Ethan Evans is a writer, career coach, course instructor, and retired VP at Amazon. During his 15 years at Amazon, he helped invent Prime Video, Amazon Video, the Amazon Appstore, Prime Gaming (formerly Twitch Prime), and Twitch Commerce. Prior to Amazon, Ethan spent 12 years in technical leadership roles at several East Coast startups. He writes a newsletter, Level Up, which publishes candid career advice and has a growing community of ambitious professionals to connect with. Ethan also offers a range of Leadership Development Courses via live online classes and on-demand courses. In this episode, we discuss: • The Magic Loop framework: a five-step process to grow your career • A handful of reasons why people get stuck in their career growth • Advice on how to break out of a career plateau • How to cultivate inventiveness in your work • How to stand out in interviews • A personal story of failing Jeff Bezos and lessons learned • Contrarian opinions on the return-to-office movement and doing business on a handshake — Brought to you by Sidebar—Accelerate your career by surrounding yourself with extraordinary peers: https://www.sidebar.com/lenny?utm_source=lennys&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=waitlist&utm_content=accelerate | Sprig—Build a product people love: https://sprig.com/getstarted?utm_source=lenny&utm_medium=podcast | Arcade Software—Create effortlessly beautiful demos in minutes: https://arcade.software/lenny Find the transcript and references at: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/taking-control-of-your-career-ethan Where to find Ethan Evans: • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ethanevansvp/ • Substack: https://levelupwithethanevans.substack.com/ Where to find Lenny: • Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com • X: https://twitter.com/lennysan • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/ In this episode, we cover: (00:00) Ethan’s background (04:25) The Magic Loop (08:31) The goal of the Magic Loop (10:59) Clarifications on the framework (12:46) Success stories (17:22) The importance and effectiveness of the Magic Loop (19:01) A quick summary of the steps in the Magic Loop (21:46) What if you’re not pursuing a promotion? (23:09) How to break out of a career plateau (28:52) How to become systematically inventive (36:04) Interview advice and how to stand out (40:43) A story of failing Jeff Bezos (50:31) Lessons learned from that failure (57:30) What Ethan would have done differently (01:00:35) Amazon’s leadership principles (01:08:52) Contrarian corner: Returning to the office vs. staying remote (01:10:39) Contrarian corner: Doing business on a handshake (01:11:52) Lightning round Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com. Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.