Retired Amazon VP: How Corporate Politics Work And How To Win | Ethan Evans

Retired Amazon VP: How Corporate Politics Work And How To Win | Ethan Evans

March 30, 2026 · 2h 51m

About this episode

Ethan Evans, a former VP at Amazon, shares insights on corporate politics and management strategies.

Ethan Evans is a former VP at Amazon has seen pretty much every possible type of corporate politics. Now that he's retired, he could share everything he'd seen including stories about empire building, hidden politics, reorgs, senior promos and dealing with bad managers. 🔸 The keyboard I'm building: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ryanlpeterman/compose-simple-ergonomics-beautifully-done 𝗣𝗼𝗱𝗰𝗮𝘀𝘁 𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗸𝘀: • YouTube: https://youtu.be/6WaeGfLnRvc • Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-peterman-pod/id1777363835 • Transcript: https://www.developing.dev/p/amazon-vp-reveals-everything-hes 𝗧𝗶𝗺𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗺𝗽𝘀: 00:00 - Intro 2:33 - Empire Building 31:54 - Stealing scope 44:03 - Managing out via reorgs 51:01 - Bad managers and mutiny 01:01:43 - Political messaging 01:11:48 - Handling politically skilled operators 01:20:01 - Orgs trying to steal scope 01:30:26 - Handling difficult people from other orgs 01:36:19 - Handling weak managers 01:46:30 - Backchanneling 01:52:04 - Influence without authority 01:58:04 - Sexual harassment 02:00:49 - Skip overruling firing 02:05:39 - How to fire managers 02:11:31 - Leverage when people are getting fired 02:24:01 - How to…

People in this episode

Host: Ryan Peterman

Guest: Ethan Evans

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Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Amazon

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