Ethan Evans on Climbing the Corporate Ladder: Career Lessons From an Ex-Amazon VP

Ethan Evans was fired twice early in his career. He went on to become an Amazon vice president who, by his own count, helped build five or six billion-dollar businesses, including Prime Video, Prime Gaming and the Amazon App Store. In a candid conversation with Codie Sanchez on BigDeal, he lays out the framework he used to climb — how to work with your boss, get promoted, ask for money, and avoid burning out — along with what he learned watching Jeff Bezos up close.

This post condenses the episode. The advice, stories and figures are Evans's.

Politics Is Just People Trying to Get Ahead

Evans's first lesson is a reframe. What we call "corporate politics," he says, is mostly just other people trying to get what they need and want. If you're in their way, it's often not even personal — you're "accidental roadkill." The practical move is to understand other people's motives and, instead of resenting a colleague who seems to win with half your talent, ask why the company is rewarding what they do.

He also has a pet peeve about the word should. Thinking "my manager should be looking out for my career," he argues, hands your agency to someone else. His fix: replace every "should" with "How will I make sure that happens — and what will I do if it doesn't?"

A good boss, in his telling, is consistent and transparent — clear about how they judge you, and willing to stand behind you when a risk they encouraged goes wrong. The quickest test is whether talent is flowing toward that boss or away.

The Magic Loop

Evans's signature idea started almost by accident. In his first job, a new boss didn't understand the team's technology, so he offered to teach her. She took him under her wing and promoted him twice in two years. From that, he built what he calls the Magic Loop: build a collaborative relationship with your manager, find out what they need and help them get it, and then — once you've delivered — ask them to help you with your own goals, whether that's leadership, a new skill, a raise or a project.

It works partly because of reciprocity and partly because it's so rare. Evans says he has asked thousands of managers how often someone offers them help, and they all answer the same way: almost never, it makes an immediate impression, and they wish it happened more. Most employees bring their manager problems; be the one who takes a problem away. One engineer who worked this loop with Evans joined with four years of experience, was promoted three times over eight years, and now runs a 3,000-person global organization at a major bank.

Results, Visibility and Asking for More

When it comes to promotions, Evans is blunt: hard work isn't the differentiator, because lots of people work hard. Results are. Corporations exist to return money to shareholders, so the people who rise focus on work that turns into money — lowering costs, growing revenue, delighting customers. Companies, he says, will even promote people they don't like if the results are big enough.

But results only count if someone sees them. The most common line Evans hears is "I'll keep my head down and my hard work will be rewarded," which he calls "work hard and hope to be noticed" — and hope, he adds, is not a strategy. His simplest remedy is a weekly status report — a steady "here's what I got done" that quietly builds your reputation. The one trap: promising updates and then not sending them creates a broken expectation, which is worse than never offering. He also advises bringing your boss a recommendation rather than a bare choice, and, once trust is deep enough, making reversible calls yourself and keeping them informed.

On money, Evans cites a statistic that 70% of employees never ask for a raise, yet roughly 70% of those who ask get something. His script is to ask right after a win, lead with the value you've created and what more you'll deliver, and depersonalize the request by asking how much the company values your career rather than issuing an ultimatum. He also says people underestimate how much pay can flex at big companies: he once coached an employee to use a Meta offer as leverage and watched him go from about $300,000 to roughly three-quarters of a million dollars in a single jump.

Failing Bezos, and Delivering Hard Truths

Evans has two stories about failing Jeff Bezos in public. In the first, he demoed an early version of Prime Video at an Amazon all-hands — and the movie played upside down in front of Bezos and the entire company. At the presenters' lunch afterward, Bezos asked him to sit next to him and said only, "I'm not worried about this problem because clearly you are." The second, years later, was a launch that missed a press release; his boss, Paul Ryder, stepped in front of a senior executive and said the responsibility was his alone — a textbook "umbrella" manager, the opposite of a "funnel" manager who passes blame downhill.

Those experiences shaped how he gives feedback: in private, with unmistakable clarity, being "professionally firm while being personally warm." He likes to ask permission first — "Would you like some feedback?" — and is skeptical of "sandwich" feedback, because people hear the criticism but miss that they have to change. And he's clear about the true career killers: betrayal, making your boss look bad ("if you lose me money, I'm upset; if you make me look bad, I'm furious"), and anything that makes people distrust you as a person, from padding expenses to gossiping or trashing a former employer.

Burnout, Amazon's Engine and the Bezos Playbook

Evans's take on burnout surprised Sanchez: it's less about hard work and more about losing your vision — no longer knowing why you're working or where you're going. Amazon's small, autonomous "two-pizza teams" helped by letting people feel like mini-CEOs; his first Prime Video team was just seven people, and Bezos defended the structure even when it duplicated work, writing "2 > 0" on a whiteboard. Still, Evans warns that big companies will reward you for working yourself "right off a cliff," so set your own limits — and ask what you actually did last Tuesday morning to see how much work is wasted.

From Bezos, he took a handful of principles: be "strategically patient but tactically impatient"; build on what won't change, since customers will always want lower prices, more selection and more convenience; and focus on the customer rather than the competition. To find the truth in a large organization, Evans says, drill into the numbers and talk to people five or six levels down. Amazon swapped PowerPoint for six-page narratives read silently at the start of meetings, Bezos questioned every sentence by asking "Do I believe that?", and he spoke last so his opinion wouldn't shut down debate.

Conclusion

Asked for the single piece of advice he'd leave with listeners, Evans keeps it simple: know what you want, know where you're going, and work with your manager to get there. Build the relationship, make the deal — "I want to go here; how can I help you and you help me get there?" — and, in his experience, that almost always works.

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Originally published on BigDeal by Codie Sanchez. Watch the full episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JQUjpBf3Ig