Career ‘Dark Spot’: Former Amazon VP’s Viral Confession Triggers Netizen Fury

New Delhi: In a viral post on X, a retired Amazon Vice President opened up about a "dark spot" in his career, when he unintentionally betrayed a junior. Though Ethan said it was a mistake, the internet is not in the mood to let it go.

He opened up about his oversight to urge others not to make the same mistake and to be more aware and accountable for their actions.

'I Screwed Over One of My Top Engineers…'

The incident reportedly occurred when Ethan started his 15-year journey with Amazon, in 2005, as a Senior Manager. An engineer, a new graduate, joined his team for a new project and instantly became the top performer.

The project had a tight deadline, and the engineer thought of striking a deal. "This is a great piece of negotiation, and I encourage you to strike similar deals with your managers when you can," wrote Ethan on X.

The engineer promised to do whatever was needed to ship the project if Ethan made sure he was promoted after the project. As anybody would expect, the engineer presumed that Ethan would follow through.

However, Ethan was new to Amazon, he had just joined from the startup world where promotions meant a new title and a raise with no formal procedure. He acknowledged in the post that at the time, he had no understanding of Amazon's promotion process.

Ethan had his startup promotion process embedded in his head and did not think the deal through. This ignorant mistake cost him a star employee. 

The deadline came and the product was shipped right around the time of Amazon's fall promotion cycle. The engineer kept his part of the deal but Ethan failed to get the engineer promoted in exchange.

This led to the engineer leaving Amazon while mentioning Ethan's failure to follow through on their deal as his reason.

Learning from his mistake, the retired VP gave three-pointers to future managers and employees.

Look at what to do and what not to do when you are a new manager, according to the Amazon VP:

"My mistakes cost my engineer his promotion and cost me a star team member. Fortunately, he has done very well at another large, famous company. I am glad my mistake did not get in the way of him having a successful career," wrote Ethan as an ending note in his post.

Internet's Not Happy With The Anecdote

Netizens think this would have been a completely avoidable situation if Ethan had been a little more aware of his role.

While apologies and acknowledgment of one's mistakes are often appreciated, Ethan's behavior of promising and not delivering while he was Senior Manager, was not bought by the internet. 
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