Ethan Evans

Why don't we have a platform team, you know, and we'll make everything central and we'll organize it centrally.

And Jeff thought about it and thought about it.

And he wrote on the board a math equation, two is greater than zero.

And he said, I'd rather pay to get two of something because I find when I force people to collaborate too soon, they gridlock and argue about priorities.

And what I actually get is nothing.

And so I'd rather pay for two

then get zero.

And if we're so lucky as to get two working things, that's a first-class problem we'll deal with later, as opposed to trying to force central planning on this huge organization and getting nothing.

Burnout is less, it turns out, about hard work.

Although you can overwork to the point of physical exhaustion, it's more about losing your vision.

You no longer know why.

You no longer know where you're going.

The great thing about Amazon, as I mentioned, is we had lots of autonomy.

And so you could feel like, I know my mission, it's to build Amazon Video, Prime Video, or it's to build the gaming efforts.

And I'm in charge of my own destiny.

I'm a little bit of a mini CEO and people under me own their own pieces.

So I feel like I'm in control and sure, I'm working really hard, but I'm not laboring without reward or clarity.

And that's the bigger cause of burnout.

Now, I guess one thing I share with people, you do have to set your own boundaries, not just at Amazon, but anywhere.

It goes back to that corporations are driven by profit.