Ex-Amazon VP Evans Reveals How He Captured Headcount From Slower Peers

Ryan Peterman

Corporate empire builders preserve power by rapidly filling open roles before company freezes take effect, redeploying staff from failed bets, and shipping imperfect products to defend resource claims.

AI-assisted summary of Amazon VP: How Jeff Bezos Caught Him Empire Building | Ethan Evans — original source. Check the original for full context.

Source published: 2026-10-10

Key ideas

Former Amazon VP Ethan Evans recalls being dressed down by Jeff Bezos for submitting an unvetted headcount proposal of 25 marketing and 5 PR personnel, prompting Bezos to institute a rule capping individual headcount requests at two to three people per bucket. (0:00)
Evans evolved a tranche-based headcount acquisition model, securing 100 headcount approvals released in batches of 20 contingent on rapid hiring and high-caliber execution. (3:40)
Merch by Amazon originated as a developer-retention tool against Apple and Google that failed its initial goal, but Evans saved the headcount by pivoting it into a consumer print-on-demand platform generating over $1 billion in annual sales. (3:40)
To prevent headcount clawbacks under Amazon's over-allocation hiring caps, Evans systematically captured 'loaned' requisitions from slower-hiring peers and permanently filled them before company-wide freezes took effect. (8:16)

Detailed notes

## Background Published on YouTube by Ryan Peterman on October 9, 2026, this video features former Amazon Vice President Ethan Evans discussing corporate power dynamics. According to the page description, the episode poses questions about common corporate political maneuvers that gradually delve into darker, more cutthroat territory.

## TL;DR Ethan Evans recounts being publicly disciplined by Jeff Bezos after submitting a bloated, unvetted headcount request during the launch of the Amazon Appstore, forcing him to learn the rigorous math of resource justification. He evolved this hard lesson into an aggressive organizational playbook, using tranche-based hiring and swift operational pivots—such as turning a failing developer swag initiative into the billion-dollar 'Merch by Amazon' business—to protect his headcounts. Evans explains how he routinely out-recruited slower peers, captured unused corporate requisitions, and redeployed talent across failing initiatives before leadership could claw back budgets. Ultimately, he argues that aggressive empire building and corporate land grabs are politically defensible only if teams outpace rivals by shipping tangible, revenue-generating software rather than chasing perfection.

## Atmosphere & style The discussion carries a remarkably candid, tactical, and unsentimental tone, feeling like an unvarnished masterclass in big-tech political survival. Evans speaks with pragmatic self-awareness, openly owning labels like 'slippery' and 'malicious' without offering hollow apologies for his cutthroat maneuvering. The narrative arc moves from early humiliation under Bezos's merciless red pen to calculated corporate mastery, giving listeners a gritty, behind-the-scenes look at how executive power is quietly seized and defended.

## Bulletin - [00:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--PRWL8FU8I&t=0s) Former Amazon VP Ethan Evans recalls being dressed down by Jeff Bezos for submitting an unvetted headcount proposal of 25 marketing and 5 PR personnel, prompting Bezos to institute a rule capping individual headcount requests at two to three people per bucket. - [03:40](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--PRWL8FU8I&t=220s) Evans evolved a tranche-based headcount acquisition model, securing 100 headcount approvals released in batches of 20 contingent on rapid hiring and high-caliber execution. - [03:40](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--PRWL8FU8I&t=220s) Merch by Amazon originated as a developer-retention tool against Apple and Google that failed its initial goal, but Evans saved the headcount by pivoting it into a consumer print-on-demand platform generating over $1 billion in annual sales. - [08:16](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--PRWL8FU8I&t=496s) To prevent headcount clawbacks under Amazon's over-allocation hiring caps, Evans systematically captured 'loaned' requisitions from slower-hiring peers and permanently filled them before company-wide freezes took effect.

## Key takeaways - [00:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--PRWL8FU8I&t=0s) Managers routinely rationalize empire building as visionary ambition because corporate headcount does not come out of their personal bank accounts. - [00:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--PRWL8FU8I&t=0s) Jeff Bezos shut down the Amazon Appstore's 30-person headcount proposal after two shallow answers, declaring he would not believe any subsequent figures without granular justifications. - [00:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--PRWL8FU8I&t=0s) Bezos enforced a rule limiting resource requests to two or three people per line item, personally reviewing and slashing proposals with a red pen before his executive team. - [03:40](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--PRWL8FU8I&t=220s) Sustainable empire building requires pitching concrete business ideas that senior leadership actively wants to fund due to clear financial or customer return. - [03:40](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--PRWL8FU8I&t=220s) Negotiating headcount in tranches—such as 100 total heads unlocked in groups of 20—reduces executive risk and establishes credibility through high hiring velocity. - [03:40](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--PRWL8FU8I&t=220s) Merch by Amazon was launched to provide physical merchandise for mobile game developers, but pivoted to consumer apparel and slogans when game studios showed little interest. - [03:40](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--PRWL8FU8I&t=220s) Pivoting failing initiatives toward emergent revenue streams prevents central leadership from clawing back team headcount. - [06:40](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--PRWL8FU8I&t=400s) Rather than returning headcount when an initiative failed, Evans immediately redeployed staff to double down on projects that were already succeeding. - [06:40](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--PRWL8FU8I&t=400s) Evans neutralized peer criticism of his aggressive resource maneuvering by delivering undeniable business results, corporate targets, and cold hard cash. - [08:16](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--PRWL8FU8I&t=496s) Amazon enforced hard budget caps by issuing more open requisitions than authorized hires, suddenly freezing and wiping out all unfilled requisitions once the corporate target was hit. - [08:16](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--PRWL8FU8I&t=496s) Engineering managers who treated recruiting as secondary routinely lost their open requisitions by year-end to managers who prioritized rapid hiring. - [10:02](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--PRWL8FU8I&t=602s) The 'ship has left the dock' strategy involves deploying projects and locking down assets so fast that leadership cannot easily recall the resources. - [10:02](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--PRWL8FU8I&t=602s) Evans exploited slow-moving peers by convincing leadership to 'loan' their lagging hiring quotas to his organization, permanently capturing the headcount. - [11:25](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--PRWL8FU8I&t=685s) Shipping imperfect, functional software in public provides far more political leverage and organizational defense than theoretical, multi-year plans that remain unseen.

## Detailed walkthrough ### [00:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--PRWL8FU8I&t=0s) "I Don't Believe Any of Your Numbers": Caught Empire Building by Jeff Bezos

When asked whether he engaged in corporate empire building during his rapid ascent to Vice President at Amazon, Ethan Evans candidly admits that he certainly did, noting that the human mind possesses an extraordinary ability to rationalize self-serving motives. In the moment, managers never tell themselves they are empire building; instead, they frame bloated staffing requests as visionary ambition: "With all these people I could do so much more. Man, I have all these great ideas. We've got a big backlog. If only I had 375 more people, imagine what we could do." Because headcount does not come directly out of the manager's personal bank account, the temptation is always to ask for the world.

That rationalization blew up dramatically when Ethan's team launched the Amazon Appstore. Operating on a lean original crew with zero dedicated marketing staff, Ethan and a fellow newer manager prepared their annual headcount review for Jeff Bezos. Spurred by their initial launch success, they walked into the executive review with an enormous wish list, including an arbitrary request for 25 marketing personnel and five PR leads under the loose logic that operating in five countries justified one dedicated PR person per country. The ask was driven by daydreaming and laziness rather than rigorous analysis. When Bezos began interrogating the proposal, asking what those 25 people would actually be doing all day, their vague responses ("Well, they're going to do marketing... that's why they're called marketing people") immediately unraveled.

Bezos tore into them without hesitation. After Ethan's team gave two consecutive shallow answers, Bezos cut the meeting short, bluntly declaring: "Okay, I don't believe any of your numbers from here on. I've asked you two questions. They were both nonsense. I'm not going to go through everything else. I don't believe any of it." He ordered them to return with a revised document where no single bucket could exceed two or three people, accompanied by an exhaustive, line-by-line breakdown of duties. In the follow-up meeting, seated in front of his entire senior leadership council, Bezos took out a literal red pen and grilled them publicly—approving two people here, zeroing out another line item, and reducing a team of five down to one. While brutal, Ethan acknowledges that Bezos was entirely justified: the team had let their eyes get bigger than their operational rigor.

- **The Initial Bloated Request:** A massive headcount package featuring 25 marketing personnel and 5 PR specialists (rationalized as one per launch country) without a concrete operational plan. - **The Bezos Rule of 2–3:** A strict mandate requiring Ethan to cap any single resource request at two or three people per line item, with granular justifications for each role. - **Executive Scrutiny:** Bezos systematically audited and slashed the revised proposal with a red pen in full view of his executive direct reports.

---

[03:40](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--PRWL8FU8I&t=220s) "Merch by Amazon" and Transforming Headcount into Cold, Hard Cash

After getting burned by Bezos, Ethan adapted his strategy. Legitimate, effective empire building was not about asking for phantom resources without regard for the broader organization's budget constraints; it was about pitching concrete growth ideas that leadership actively wanted to fund because of clear financial or customer return. To overcome executive hesitation regarding rapid scaling, Ethan developed a phased release model. He would tell leadership to reserve a block of 100 heads, releasing them in tranches of 20 on the condition that if his team failed to fill the initial 20 with high-caliber talent, the remaining tranches would be revoked. By aggressively filling those requisitions with top performers and translating that talent into tangible output, he earned the credibility to continuously pitch new ventures.

```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: Ethan Evans Headcount Strategy accDescr: Flowchart illustrating Ethan Evans method for securing, filling, and preserving headcount through tranches and project pivots.

subgraph Allocation ["Headcount Acquisition"] A["Pitch High-Growth Business Idea"] --> B["Agree on 100-Head Tranches"] B --> C["Unlock Headcount in Batches of 20"] end

subgraph Execution ["Execution & Pivoting"] C --> D{"Project Delivering?"} D -- "Yes" --> E["Expand Business & Deliver Cash"] D -- "No" --> F["Discover Unintended Demand (e.g., Slogans/Merch)"] F --> G["Pivot Entire Mandate to Monetize New Revenue"] end

subgraph Retention ["Headcount Defense"] G --> H["Redeploy Talent Before Leadership Notices"] H --> I["Deliver Undeniable Cold Hard Cash"] end ```

The quintessential example of this playbook occurred within the Amazon Appstore. Tasked with competing against entrenched ecosystem monopolies run by Apple and Google, Ethan’s team devised an unconventional strategy: physical merchandise. Realizing that Apple and Google did not manufacture physical goods, the team proposed operating as a dedicated merchandise and swag provider for mobile game developers, printing promotional T-shirts and coffee mugs to entice studios onto Amazon's platform. They formed a venture called Merch by Amazon. Senior executives were skeptical, asking why an app store organization was deploying staff to print T-shirts.

While mobile game makers showed little interest in custom merchandise, Ethan discovered a different, massive revenue stream: print-on-demand party T-shirts, political campaign apparel, and viral slogans. Recognizing where the actual money was, Ethan immediately abandoned the original app-store synergy hypothesis, pivoted the operation, and expanded the business line into a multi-million-dollar empire that eventually generated more than $1 billion in annual T-shirt sales before being spun out into its own corporate division.

- **Tranche-Based Headcount Negotiations:** Securing 100 headcount allocations by agreeing to unlock them in strict groups of 20 based on hiring velocity and quality. - **The Merch by Amazon Pivot:** Initiated as a developer-retention tool against iOS and Android, the project failed its initial goal but pivoted into print-on-demand consumer merchandise, scaling into a $1B+ annual business. - **Flexibility as Empire Preservation:** When the core theory fails, pivoting immediately toward emergent revenue streams prevents headcount clawbacks.

---

[06:40](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--PRWL8FU8I&t=400s) Redeploying Resources and Surviving Peer Skepticism

Ethan argues that surviving in senior leadership requires knowing how to shift capital and people the second a project tanks. Instead of reporting failure and volunteering headcount back to central leadership, Ethan took an aggressive approach: "That project tanked, but you know what? Great news. I've put those heads on this thing that's working and now it's going twice as fast." By constantly running multiple initiatives simultaneously, he could absorb failures by reallocating teams to double down on winning bets before anyone had the opportunity to reclaim the budget.

He readily admits that this tactic exposed him to peer criticism. When reflecting on whether he was truly an empire builder, Ethan acknowledges that former peers listening to his explanations might dismiss his rationale: "'Bullshit, Ethan. You were just really slippery.'" While he dislikes hearing that critique, Ethan maintains that his empire building produced undeniable, objective results. His ultimate defense was that he delivered massive value, hit corporate goals, and generated significant cold, hard cash for Amazon.

---

[08:16](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--PRWL8FU8I&t=496s) Defending Headcount: Playing Offense in Amazon's Hiring Race

When asked whether he ever had headcount clawed back by executive leadership, Ethan explains that during Amazon's hyper-growth era, pure clawbacks were rare, but protecting allocated roles required playing constant offense. Because he had already redeployed people from failing projects onto higher-priority initiatives, executives could not easily repossess roles without actively pulling people off high-performing, valuable work.

Ethan’s cardinal rule was never to leave open requisitions unfilled by year-end, which was leadership's primary target for clawbacks. Amazon frequently operated on a competitive "over-allocation" hiring mechanism:

By prioritizing recruiting as an operational imperative, Ethan filled every single one of his requisitions before the corporate freeze went into effect year after year. Slower engineering managers who focused exclusively on day-to-day project tasks found themselves stranded by November with open requisitions abruptly wiped out, losing their headcount allocations entirely.

[10:02](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--PRWL8FU8I&t=602s) Seizing Resources and the "Ship Has Left the Dock" Strategy

Ethan Evans explains that winning internal corporate competition requires aggressively seizing resources and creating situations where it is either impossible to push back or simply too late for anyone to undo what was done. He compares this maneuver to sailing a vessel out to sea: once the ship has cleared the harbor, nobody can easily recall it. Evans mastered the art of launching projects and locking down assets so quickly that by the time leadership or rival peers came around saying, "Hey, we needed that ship," his response was simply, "Well, I'll give it to you when I get back." By then, the debate was effectively over.

Admitting that this approach crossed into what could be called malicious empire building, Evans highlights that he deeply understood the mechanics of corporate headcount. Most managers move slowly, but Evans made sure his organization was always the first to interview, offer, and fill open roles. He became so adept at accelerating the talent pipeline that he even taught an internal class on how to hire quickly. Whenever upper management announced that there was no remaining headcount left to distribute for the fiscal year, Evans would exploit his peers' lethargy. He would point across the broader organization and argue that numerous competing teams were far behind on their hiring targets and unlikely to ever meet them. He would pitch leadership to "loan" those unused heads to his team instead. Knowing full well that those teams would never catch up, he permanently captured other people's headcount before they even realized what they had lost.

```mermaid flowchart LR accTitle: Headcount Capture Mechanism accDescr: Flowchart showing how Ethan Evans identified lagging teams, borrowed their headcount, hired fast, and locked down the resources. subgraph HeadcountCapture ["Headcount Capture"] A["Identify peers lagging on hiring"] --> B["Pitch leadership to loan unallocated heads"] B --> C["Rapid recruiting & instant hiring"] C --> D["Lock in headcount permanently"] end ```

[11:25](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--PRWL8FU8I&t=685s) Justifying Land Grabs Through Speed and Shipping Imperfect Software

This level of aggressive resource extraction only works if the team consistently delivers high performance. Evans emphasizes that he was never vulnerable to leaders asking why they should give him anything because his "shit's all broken." His teams unfailingly delivered on their core commitments. To maintain that momentum, however, Evans was unabashedly willing to hack solutions together and ship products that were undeniably raw.

His governing operating philosophy was that sustained velocity and visible progress trump perfection. If an initiative cannot be seen or touched by stakeholders, it simply does not exist. Evans preferred to release an imperfect product out into the wild and iterate in public over letting a project languish behind closed doors waiting to be polished. When peers questioned the flaws in his releases, his attitude was unapologetic: "Yeah, but it's there." That concrete existence gave him immense leverage against rivals who spent years perfecting vaporware, allowing him to shoot back at over-deliberative peers with a simple reality check: "Yeah, maybe their project's perfect. You know, they've been telling us that for two years. Where is it?"

- **Speed over polish:** Evans prioritized keeping the team moving fast at the front of the pack rather than getting bogged down in idealized roadmaps. - **Visible output as political defense:** A flawed product running in production protects an empire far better than an unseen, theoretical masterpiece.

## Notable quotes > [00:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--PRWL8FU8I&t=0s) With all these people I could do so much more. Man, I have all these great ideas. We've got a big backlog. If only I had 375 more people, imagine what we could do. — Ethan Evans

> [00:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--PRWL8FU8I&t=0s) Well, they're going to do marketing... that's why they're called marketing people — Ethan Evans

> [00:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--PRWL8FU8I&t=0s) Okay, I don't believe any of your numbers from here on. I've asked you two questions. They were both nonsense. I'm not going to go through everything else. I don't believe any of it. — Jeff Bezos

> [06:40](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--PRWL8FU8I&t=400s) That project tanked, but you know what? Great news. I've put those heads on this thing that's working and now it's going twice as fast. — Ethan Evans

> [06:40](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--PRWL8FU8I&t=400s) Bullshit, Ethan. You were just really slippery.

> [10:02](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--PRWL8FU8I&t=602s) Hey, we needed that ship

> [10:02](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--PRWL8FU8I&t=602s) Well, I'll give it to you when I get back. — Ethan Evans

> [11:25](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--PRWL8FU8I&t=685s) Yeah, but it's there. — Ethan Evans

> [11:25](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--PRWL8FU8I&t=685s) Yeah, maybe their project's perfect. You know, they've been telling us that for two years. Where is it? — Ethan Evans

## Mentioned Ethan Evans, Jeff Bezos, Ryan Peterman, Amazon, Amazon Appstore, Merch by Amazon, Apple, Google, iOS, Android

## Video description In this episode, I asked Ethan Evans (ex-Amazon VP) question about common situations in corporate politics but they get increasingly darker.

Watch the full conversation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhjhRRz3VJw

[Source](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--PRWL8FU8I)

中文简报

亚马逊前副总裁Evans揭秘如何从动作较慢的同僚手中争夺人员编制企业内部的“帝国缔造者”通过在公司冻结招聘前迅速填补空缺、重新调配失败业务的人员，以及交付不完美的产品来巩固资源归属，从而维持自身权力。 Ethan Evans回忆道，在推出Amazon Appstore期间，他因提交了一份臃肿且未经充分论证的人员编制申请而遭到Jeff Bezos的当众训斥，这迫使他掌握了严密的资源论证逻辑。他将这一深刻教训转化为一套极具进攻性的组织运作策略，通过分批招聘以及迅速的业务转型（例如将一项失败的开发者周边礼品项目转变为年销售额达数十亿美元的“Merch by Amazon”业务）来保住自己的人员编制。Evans解释称，他常常在招聘速度上胜过行动迟缓的同僚，抢占未使用的公司招聘配额，并在管理层收回预算之前将人才从失败的项目中重新调配。他最终认为，激进的“地盘争夺”和扩张只有在团队通过交付能够产生实际收入的软件而非盲目追求完美、从而跑赢竞争对手时，在组织政治上才具备立足之地。亚马逊前副总裁Ethan Evans回忆称，自己曾因提交一份未经充分审核的25名市场人员和5名公关人员编制申请而遭到Jeff Bezos的严厉训斥，促使Bezos立下规矩，将每个类别单次申请的人员编制上限限制为两到三人。 (0:00) Evans随后摸索出一种分批获取编制的模式，成功争取到100个编制指标，这些指标以20人为一批次释放，并视快速招聘与高质量执行情况而定。 (3:40) Merch by Amazon最初是用于对抗Apple和Google的开发者留存工具，尽管未能实现最初目标，但Evans将其转型为年销售额超10亿美元的消费者按需打印平台，从而保住了相关人员编制。 (3:40) 为了防止编制在亚马逊超额分配招聘上限下被收回，Evans有系统地从招聘较慢的同僚处争取“借调”指标，并在全公司冻结招聘生效前将岗位永久填补。 (8:16)

Reading summary

Former Amazon Vice President Ethan Evans explains how being publicly disciplined by Jeff Bezos for ungrounded staffing requests transformed his approach to internal empire building from bureaucratic daydreaming into an aggressive, results-driven resource strategy. Unsubstantiated Headcount Requests and Executive Scrutiny (0:00) During the launch of the Amazon Appstore, Ethan Evans and a fellow manager requested 25 marketing personnel and five public relations leads—arbitrarily rationalized as one PR specialist per launch country—without an operational plan. When Jeff Bezos pressed them on day-to-day duties, the team offered only shallow answers. Bezos abruptly terminated the review, stating that he did not believe any of their numbers, and instituted a rule capping any individual resource bucket at two or three people with granular duty breakdowns. In the follow-up review before his senior leadership council, Bezos systematically audited the proposal with a red pen, cutting, zeroing out, or heavily reducing line items. Evans acknowledges that Bezos was entirely justified, noting that managers frequently rationalize self-serving headcount expansions as visionary ambition because corporate staffing costs do not come out of their personal bank accounts. Tranche Allocations and the Merch Pivot (3:40) Following the Appstore review, Evans adapted his approach by tying resource requests directly to measurable financial returns. To overcome leadership hesitation, he implemented a tranche-based negotiation model, requesting blocks of 100 headcount that unlocked in strict batches of 20, contingent on filling each batch with high-caliber talent before the next could be accessed. Evans also demonstrated that preserving captured headcount required abandoning failed theories to chase emergent demand. His Appstore team created Merch by Amazon to entice mobile game developers away from Apple and Google with custom promotional goods. When game developers showed little interest, Evans identified high demand for consumer print-on-demand novelty, political, and party T-shirts. He rapidly pivoted the mandate, scaling the business into an operation that generated over $1 billion in annual T-shirt sales before spinning out into an independent division. Exploiting Amazon's Competitive Headcount Race (8:16) Evans protected and expanded his headcount by exploiting Amazon's internal resource mechanics. The company frequently operated on an over-allocation hiring model—such as issuing 1,500 open requisitions against a hard budget cap of 1,000 corporate hires—where all remaining requisitions were canceled the moment the overall cap was reached. By prioritizing recruiting as an operational imperative, Evans consistently filled his openings before the annual cutoff, leaving slower engineering peers with canceled requisitions. When central leadership announced that no unallocated headcount remained, Evans analyzed lagging peers who were behind on hiring targets. He persuaded executives to loan those unfillable requisitions to his pipeline, quickly hired talent, and permanently absorbed the roles. Evans compared this maneuver to a ship leaving the dock: once the hiring occurred and the asset was at sea, leadership and peers could not easily reverse the decision. Velocity and Raw Software as Defense (11:25) To prevent executive clawbacks, Evans practiced rapid internal talent redeployment. When a project failed, he shifted team members onto thriving initiatives to accelerate their progress before senior leaders could reclaim the budget. While Evans acknowledges that former peers viewed these maneuvers as slippery, he contends that consistently meeting corporate goals and generating cash provided an undeniable defense. This strategy depended on maintaining speed over technical polish. Evans favored shipping raw, imperfect software into production over letting projects languish in pursuit of idealized roadmaps. Visible, working software provided decisive political leverage against peers promoting unseen concepts, reinforcing the reality that deployed products protect organizational resources far better than polished theoretical plans. Evans acknowledges that his aggressive acquisition of headcount bordered on malicious corporate behavior, but he concludes that resource extraction is ultimately tolerated and defended only if a manager consistently delivers tangible velocity, operational results, and revenue.

Source quotes

[0:00] Ethan Evans: With all these people I could do so much more. Man, I have all these great ideas. We've got a big backlog. If only I had 375 more people, imagine what we could do. [0:00] Ethan Evans: Well, they're going to do marketing... that's why they're called marketing people [0:00] Jeff Bezos: Okay, I don't believe any of your numbers from here on. I've asked you two questions. They were both nonsense. I'm not going to go through everything else. I don't believe any of it. [6:40] Ethan Evans: That project tanked, but you know what? Great news. I've put those heads on this thing that's working and now it's going twice as fast. [6:40] Bullshit, Ethan. You were just really slippery. [10:02] Hey, we needed that ship [10:02] Ethan Evans: Well, I'll give it to you when I get back. [11:25] Ethan Evans: Yeah, but it's there. [11:25] Ethan Evans: Yeah, maybe their project's perfect. You know, they've been telling us that for two years. Where is it?

Original transcript

[0:00] darker hypothetical. [0:02] >> Here we go. [0:03] >> Well, so we talked about empire building [0:06] before. It's incentivized if you want to [0:08] grow as as a manager and you know my [0:12] question to you because you had so much [0:14] success as a VP. Did you do empire [0:17] building? [0:19] >> Yeah. So I mentioned earlier the human [0:21] mind is great at rationalizing. I think [0:24] in hindsight I for sure did some empire [0:26] building. But at the time you probably [0:28] don't tell yourself you're empire [0:29] building. What you tell yourself is with [0:31] all these people I could do so much [0:32] more. Right? You frame it as man I have [0:36] all these great ideas. We've got a big [0:37] backlog. If only I had 375 more people. [0:40] Imagine what we could do and it's not [0:42] your budget. So why not ask for it? So I [0:45] got totally burned on this. um when we [0:48] were growing Amazon's app store, we had [0:50] launched the store and we had our annual [0:52] meeting with Bezos and we said like [0:54] we've launched the store and we took him [0:55] this huge ask for all these people and I [0:59] remember like what stands out to me most [1:02] is I think we had nobody in marketing. [1:06] We had no dedicated marketers because we [1:08] had started this lean team. It was [1:10] something absurd like we need 25 [1:13] marketing people and it was gonna be [1:17] like this is not exactly right but it's [1:19] like we need five PR people and we had [1:22] these idea like oh we're operating in [1:24] five countries we need one PR person per [1:26] country so we had some justification in [1:29] our own minds but we were just asking [1:32] for everything under the sun like well [1:35] if we had all this I'm sure we could do [1:36] a lot and wouldn't it be great well Jeff [1:39] pore into us. He asked a couple [1:41] questions like, "What are these people [1:42] going to do?" And what are these people [1:43] going to do? What? No. What are they [1:44] actually going to do? And our answers [1:47] fell apart because we were just sort of [1:49] like, "Wow, they're going to do [1:50] marketing. That's why they're called [1:51] marketing people. We need, you know, we [1:52] need more marketing." And 25 is a good [1:54] number. And he he I remember very [1:58] distinctly he asked one question, we [2:00] gave a crappy answer. And he was like, [2:03] you could tell he's like, [2:05] so then a second later, he asked another [2:07] question and we gave another crappy [2:09] answer. And he's like, okay, I don't [2:13] believe any of your numbers for here on. [2:14] I've asked you two questions. They were [2:16] both nonsense. I'm not going to go [2:19] through everything else. I don't believe [2:20] any of it. Here's what you're gonna do. [2:22] go back and bring me a sheet where the [2:26] maximum size of any bucket of anything [2:29] you're asking for is two or three people [2:32] and it says exactly what they're going [2:34] to do and I will go through that line by [2:37] line and tell you what you can have. And [2:40] that's what he did. We went away and [2:41] came back with this line by line and he [2:44] went through it like two people for PR. [2:48] I can believe you need some PR, no one. [2:51] And he just like literally with a red [2:54] pin with all of his direct leaders [2:57] watching. No, you know, three, none, [3:00] two, okay, both for that, but I want [3:03] this, this, and just took us over the [3:06] coals. He wasn't wrong. He was actually [3:09] right. I was relatively newer. One of my [3:12] managers was newer. We had gotten big [3:15] eyes because we'd launched the project [3:17] and thought like, well, let's see what [3:18] we can do with this. Like, it's a good [3:20] project. let's see what they want to do. [3:22] And what we found out was not very much. [3:24] They want us to be lean. That was for [3:26] sure empire building. But I would say in [3:28] that case, it was driven out of laziness [3:31] as much as like this idea of I'll have a [3:33] huge team. Not that a huge team wasn't [3:35] also appealing, but we were just [3:37] daydreaming rather than thinking. When [3:40] people set out to really empire build, [3:44] they're either asking for people and [3:45] resources they don't really have any use [3:47] for or they're asking for stuff they do [3:51] need and what they're not doing is [3:53] worrying about what they're taking it [3:54] away from because the company only has [3:56] so many resources. So my job is to [3:59] advocate. The way I was successful [4:02] empire building later, if you want to [4:04] call it that, was coming up with new [4:06] ideas that the company wanted to invest [4:09] in. [4:10] We're going to do this. Look at the [4:11] money. We're going to do this. Look at [4:13] the customers. We're going to do this. [4:15] Well, that's a lot of growth, Ethan. [4:17] Like another challenge. You can't hire [4:18] all those people. And I'd be like, okay, [4:21] here's what let's do. You hold a hundred [4:23] heads for me and release them in groups [4:26] of 20. And if I don't fill the first 20, [4:28] I don't get the second 20. Well, I got [4:30] really good at filling heads and with [4:32] good people, by the way, not just [4:34] filling them. But I found ways to turn [4:38] my heads into performance. But then I [4:40] was very aggressive asking for more. [4:42] Like I've done this much. I've built [4:44] leaders who can do it. I want this. I [4:46] want that. That was me being the I want [4:48] guy. The the here's my proposal. Here's [4:50] my new idea. Um a story of empire [4:54] building sort of. [4:56] I ran the Amazon App Store team. We sold [4:59] apps. Our job was to build an app store [5:01] for the Kindle and for phones. [5:05] We had this idea. We were supposed to [5:06] compete with Google and Apple who own [5:08] their platforms. It was a very hard job. [5:11] And we were trying to figure out uh how [5:14] can we compete with Google and Apple. [5:16] What can we offer? They can't. And we [5:18] had this somewhat hairbrained idea of [5:21] well they can't ship physical goods. [5:23] We'll go to all the game makers and [5:24] offer to be their swag department. like [5:26] we'll make their t-shirts and their [5:28] coffee cups and whatever and we'll be [5:30] we'll tell them you should work with us [5:31] because we can help you with your merch. [5:34] So, we built this group called Merch by [5:36] Amazon and we started with printing [5:39] t-shirts. [5:40] Well, my leadership came to me and said, [5:43] "Why are you working on a t-shirt [5:44] printing project and you have people on [5:46] a t-shirt project from within the app [5:48] store?" I said, "Well, we have these [5:51] reasons." Well, the bottom line is [5:53] t-shirt printing didn't change the app [5:55] business, but Amazon now prints more [5:57] than a billion dollars of t-shirts a [5:59] year and we built a t-shirt business. [6:03] It was a matter of me fighting for it [6:04] and saying, "I have a theory and we have [6:07] the ability to do it and there's a [6:08] business model behind it." And then when [6:11] it turned out the business model, this [6:12] is the key, when it didn't work for what [6:14] I planned for, it was working to sell [6:18] like clever slogans and people's party [6:20] t-shirts and people's political [6:22] t-shirts. That was selling great. So, I [6:25] just pivoted right away and said, you [6:26] know, this isn't really about apps [6:28] anymore. It's about look at how many [6:29] t-shirts we can sell and how much money [6:31] we're making. And I just and that became [6:35] a new empire. Now, we spun that off and [6:37] it went elsewhere in the company. [6:40] Part of empire building [6:43] in a good way is being good at turning [6:45] things into money and being willing to [6:48] be flexible. My theory of why to make [6:51] print t-shirts was a total failure. It's [6:53] going to make game makers prioritize [6:56] putting their apps on Amazon's app [6:58] store. They didn't care. They like merch [7:00] was such a small thing to them. wasn't, [7:02] but we found other money and so we just [7:05] used it for other money and we kept it. [7:08] Another thing I've done before is I've [7:10] gotten heads for a project, that project [7:12] has tanked. I don't go and say, "Oh, [7:14] that project tanked. You should take the [7:15] heads back." I'm like, "That project [7:17] tanked, but you know what? Great news. [7:20] I've put those heads on this thing [7:21] that's working and now it's going twice [7:22] as fast." So you've got to always know [7:24] like where do you shift the resources [7:29] to where they're making money or [7:30] delivering results and if you're doing [7:33] several things if one thing fails you [7:35] just immediately put them on the other [7:36] thing and do it twice as well and they [7:39] don't take them away. I think it's [7:41] undeniable and this this doesn't look [7:44] good to me to say I was an empire [7:45] builder in ways. I the only defense I [7:48] have is I made it pay off for the [7:50] company to the goals the company wanted [7:52] andor in hard cold cash. Sometimes those [7:54] weren't the same. You know, I've talked [7:56] about rationalization. I've rationalized [7:58] it to myself where I feel like I [8:00] delivered value. Some other people [8:02] looking at listening to this, some of my [8:03] old peers will be like, "Bullshit, [8:05] Ethan. You were just really slippery." [8:08] I hate that idea that they might think [8:09] that. I would say, "Well, I did deliver [8:11] a lot of value, right? At least I made a [8:13] lot of money and you can't deny that." [8:16] So if you were empire building, is there [8:18] ever a case where they clawed back [8:20] headcount because maybe you didn't need [8:23] all of those headcount? And if so, how [8:26] do you defend against your headcount [8:28] getting, you know, clawed back? Amazon [8:31] didn't shrink much during the times I [8:33] was there. So pure clawbacks, [8:38] I don't think I faced too many, but as I [8:40] described, [8:42] that's because I was playing offense. [8:45] when something wasn't working, I was [8:47] upfront about it not working. And before [8:50] they could say, "Well, we could use [8:51] those elsewhere," I was talking about [8:52] what I had already done with them [8:54] because they were on my team. So, I [8:56] already had them assigned to something [8:57] else, something more valuable. So, they [8:59] would have to come and say like, "No, [9:01] no, you can't move them to that. We have [9:04] to take them back off of that." I'm [9:05] like, "Well, isn't that important? Look [9:07] at So, [9:09] I sort of prevented that by staying [9:11] ahead of it. I never left headcount open [9:14] at the end of the year because that was [9:16] their favorite thing to take back. [9:19] Amazon often did this thing where at the [9:22] beginning of the year, whatever, we'll [9:24] pick a random number that's too small. [9:27] But to illustrate, they would say, [9:29] "Okay, we have budget for a thousand [9:31] heads this year across the company. [9:34] We're gonna let people open 1,500 [9:37] and we'll see who fills them and we'll [9:39] cut it off when we get there." Well, I [9:42] put a lot of effort on hiring, so I I [9:44] played offense. My heads were all full [9:47] before the gate came down. And I did [9:49] that year after year. And other teams, [9:52] they would be like, "Oh, we were too [9:54] busy working and now it's November and [9:56] we haven't hired yet. What do you mean [9:57] we can't?" Like, sorry. What you're [10:01] talking about is any kind of resource [10:02] competition. You've got to think about [10:04] how do I seize those resources and make [10:06] my use of them something no one will [10:08] argue with or that it's too late to [10:10] argue with it. You know, there are some [10:13] things that like once the ship has left [10:15] the dock, it's gone. [10:18] I was very good at getting my ship out [10:20] to the ocean and by the time they're [10:22] like, "Hey, we uh we needed that ship." [10:25] You're like, "Well, I'll give it to you [10:26] when I get back." Like, it was too late. [10:29] And that that part of empire building [10:31] like if you want to say for a place I [10:33] was very maliciously empire building. I [10:36] knew that how headcount worked and I was [10:40] always the first to hire and fill my [10:42] team so much that I taught a class on [10:44] how to hire quickly [10:47] um because I knew others wouldn't do it [10:50] and that was my way to get people. That [10:52] was in fact another argument I made was [10:56] they'd say, "Oh, we don't have any [10:57] headcount left to give this year." And [10:59] I'd say, "Well, isn't there a bunch of [11:00] other teams not filling their [11:02] headcount?" Tell you what, they're [11:04] probably not going to get to it. Like, [11:05] let me hire a little head and, you know, [11:08] they're not going to get to it. And I [11:10] that was another story I told of like, [11:12] hey, across your whole org, like all [11:13] these other teams are behind. You have [11:15] headcount you can loan me that they're [11:17] not going to get to. And that was just [11:19] literally me like taking other people's [11:21] heads but knowing I could get away with [11:23] it. [11:25] Now I put them to good use. Remember I [11:28] talked earlier about you have to be a [11:29] good performer. My teams were always at [11:32] least delivering their stuff. And so it [11:35] wasn't like they were going to look at [11:36] me like why would we let you do [11:38] anything? Your shit's all broken. I [11:40] never had that accusation. I've shared [11:42] before though, I was very willing to [11:43] hack to get things out. And I probably [11:45] shipped some stuff that was too raw. [11:48] That was though, keep the speed moving, [11:51] keep in front, like don't get bogged [11:54] down in the perfect project. Like get it [11:57] out there and show progress and then [11:59] iterate is better than oh, but it's not [12:02] quite ready yet. I can't let it out yet. [12:04] That because if I can't see it, it's not [12:06] real. People could see my stuff and [12:08] they're like, it's got warts. And I'm [12:09] like, yeah, but it's there. It's [12:11] different as opposed to your thing that, [12:14] you know, if I ever pulled to like shoot [12:15] at somebody else, I'd be like, "Yeah, [12:17] maybe their project's perfect. You know, [12:18] they've been telling us that for two [12:20] years. Where is it?