Working With Jeff Bezos, Navigating Sexism at Amazon, Growing Confidence, and Getting Sober at 43 With Exit Interview’s Kristi Coulter

It Gets Late Early: Career Tips for Tech Employees in Midlife and Beyond

Ever wondered what it's like to work at Amazon? I mean, if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere, just like New York, right? It feels like after you’ve done time at Amazon, your meal ticket is punched, and you’ll have a cascade of job offers and great opportunities thereafter. But would you give your soul in exchange for a career at Amazon?

In this episode, I have Kristi Coulter, a brilliant author who wrote the book Exit Interview. She's also a writing professor and an editorial coach, so she helps people get their books into the world.

Exit Interview is about Kristi's experience of 12 years at Amazon corporate. It is an incisive, hilarious book, and as a woman reading it, I felt it was so needed in the literary world. We needed someone to voice what was happening on the inside in corporate employment.

We get into the sexism and double standards she faced, her tumultuous attempts to advance up the Amazon career ladder, her relationship with ambition, her sobriety journey, and how she has both learned - and proven - that it is never too late to change in life. She also recounts how Amazon - and specifically, Jeff Bezos - responded to the famous New York Times expose of Amazon by Jodi Kantor (who also broke the Harvey Weinstein abuse scandal). You definitely don’t want to miss that story.

And by the way, the brutal culture Kristi experienced at work is not unique to Amazon, but is something people from many in tech can relate to, so I found it cathartic to read.

So, if you’re wondering, "Oh, Amazon, what's it like there?" join us as we peel back the mystique and aura of Amazon. Don’t worry, we’ll get some solid and entertaining Jeff Bezos anecdotes up in there.

"I know there's this myth that people who make that kind of money aren't really working. But I could tell you, at Amazon, those people were working insanely hard. Like so hard that I would think, ‘you know, you're worth tens of millions of dollars, why are you answering emails on Sunday night? … Why don't you go on more vacations?’"

- Kristi Coulter

In This Episode:

-Why Kristi wrote her book

-Climbing the corporate ladder at Amazon

-What was it like getting a job at Amazon as a 36-year-old woman?

-How do you react to a weird situation in the workplace?

-Living and working in a place where "drinking" is part of the culture

-Kristi's leadership example at a luxury retreat

-One more humorous interlude

-The New York Times article and the response from Jeff Bezos

-Does Jeff Bezos actually care about diversity and equity?

And much more.

Resources:

-Exit Interview: The Life and Death of My Ambitious Career by Kristi Coulter - https://www.amazon.com/Exit-Interview-Death-Ambitious-Career/dp/0374600902

-Inside Amazon: Wrestling Big Ideas in a Bruising Workplace - https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/2015/08/16/technology/inside-amazon-wrestling-big-ideas-in-a-bruising-workplace.html

-Jeff Bezos Responds To 'New York Times' Report On Amazon's Workplace - https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/latest-news/jeff-bezos-responds-to-new-york-times-report-on-amazons-workplace/

Connect with Kristi Coulter:

-Website: https://www.kristicoulter.com/

-Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kristicccoulter

-LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristicoulter

Connect with Maureen Clough:

-Instagram: @itgetslateearly - https://www.instagram.com/itgetslateearly/

-YouTube: @itgetslateearly - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGrHwk-y7ERaq7bCSjZYf1A?sub_confirmation=1

-Website: itgetslateearly.com - https://www.itgetslateearly.com/

-LinkedIn: @maureenwclough - https://www.linkedin.com/in/maureenwclough/

-Facebook: It Gets Late Early - https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100088694515585

This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy