Thread by @QuinnyPig

And now I join #amazoncareerday because they invited me. This is going to be glorious for someone.

So far the application process sounds like more work than the last full time job I had.

"Let's start by addressing the elephant in the room." Amazon's turnover? Comp issues? The non-compete agreements?

No, the pandemic apparently.

"We have tens of thousands of jobs available to you today."

No comment yet as to how many of them are backfill.

"Research shows that over 25% of workers are looking to change jobs." The statistic might be higher if they ran the survey internally.

"Next up is a talk with David Epstein about why being a generalist is a great strategy."

Disagree. Breadth is great, but you want to pair it with significant depth in one or two areas. The Expert makes significantly more than The Generalist, provided the deep area is in demand

Ah, okay: he's talking about specializing too early vs. later in your career. I think I agree with that. Tech may be different in this regard, but I'll defer to him; he's a legitimate expert here and I'm a loudmouth on Twitter.

(I am woefully unqualified to be either a VC or Nate Silver.)

Now talking about Star Wars or something, since only the Sith deal in absolutes.

"Next up is a chat with @ajassy" who looks nothing like I remember.

Oh, that guy works at LinkedIn. This is @ajassy here to answer questions about the future of work from a guy working at a company that hasn't meaningfully changed their product in a decade.

Wow. @ajassy is talking about wanting to be a sportscaster when he was younger (22). I envy people who have that kind of clear goal, even if they deviate from them to do something else. At that age I had no clue what I wanted to be when I grew up. I still don't.

He left and started his own business for a brief time. Uh... this wasn't in any bio I've ever seen of him. It's time for an Andy Jassy biography!

Now talking about he was inspired by his dad. I really like this "show the human side" of folks who generally are only framed in the context of their work.

Now talking about college degrees. I don't have one, for clarity.

"A degree is helpful. It's not necessary, but it helps." --@ajassy

I would add "have a plan." Talk to people doing the thing you think you want to be doing in 5-10 years. Take *their* advice over mine or @ajassy's. Do at least as much research for a five or six figure degree as you would a new laptop, y'know?

"I spend most of my time at work on the union..." Pause. "of racial inequality and..."

Masterful trolling of internal comms folks by @ajassy. They'll start breathing again momentarily.

And thus ends his segment. I have a meeting to attend now, but it's funnier to say that I realized I'm not a culture fit and opted out of continuing to pursue career opportunities at Amazon.

If you're attending #amazoncareerday, I will say: you could easily do worse.

Some of the most impressive people I've ever met work at Amazon. We can sit here and quibble about a whole bunch of things, and no company is perfect – but if I were starting my career today they'd be in my top three picks.