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I got my first real job in '99 on the biz dev team at Amazon. Like most first jobs, it was a combination of hustle and luck. I had no idea Amazon (or later Facebook) would become what it is today, but I knew I wanted to work there. Here's how it happened:
In high school I thought I wanted a career in business, but my dad was a doctor, my mom a therapist, aunts/uncles physicians & lawyers. I had no role model in biz except my grandfather who owned a fleet of taxi cabs in NY. And my grandmother who always told me "work for yourself"
Harvard had no business major so I thought I would try economics. But after taking Econ 101 freshman year, I decided it wasn't for me (too theoretical and math heavy). Instead I studied Sociology and went down a path of learning about human behavior.
While in college I attended a personal growth seminar program called Life Mastery, and I went to work for this family business after graduation. I thought of this job as an extension of my sociology degree, but when I arrived I found myself more interested in the business itself.
I hopped to another small business where I landed a job in channel sales and discovered a passion for partnerships. I later applied to business school to pivot my career into a larger company with more career potential. Got rejected at Stanford, accept at UMichigan.
My grandmother's advice was calling me to start a business, but I wanted more experience and mentorship first. Amazon was the hottest start-up in the world, and I desperately wanted to work there. But they didn't recruit from Michigan...
I didn't have much of a network, but I worked every angle I could find. My parents' friends' daughter's boyfriend was a few years ahead of me in his career, I went to him for advice. When I learned one of his b-school classmates Andy Jassy was at Amazon, I asked for an intro.
Andy was a marketing manager at the time (now CEO of AWS). He agreed to meet me for 30 minutes and I flew to Seattle to see him over xmas break. He told me to come back in April to check on MBA internships. In the meantime, I kept working my network.
I told everyone I knew at Michigan that I wanted to work at Amazon. One day someone randomly mentioned that a UMichigan alum Ram Shriram had recently joined there as SVP of Biz Dev. Ding ding ding! I found his email address and sent Ram a cold email asking for an internship.
2 hours after I sent the email, Ram called me on the phone (I'll never forget that call). He said they had been talking about MBA internships that morning. I was already scheduled to interview with Andy Jassy's marketing team, and Ram invited me to meet with his team as well
Amazon was busting at the seams, some of my interviews took place in stairwells and sidewalks. I didn't ultimately get a job offer from the marketing team, but I did get one from Biz Dev. A month later I moved to Seattle with my wife and young child in tow.
3 weeks after I started my internship, my manager told me they were going to hire someone full-time for my role after I left, and he wanted to offer the job to me. I decided I would learn more by staying at Amazon than in a 2nd-year of b-school, and I dropped out to take the job.
When I told Ram I was dropping out of school to stay on full-time, he said "your parents will never forgive me." My parents were a bit disappointed, but they supported my decision and helped me and my young family get settled in Seattle.
Shortly after I accepted the full-time offer, a VP in the Biz Dev group pulled me aside to say how much he admired my courage, and we discussed someday starting a company together. 7 years later, Owen Van Natta joined Facebook as COO and recruited me to run Biz Dev.
I hustled for that summer job at Amazon, and it sent me down a fortuitous career path over the next 20 years. I learned from insanely smart people and got lucky again and again. I never did work for myself, but my grandmother inspired me to take risks and think like an owner.
