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Andy Jassy was tapped to replace Jeff Bezos as Amazon CEO almost three years ago, after wearing various hats at the company for more than two decades. A few things set him — and his colleagues — apart when it came to climbing the ladder at the e-commerce giant and beyond, Jassy said.
One of his best pieces of career advice is to have a good attitude, Jassy told LinkedIn CEO Ryan Roslansky in an interview posted to the site last week. “I think an embarrassing amount of how well you do, particularly in your 20s, has to do with attitude,” he said.
Things like working hard, being more “can-do than naysaying,” doing what you say you’re going to do, and working well on a team tend to be overlooked, but people who do these things tend to attract advocates and mentors much more quickly, according to Jassy.
“Those things seem so simple, and there’s so many things you can’t control in your work life, but you can control your attitude,” he said. “People would be surprised how infrequently people have great attitudes. I think it makes a big difference.”
Another key piece of career advice Jassy offered is to be “an incredibly ravenous learner.” The CEO said that when he examines the career trajectories of people he began working with during the early stages of his career, much of where they are now has to do with “how great they were at learning” and not feeling threatened by learning.
Jassy joined Amazon as a marketing manager in 1997, straight out of Harvard Business School. After five years at the company, he became a “shadow” advisor to Jeff Bezos and sat in on the CEO’s meetings, including one-on-ones.
Despite being warned against taking on the role by several colleagues, Jassy realized he could try something different if it didn’t work out, but if it did, that it would be an “incredible experience.” When it came to taking on the CEO role, meanwhile, Jassy said that was “not a no-brainer.”
Prior to helming the company, Jassy founded and led Amazon Web Services starting in April 2016.
Since taking on the top position at the company, Jassy has led several efforts to cut costs and improve efficiency across its many divisions. This included sweeping layoffs over the past couple of years, including cutting hundreds of jobs at Amazon Web Services (AWS), Twitch, Audible, Buy with Prime, and Prime Video and MGM Studios. Since the end of 2022, Amazon has laid off more than 27,000 employees.
“At our best, we’re not just customer obsessed, but also inventive, thinking several years out, learning like crazy, scrappy, delivering quickly, and operating like the world’s biggest start-up,” Jassy wrote in his annual letter to shareholders last month.