Ethan Evans worked for Amazon for almost 16 years, starting as a senior manager in the digital video department back in 2005, before ending his career at the company as the Vice President of Prime Gaming in 2020.
Now he’s a career expert, teacher, and author of a newsletter who writes frequently about how to interact with management, stand out as an employee, and get ahead in your profession.
But before making it at Amazon and becoming a LinkedIn influencer with over 100,000 followers, Evans went through one particular career challenge that nobody would envy: a CEO he worked for seduced his wife.
According to a post Evans made on Thursday which he posted on both LinkedIn and X, the amorous advance was “in direct retaliation for my pushback on him at work.”
Evans deleted the post after it went viral on X, but it’s still up on LinkedIn as of Friday morning.
“He won,” Evans wrote. “I got divorced and left the company.”
“When I say I truly understand how some executive teams can be political snake pits, I trust you will believe me. Learn from my pain—do the following,” Evans continued before launching into familiar LinkedIn career fare, including advice to continue doing great work, to not confront “snakes” directly, and to make sure you spot those snakes before they sink their fangs in.
“With the CEO I talk about, I had ‘spotted the snake’—my mistake was staying too long and getting bitten,” Evans added.
Over on X, the post was fodder for a stream of jokes and riffs at the humor and absurdity of Evans admitting that his wife had cheated on him with his former CEO.
“telling the internet the ceo of your company fucked your wife is an insane play,” posted @blknoiz06.
“Lesson in there: either be the ceo or get fucked,” added @free_electron0.
There were also plenty of theories about who the CEO is, with some people speculating that it might be Jeff Bezos, or Amazon CEO Andy Jassy.
But that timeline doesn’t line up. In a comment on his LinkedIn post, Evans says that the post going viral means that the CEO and his ex-wife might see, and he might get asked why he’s disinterring “19 year old ugly history.”
According to Evans’ LinkedIn page, he was the VP of Engineering and Operations for Lightspace, Inc. at the time, which produces “interactive display surfaces using LEDs.” A couple of potential names are floating around on social media about who the CEO is, but the Daily Dot couldn’t independently confirm the story.
Evans didn’t immediately respond to questions about the incident and how he’s taking the response to it.
“This is going so viral on X, hope you don't regret sharing this,” posted one commenter on the LinkedIn post.
“Thanks for the warning. I do hope I don’t live to regret it, but since it’s what happened, so be it,” Evans replied. “My mission is to help others avoid some of my mistakes.”
One way to make sure you get ahead? In January Evans appeared on Lenny Rachitsky’s ‘Product | Growth | Career” podcast to share a saying he came up with at Amazon which he called “the most impactful thing I’ve ever written.”
The saying? “An owner never says that’s not my job.”
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