprise. I never
would have thought of Dave Clark as
being um, you know, like an era parent
to lead all of Amazon, right? In my
exper the time I was there, I think he
was almost completely in ops and very
much like the ops guy
retail operations, right? And they
they called him the assassin.
Apparently, he would just mid-level
folks
on a whim.
Yeah. And they
common inside Amazon, I guess.
Yeah. Yeah. Just like
if it's that common in the culture for
this guy Dave Clark to get that
nickname. By the way, I've invited him
on the pod, so hopefully he comes on.
You really have to be very enthusiastic
about firing people to be called the
assassin inside.
Yeah. Yeah. The rumors were he would he
would hang out in warehouses and if
somebody wasn't working fast enough he
you know to his mind he would just fire
them which given everything we know
about warehouse expectations now like I
mean that's just Yeah. I mean it's not
nice.
It's not a happy story.
Yeah. Okay. So let's talk a little bit
about we we sort of just got into it a
bit but let's talk a little bit about
the culture and your experience inside
the company. There's so many things I
want to talk to you about uh regarding
this, but the first is that I think you
pretty clearly lay this out inside your
book that
now obviously and we're going to talk
about some of the positive parts of
Amazon culture, but
let's start with negative because it
does seem like there there's um it's a
culture of paranoia in some ways and
that that goes all the you know
everything from the leadership
principles, you know, it sort of
instills that in folks. Um, and it also
seems like uh tenure there and the way
that they compensate and the way that
they give feedback and the way that they
promote or don't promote this is it all
just breeds this culture of paranoia
inside inside the company. Can you
expand upon that? Did I read that right?
Like between the lines in in your book,
absolutely. I I think the company really
runs on fear. Um, everybody I knew at
Amazon was afraid,
you know, just to one degree or another.
And it may not be like daytoday. You
know, most of your your colleagues care
about you, your boss hopefully cares
about you, but there was really a sense
that the moment you stop producing for
Amazon, you're in jeopardy. Um, it's
been said, a woman I know, it was quoted
in the New York Times as saying, "It's
where overachievers go to feel bad about
themselves." And I was like, "Yes, that
is correct." It attracts people who are
used to just kicking ass at whatever
they do and overachieving and then makes
it impossible to overachieve. Like
you're never really good enough for
Amazon. Um, and so you're in this
environment where you're used to getting
positive feedback from people and you're
used to doing well and you're just
drowning and you never feel like you can
do well enough. And for me, that bred
just trying even harder for for many
years. I think that Amazon got a lot out
of me because I was so desperate to
prove that I was good enough. And I
think that is kind of what the company
runs on. I don't think Jeff Bezos sat
down and said, "What we should do is
terrify everybody and that's how we'll
become a great company." I think it's I
think he doesn't mind, you know, I think
he was okay with that, but I think that
it's it's actually worked well for
Amazon to a point. Um I do think that at
some point that you run out of people,
you know, you run out of people who are
willing to to do that. Um the tenure,
the average tenure is less than two
years. Now, it's hard to disentangle
that from the fact that Amazon hires
rapidly. So there may be times when it's
just that a lot of those people have
only been at the company for 18 months,
but when I left after 12 years, I was at
something like the 98th percentile for
tenure because most people just they
don't make it even to the point where
they own their entire signing bonus. Um
they just leave because it it turns them
into such like, you know, husks of their
former selves.
Yeah. I mean you had some amazing
anecdotes that you put in in the book.
Uh you were scheduled or you were
talking about the concept of promotion.
You go in for the meeting to talk about
what's necessary for the promotion after
having done seems like a great job and
the person who's on the other other side
of that conversation tells you to change
the world and then come back to them.
And then there was another case where
you're like moving divisions and you go
in, one person won't won't meet with you
or is out on in a different country or
whatever and then you go in just to say
thank you and then the person doesn't
even thank you back just says great.
Oh yeah.
Yeah. Just like okay bye. Yeah. I mean
there's very there's very little thank
you at Amazon. Um, and so the people who
do thank you end up seeming like like
living saints, you know, like I worked
for Steve Kessle who was the SVP who's
who started Kindle and he ran Amazon Go.
And Steve is a kind man. He's like a
decent kind guy. He doesn't walk on
water, but at Amazon just being like
this a nice man. He had incredible
loyalty because people were just so
grateful that somebody was being nice to
them. I remember thinking like the worst
thing is you just wouldn't want to
disappoint Steve because he would just
look sort of sad. And so I'd work even
harder for him because I just didn't
want to let him down. But that's very
rare. There's very little like sort of
human caring
especially at that level.
Why do you think that is?
Is it retail or just the retail business
or it must be something deeper? It
doesn't seem like this stuff happens
everywhere.
Yeah, I I mean I haven't worked at other
tech companies but it there may be a
little bit of it everywhere. I think
everybody is afraid at Amazon and I
think that even those executives um I'll
hear younger people say sometimes like
on Twitter, oh you know these fat cat
executives who don't actually do any
work. I can tell you at Amazon, these
people who are worth tens or scores of
millions of dollars are working insanely
hard. You know, they're emailing at 4 in
the morning and they're they're working
all night. These people are crazily
driven and
the ones I got close enough to to really
talk to them would admit to me like they
were scared and felt insecure all the
time. And so I think it's like even at
the highest levels, who knows, maybe
Jeff Bezos feels like this, I don't
know, but even at the highest levels, I
think people are just afraid. And that
sense of fear just trickles down.
There's no way to um I mean, I manage
teams, you know, and manage managers. I
worked very hard at not letting my fear
trickle down, and I'm sure it trickled
down anyway. So, it's just in it's in
the water.
I felt that there also wasn't much
tacked in the communication there. I
mean, having read your your a few
chapters about uh moments where
proposals that you made didn't exactly
go well. There was I think this uh
manager Mitch, was that his name? Sort
of addresses you down in the middle of a
a review of a a project proposal. Can
you I mean, it's a pretty scene. So, can
you can you share like what happened
there? Yeah, I had a proposal to make
over um the merchandiser role at Amazon.
So, kind of one of the main retail roles
and I had sold it to this other group of
VPs and SVPs including Jeff Wilkkey and
you know they had questions and quibbles
of course but were on board like great
work do this. I got thanked even and I
had to sell it to this other senior VP
and he read the proposal, kind of pushed
back his chair and we said, "Oh, so what
do you think?" And he said, "Well, it's
stupid."
And I said, "Oh, you know, like I've got
my game face on. Can you tell me more?
Can you give me more feedback? It's
stupid." And you know, we said, "Well,
we'd love to know more because you know,
like Jeff Wilkey and the other VPs were
really into it." They didn't read it. I
mean, it was just this kind of like
almost childish refusal to acknowledge
either that there was any benefit to the
proposal or that I was a person. Um, he
just said, "Well, they lied. They didn't
read it. If they said they liked it,
that was a lie." And eventually he ended
up calling me stupid. Um, which to me
was really crossing a line. like it's
bad enough to call a document stupid,
but um to call a person stupid is like
just avoid that, you know? That's my
business advice. And it was a shocking
experience to me because in my mind, the
job of a senior leader at a company like
that is largely to teach to teach, you
know, more junior leaders how to embody
the company's values. And to just sit
there and say, "Well, it's stupid and
you're stupid." like that just doesn't
do me any good. And at the end of the
meeting and I got to the point, you
know, never cry at work where like I
could not speak. I was just like if I
speak I'm absolutely going to cry. And
fortunately my boss was there and she
stepped in and he left the meeting just
kind of like thanks guys. Bye. Just
cheerfully as though nothing had
happened. And it was a formative event
for me. Like it was just seismic. And I
I've thought, will he read this book and
will he remember that? And I don't think
he'll remember it. I think if he reads
it and recognizes himself, he'll be
like, "Huh?" You know, I did I do that
because I think for certain
Yeah. You cried in the bathroom
afterwards, right?
Oh god. Yeah. I mean, I did a lot of
crying in bathrooms and cars at Amazon.
But I did. I did. I was um it was maybe
the hardest I've cried in my adult life,
which is a little pathetic because it
was it's just a job, you know, but my
sense of self-worth was so caught up in
that job. And I really felt like this is
it. This is my doom. Um I, you know, at
the at my worst moments at Amazon, I
didn't leave because I genuinely
believed I would be unemployable in the
outside world. Um, I was absolutely
convinced that no one would give me a
job because I was just that bad. And
that, you know, looking back, I'm like,
but I was doing really well. I mean,
Amazon doesn't keep people around in
senior roles for 12 years who aren't
they aren't happy with, but I I didn't
see it. And it was and a lot of it was
because of moments like that.
Yeah. By the way, I don't think it's
pathetic. I mean, it's a totally human
and natural reaction there. So,
yeah. Yeah, I mean crying is a
biological reaction to
emotion and and what I've realized about
myself and I think this is true for a
lot of women when I get angry um often
my default response is to cry
u versus really expressing the anger in
a different way and so yeah I think it's
totally natural
you you mentioned that you thought that
you'd be unemployable because you know
companies had for instance like said
we're not bringing Amazon people in
because they kind of came in hardened
and okay, I have their I've written a
couple notes down about some of these
companies. So, for instance,
Nordstrom uh would not hire Amazon
people because they had brought some
people in and just said, "Nope, that
won't work." And you mentioned that
Starbucks even tried to deprogram
Amazonians. Um why do you think
Amazonians can't succeed elsewhere
where there's notion
clearly something weird about it?
Yeah. Yeah. I with Starbucks, there was
this rumor that they actually had a
deprogramming
process for for Amazonians. Um Starbucks
was known as a really consensus driven
culture and people at Amazon would speak
about that with incredible contempt like
well they rely on consensus
and I actually late in my career at
Amazon Go we ended up hiring a bunch of
people from Starbucks corporate um
because they knew how to run you know
physical food stores and they were
great. I mean, they absolutely were more
consensed than we were, but they were
also really nice to work with and really
smart and really competent. So, it was a
good reminder that like, oh, no, this
can be very good. Um, Nordstrom hired I
mean I've known a bunch of people who
went to Nordstrom and there was
definitely a sense that I they had hired
several product managers who just came
in like bulls in a china shop, you know,
like like this is what we're going to do
now. Amazon's here to save you. And
Nordstrom is a, you know, it's a local
company. It's a familyrun company. I
think they were public and they went
private again. And it's very much like a
gentiel place that treats its employees
well, but it's a family company and they
did not want that. And so I remember
taking a head hunter call once and I
talked to Nordstrom about a role that
wasn't right for me, but I went out of
my way to sort of say to just address
that to say, I know there's rumors about
Amazon people and I just want to let you
know that I'm not like that. like you
can talk to people I've worked with like
I'm actually you know I'm direct but I'm
pleasant to work with and and the the
head hunter said you know I actually
really appreciate you bringing that up
because it's it's a concern and it makes
us reluctant to hire Amazonians. I think
that people when they bring in
Amazonians, they often do it because
they do want some of that Amazon DNA in
their company, but it doesn't mean they
want to be like waterboarded with it,
you know? Um, you you just arrive and
and change everything. It's more like
take some time, read the room.
It's a very particular way of working
inside Amazon. And I'm curious. I mean,
we won't speculate too much, but we
mentioned the Dave Clark thing at
Flexport. Again, he's the assassin
inside Amazon retail. He goes over to
run Flexport's logistics business. We've
had Ryan Peterson on the show, the now
returning CEO, the boomeranging CEO, if
you will,
right? He's a boomerang. Yeah.
And Clark brings in a lot of Amazon
people. And you can even see from the
comments uh underneath some of Ryan
Peterson's uh Twitter posts and and
posts elsewhere that that it was not a
pleasant experience for a lot of the
folks inside Flexport. So I am curious
like what your and there was plenty of
Amazon folks that came along with Clark.
So I'm curious like what your you know
from the outside what's your perspective
on why that potentially didn't work out.
Yeah, the whole thing was fascinating.
Um, and a friend of mine was telling me
the other day that he has heard there's
actually several hundred ex Amazon
people in Flexport, you know, here and
there. Um, I was really surprised, not
so much that Dave would go because I
think I've seen a lot of Amazon people
leave Amazon, go elsewhere, and then
either flame out or just not love it and
and leave of their own accord. um a lot
of you know jumping around a lot of
boomeranging back to Amazon. What I what
really surprised me was that they let so
many of his people go with him.
Um you know I worked with N Kabani back
when he was in Kindle. Um I thought N
was lovely. I loved working with him. He
was like an actual gentleman which is an
unusual thing at Amazon.
He was at Flexport also.
He was at Flexport. Yeah. I don't know.
Just let go. Yeah. He was one of like
the Darcy Henry who was I think head of
HR at Flexport was just let go. Um so
some some people that you know I didn't
know them super well but good people
like people that I
certainly did not find unpleasant to
work with. So that kind of like
bloodletting really surprised me and it
felt like oh it's not just Dave that
they're getting rid of because Ryan
Peterson wants to come back. They're
trying to get rid of a whole vibe. That
was my thought was like they just want
this Amazon vibe out of there. And that
to me was was fascinating because I'm
assuming that, you know, any huge ops
company, it's not like a warm and fuzzy
place. I mean, it's not Nordstrom.
Um I would assume they're pretty direct
and blunt to begin with. Right. Right.
Right. You know, so I thought, wow, like
what the hell was going on that it was
that bad? And yeah, I saw some
commentary on Twitter that was basically
like, "Oh, thank God our nightmare is
over." Um, yeah, I'm I'm very very
curious to to know more. I've been
trying to find out more. I was never so
close to the upside that I have like a
million people I can call up and ask,
but um, call me people if you've got any
dirt on that.
Maybe that's book number three for you.
Christy Coulter is here with us. Her
book is Exit Interview: The Life and
Death of My Ambitious Career. Despite
what we spoke about in this first half,
she still stayed 12 years. There's parts
of the culture that she admires, some
parts of the culture that I admire as
well. We'll talk about it right after
this. And we're back here on Big
Technology Podcast with Christy Coulter,
the author of Exit Interview: The Life
and Death of My Ambitious Career. Came
out this week and I just finished
reading it. I enjoyed it very much. Um
Christie, let's let's talk about why I
mean you stayed. So, you know, okay, you
you stayed to show I mean, you said in
the first half a little you gave us a
breadcrumb, right? Okay. you wanted to
show that you were capable of,
you know, surviving and thriving in that
culture. Clearly, you were. Um, you
stayed for longer than, you know, 98% of
the other employees when you were there.
Um,
but like I I'm just hearing some of
these stories and I read some of these
stories in the book and like
I'm just thinking, man, if I'm like in a
in a big meeting with an executive and
the person turns to me and calls me
stupid, I'm like giving my two weeks
notice right there and then. So, so what
made you stay? What good did you see
inside Amazon's culture that that you
appreciated?
Yeah, I think the biggest reason I
stayed, well, first of all, the money
cannot be overstated. Like, I came from
a small town in the, you know, Ann
Arbor, Michigan, where I was making, you
know, like $60,000 a year and living
quite well on it. End up in Seattle, the
stock price is going nuts. I was I was
overpaid for the market for a lot of my
time in Amazon. Um, but you know, it's
not it's not only money. I was never
bored a day in my life at Amazon. And I
think that's really what it comes down
to. I had gotten I had a very nice,
cozy, safe job in Michigan that I was
desperately bored at. I couldn't find
new things for myself to do. I kept
trying to get a find a new role and the
company wasn't big enough to accommodate
it. Amazon would push me as far as I
wanted to be pushed. Um, I got to write
my own job descriptions at Amazon a
couple of times. And when I would hit
the wall in one area, you know, just
burn out or get called stupid by my SVP
and decide to go, there'd be something
new. You know, I got to go work in
publishing at a high level. I got to
work on Amazon Go. You don't just find
this everywhere you look. And I found
that exhilarating. I mean, publishing,
which is an industry I know something
about, um, generally you have to start
when you're 21. you know, you start as
an editorial assistant, you have six
roommates. Um, I was 41 when I got a job
running a translation imprint at Amazon.
No one in the publishing world would
have done that for me, would have
trusted me with that kind of role,
probably for some good reasons, you
know, because I didn't have the domain
knowledge. But what Amazon taught me was
that if you were a critical thinker, if
you knew how to communicate, and if you
were willing to navigate a lot of
ambiguity,
your transferable skills can take you
further than you think, you know. So, I
was able to do these crazy things and
they were wellunded. I I remember coming
home and my husband who's in startup
land would talk about a friend's startup
going under and I would say, "Well, I
don't understand. Why don't they just
get more funding? and he look at me like
not everybody has Uncle Jeff, you know,
just writing checks because he believes
in your project. But but we did, you
know, he would just say, "Yeah, I mean,
change some things or do better, but
here's here's another $20 million." And
that's like a drug. I mean, that kind of
risktaking and excitement. You know, I
also have an addictive personality. I
write about the alcoholism that ran in
parallel to my Amazon career and I do
think it touched something in me like
there's there's something that those two
things have something in common that
wanting those dopamine hits of doing
crazy exciting things and wanting to
drink a lot. You know that
neurologically there's there's some
common ground. Um Amazon is also a place
where I was never the smartest person in
the room. Um, I don't want to be the
smartest person in any room. Like I want
someone there who I am learning from,
who I'm a little bit in awe of. And I
got that for 12 years. And that is
really hard to come by in the world.
This is a lot. So I just this is one of
the things that I um when I talk about
Amazon culture and the things that I
think are interesting in it like one of
the ways that I look at it is just like
the masle hierarchy of needs or like
subsistence is at the bottom and
self-actualization is at the top like
the the highest level of need that you
can satisfy um you know the top level
that pyramid is like basically
creating things and making the most of
yourself and I think that out of all the
companies all the big tech companies
that I cover Amazon has people closest
to the point of invention um more than
any other company and that seems to me
to be really an exhilarating thing.
Yeah, it's absolutely true and
especially early on in my time like when
I worked I worked on frustration free
packaging just at the launch point like
I literally came in two weeks before it
launched and took over the customer
experience but we were you know we made
this video to show how it worked that I
think we we got $200 for a rental video
camera and as an employee taped it we
found a couple of employees who didn't
mind being on camera to be the actors in
it And you know I who knows how many
tens of millions of people watched that
video. So at that time we were agile
enough and also poor and well not poor
but frugal enough that you could be
really close to the way you know to kind
of you were like in the room where it
happened just by being there. I remember
Jeff Wilkkey saying in a meeting around
that time, you know, this ship is going
to get to the point where it's too big
to turn around quickly and we need to be
prepared for that day. And I remember
thinking like, well, I don't know, we
still seem pretty agile. And I've since
realized like Jeff Wi is usually right.
And like of course he was right, you
know, and that ship even in my time got
to the point where, you know, to get the
VP review, you needed to move forward,
you'd have to reschedule a meeting six
times and it could get pushed out weeks
and um everything slowed down and there
were many more layers and you know, it's
not the kind of scrappy place it once
was. But I think that element is is
still there in smaller ways and I think
it's really thrilling for people who
want that kind of thrill.
What are some good operational things
that happen at Amazon that other
companies could put into play?
Uh I think the andon chord, do you know
about that? Um so the andon chord I I
taught Amazon leaders for a while and I
watched a speech of Jeff Bezos
introducing this about 50 times. So I
it's in my playing in my head right now.
Um, the Andine Accord came from the
Toyota Silk factory in Japan before
Toyota was a auto manufacturer. And
essentially, it means anyone in customer
service can pull this fake cord that
stops a product from being sold. So, the
famous example Jeff used was there was
the CS rep who kept noticing that this
table would get returned over and over
again because it was being scratched. It
was arriving scratched. and he asked her
like, "What do you think's going on?"
And she was like, "Oh, the packaging's
terrible." And he was like, "Wait a
second. We need to empower her to say
something." So, they invented this thing
called the Andon cord where she could
actually say, "I'm taking this down from
the detail page. We're going to make it
not orderable until we find out what's
going on." Wow.
Um, I think that's brilliant. And
everyone dreaded when it happened. You
know, I worked in retail in DVD retail
for a while and it would get pulled
because like the region coding was wrong
or something, but you know, you're your
managers are running around freaking out
because the DVD is not orderable. But
we're making sure that when customers do
order, they're getting what they want,
which is the most important thing. Um,
so that was that was one thing I thought
was brilliant. Um, Jeff also instilled
this notion of having tenants for a
project. Um, so you've probably heard
about this before. So basically a set of
like five to 10 like this we believe
principles about how we will approach
this. Those are a huge pain in the ass
to come up with and you can spend weeks
arguing about them. But once they're set
then you know which way you're going and
when something when you reach a fork in
the road and you're you don't agree on
what to do you go back to the tenants.
And I think I just think that's
brilliant. I think that I'd love to see
more companies think harder at the
outset about
what something should be like rather
than just dive in and start building.
And it's like how we should approach
this like this is what the product will
look like or if we hit a fork in the
road we will opt for Xway or what are
what exactly are these things? Yeah, it
could be like this is what the product
will look like or it could be like if we
if we ever have to decide between speed
and flexibility, we will opt for speed.
Oh, that's interesting.
Yeah, you decide in advance. They Amazon
also does these internal uh what they
call a working backwards document which
is an internal press release and FAQ.
Um, that's basically you write the press
release you want to be able to share
with the world someday and you write it
and write it and write it until you all
agree that this thing you want to build
is actually solving the right customer
problem. Um, I have spent months having
internal press releases reviewed
before we all agree that this is what we
want to build. And again, it's a huge
investment upfront. It can drive you
crazy. uh junior people are just in
shock when they go through this for the
first time or new people because it's so
unusual but it really forces thinking um
upfront which saves you thinking
downstream and then the last thing I
would say is having people read written
documents in a meeting rather than
having a PowerPoint culture um is great
it's a ton of work I do think it gets
abused some, but the first half of every
meeting is everyone sitting there and
reading the same words from the same
paper.
And so you're all on the same page.
Nobody's getting ahead of themselves. No
one's calling out something about that,
you know, is on slide 10, but you're on
slide three now. Um, I think it's great
and I I understand why more companies
don't do it because it's a huge time
suck, but I believe in it. I love how
when you recounted like being in
meetings with Jeff Bezos and he's
reviewing these documents. By the way, I
think the document is cool because just
you can like bring it to the highest
level of the company and they can read
it and be caught up and they don't need
to spend multiple meetings getting
filled in. But like
the mark of success of a page is when
Bezos reads it and like has no comments.
It's like page two, no comments.
All right, nailed that. Now move to
page.
Right? That's a victory. You're like,
yes, he had nothing to say. Because he's
not going to be like, I think page two
is great. Um, you just move on. Yeah.
So, this is a heretical question to ask
about Amazon, but I'm gonna ask it
anyway. Um,
well, anyway, we're not holding to them.
Um,
I like I like heretical questions.
So does Amazon.
Yeah. Is the focus on the customer
actually a good thing? I mean, the
obsessive f focus because what it's done
and Amazon has been sort of a forerunner
of this. It's helped create this
convenience economy that we have. And in
some ways it's so freaking cool. Like if
you're you know the ability to press
order and get something like within a
couple hours is is amazing. Um but you
know it just it also seems like people
have taken it for granted and we've just
set such a high standard for customer
service and you know customer experience
that like
you know it's not like people are any
happier. they just expect a higher level
of things and and you know I was
speaking with someone last week who
mentioned that they um that people have
become fragile because now something
goes a tiny bit not their way and they
absolutely lose their which he's
totally right about. So do you think
what do you think about just this you
know Amazon and society's you know this
insane focus on uh customer experiences
is it actually helping us get anywhere?
That's a really good question. I do
think even in my own life like if
something shows up a day late from
Amazon I am mad to a degree that is just
not proportional you know
and I'm not immune from this either
right I'm just like what is happening
you know and I'm like get over
they had robots in that warehouse what
the hell
right right like what are they doing and
then I think about the warehouses and
I'm like how don't don't get mad you
know it's going to make someone's life
measurably worse if you're mad um I do
think that we just and and part of this.
I mean, yeah, it's it's e-commerce in
general, but especially Amazon. You're
right that our expectations are so high
and we don't see the miracle of it. You
know, it's I don't often stop to think
this got to my I needed a whisk and I
ordered it and it's on my doorstep a day
later. It's kind of like with with air
travel. It's it's a miracle that we can
get on a plane and fly across the the
world, but like I don't think about that
when I'm on the plane. I'm usually just
like kind of disgruntled and wanting to
get out of this tube and and I do think
that Amazon has has had something to do
with that as well as like the very you
know liberal sort of return policies. I
mean they do have their limits. There
are people who are on like the bad list,
but really, you know, I think
wait, there's a blacklist if you return
stuff too much.
There I there's definitely like you get
flagged and there's like I think there's
special people who review things and I
don't know what the limit is, but yeah,
absolutely because I'm sure there's
people who do just crazy things um with
returns. But I Yeah, I do think and I
think we trust we've gotten so we trust
Amazon almost too much. like I I don't
trust Amazon for as many products as I
used to. It used to be that only like
high-end beauty products I would avoid
because I was like I don't want to spend
this if I'm not getting the active
ingredients, but now in the last couple
of years there's been enough like
halaloo over getting clearly substandard
products that aren't as represented. I
think that um you know there's a flood
of stuff coming in from China that's
been of concern and I'm so used to being
and we're all so used to be able to
trust that what we think we're getting
from Amazon is what's going to arrive
that I think it's it's coming back to
bite them kind of hard because we feel
betrayed in a in a way that's sort of
irrational but wait a minute why didn't
they keep me safe from this fraudulent
product and you know the they lost the a
lot.
Yeah. I think it's kind of like a
learned helplessness situation where
like these companies are educating
people to
Yeah. Anyway, all of us to be like this.
It's very interesting.
What's interesting is from the inside we
were so per you know from the inside you
also are hearing abuse all the time.
Um especially if you have one foot in
the literary world which I always did.
it was, you know, Amazon is they just
want to control the flow of information
in the world and, you know, like really
malevolent fantasies. And so when we
built Amazon Go, my mind was full of
every vicious fear people could have.
Um, you know, like what if they poison
our food? Um, Amazon doesn't want us to
cook at home anymore. And and we
prepared for all these eventualities. I
mean, I wrote FAQs for the the worst
scenarios.
None of it came to pass. It it was very
easy to forget that customers have
shopped in stores before. They are used
to having cameras in stores. They are
used to stores having security. So, none
of these things I thought they'd be
angry about turned out to be true. So,
it it kind of works both ways. You know,
Go is a pretty amazing uh product. I
guess you call it a product that Amazon
offers. just walk out shopping where you
can like pick what you want off the
shelves, walk out, it knows exactly what
you took. But Amazon's also been
shutting some ghost stores. I definitely
wanted to talk about to you about this
because this was actually a main part of
the Amazon chapter in my book. Um just
the creation of Go. It's very
fascinating. and they have um it seems
like they're moving from like a please
come shop at our just walk out store
with this technology to licensing that
technology and putting it into place
inside other Amazon stores like Whole
Foods. So I'm kind of curious, can you
give us like a quick update on the state
of Go and where we can expect that to
go?
Yeah, that was always the vision. So
when I worked on Go, it was just Amazon
branded convenience stores. It wasn't
even in um Amazon Fresh stores at the
time. It was just Amazon Go stores. And
that at the time was the the short-term
focus was like we want to get these into
airports. We want to get them into hotel
lobbies. Um it was about making a store
that you could almost just drop in a
prefab store. But the idea was always
that yeah, eventually you want people to
be able to go to Bloomingdales and buy
jeans this way. uh bookstores, Amazon
books, which of course no longer exists,
you know, um anything you want. The
trick at the time was that
uh the technology was very dependent on
uniformity. So a can of soup,
easy, you know, the shell with the
shelves, but like an apple, you would
have to figure out um are we doing this
by weight? For a while, we thought we'd
have to have human intervention for
fresh produce. Um, I was at an Amazon
fresh grocery store a few weeks ago. I
actually never been to one before and
they have seemed to figure that out. Um,
they had the pack the produce was
packaged kind of like it is at Trader
Joe's and I guess they've just figured
out even if these apples weigh different
things, we're going to charge you
the same. Either that or they figured
out some scale technology that's very
sophisticated. So, it seems like they
are now able to offer this much more
broadly. Um, which as someone who
doesn't love standing in line, like I'm
psyched. I'm into it. Yeah, it's pretty
awesome. Yeah.
Okay, last question for you. Wouldn't be
an Amazon podcast if we didn't ask Jeff
Bezos question.
What do you think about the evolution of
Jeff Bezos? You have some uh, you know,
very interesting interactions with him
in the book. Um, and including noting
towards the end of the book that the
Jeff Bezos that you met early on in your
tenure had become just like super
jacked,
arms and head bigger than he was when
you had first met him and now he has,
you know, this big yacht with
his partner carve carved into the front
of it. Um, so tell me a little bit from
like your perspective like how how do
you see the evolution of Bezos and uh
does he come back ever? Does he
boomerang? Ah,
yeah. It's fascinating. Like when I met
Jeff, you know, he was just this guy and
he would come and he ate pirates booty a
lot, you know, that like freeze-dried
low carb cheese thing. And he was
wearing his khakis and and everything.
And um I remember so Jeff has these
people called Shadows who are basically
his technical adviserss. It's you follow
them around and basically act as his
second brain. And there was a guy who
always was with Jeff in early meetings I
had with him and he never talked. He
just sat there and I remember thinking,
I bet that's his bodyguard, you know,
because the guy was kind of muscular and
I was like, that's got to be his
bodyguard. And like, no, he didn't have
bodyguards in meetings at that time. Um,
it was this guy named Jim Atkins who was
I think probably a senior VP in retail
now and he was Jeff's shadow. Um, by the
time I left Amazon, Jeff definitely had
there weren't bodyguards in the room
with him, but there were men sort of
hovering around, you know, in the
hallways outside. Um, lots more
security. I mean, he has four children.
I have to assume they faced incredible
risks, you know, um, in terms of
kidnapping and things like that. He was
super jacked. Um, he acted the same. it
it's very disarming because he kind of
is a goofy guy. He's really smart. He's
to me was always quite pleasant. Um, but
he's terrifying. I mean, it's it's
terrifying to be in the room with
somebody
with that much power and that much
money. And you can never stop thinking
this person could he can do anything he
wants. I mean, he virtually lives beyond
the law. Um, if you think about how we
treat oligarchs in this society, will he
boomerang back? Man, I thought about
that the other day for the first time
when I was thinking about how
bleaguered the company seems these days.
You know, I'm in Seattle, so I hear all
the the muttering about returning to
office and how much people hate it and
and the traffic is awful now. And um a
friend said, "It's not just day two at
Amazon, it's day five." Um which is
brutal. And this is a friend who's been
there for 15 years. I wouldn't put it
out of the realm of possibility. Um I
He's still on the board, of course. I
could see him coming back. I don't think
it's going to be like a Ryan Peterson
scenario where he comes back and is
like, "Get out of here, Andy Jasse, and
take your team with you." But I can
absolutely see him
deciding he wants to come back and
set some things right.
You know, I think he associates it
strongly enough with his legacy that he
and he's not he's patient, but he's not
infinitely patient. Um I I wouldn't be
surprised.
But yeah, I don't know. Like the yacht
thing is just hilarious to me because he
Jeff when people talk about stealth
wealth like that was always Jeff. Like
you knew he had an ungodly amount of
money but he looked normal,
right?
Um that's over.
I'm so embarrassed because I have a a
line in my book talking about how like
Bezos views life as you know basically
self-actualizing and not riding around
in a yacht and then basically book goes
out shortly afterwards he quits gets the
yacht. like a yacht that doesn't fit
under bridges. Like such a big yacht.
I'm I'm absolutely fascinated by all of
that. It's funny when his when his whole
scandal happened with the sexing and the
and the nude pictures or whatever. I I
honestly just thought it was kind of
sweet. I mean, first of all, as far as
sexing goes, like that was pretty mild,
you know. Um and and it was just I was
like, "This is very humanizing. This
guy's in love." Um so I had a very
strange reaction to it. I wasn't I
wasn't like horrified. I just thought,
"Oh, I wish I'd seen not literally seen
more of that, but but more of this kind
of guy with Yeah, exactly. Like this is
drifting just more of this kind of like
one of the pictures is just him in a
suit like oh he sent a picture of
himself in a suit to the woman he loves.
I was like this is he's human. This is
kind of sweet. I don't know. I I wish I
I wish I'd seen more. I wish Amazon had
had room for more of that that guy and
for all of us to be that kind of person
right
when I was there.
The book is Exit Interview: The Life and
Death of My Ambitious Career. You can
pick it up in bookstores and on Amazon
today. Um Christy Coulter, thank you so
much for joining us.
Thank you. It was a pleasure.
Great conversation. Thank you everybody
for listening. You heard a lot about
Christiey's time inside the company
here. If you pick up the book, you can
hear about when she quits. So, it's
worth reading to the end to get to that.
Uh, thanks everybody for listening.
Thank you Nate Guatne for handling the
audio. Uh, thank you LinkedIn for having
me as part of your podcast network.
We'll be back on Friday with Ron John
Roy. We're going to be talking about um
all the weeks news including the iPhone
15 launch and a little bit more on the
flexport reorganization and uh return of
Ryan Peterson. So, more to come on that.
I know Ranjan has been uh eagerly
waiting to talk about this and I can't
wait to discuss it with him. Thanks
again and we'll see you next time on Big
Technology Podcast.