Welcome!

Ethan & Jason here. We write this newsletter is to help you make career breakthroughs with AI-proof leadership skills.

It is one of our ways of paying it forward and to help guide the next group of leaders.

Whether you sign up for free or join our Level Up Membership, we appreciate your engagement and will work hard to provide you with practical, insightful, (and sometimes fun) career advice.

Free subscribers get:

• Occasional newsletter article.

• Free download of Ethan’s “The Magic Loop: A framework for rapid career growth” (7 pages). Ethan used this framework as an IC, Senior Manager, Director, and Amazon VP to rise quickly and help direct reports rise in their careers.

• Free link to Jason’s networking question bank to run your own events and have interesting questions in your back pocket when you run into the CEO in the elevator.

Level Up Membership (paid subscription) gets you exclusive access:

Content & Programming

• Inside Executive Coaching your exclusive access to real client coaching questions and answers to be in the know on what other strong performers really struggle with and ask behind closed doors, examples:

  • The Promotion Tax Nobody Talks About

  • The Visibility Gap Holding You Back

  • Leaked Coaching Email: Become a Super IC in an Agentic World

  • I just got PIP’d (and I’m on a work visa)

  • How to Disagree with Executives Without Losing Trust

  • Strong Performer, but on the Low End of the Pay Band

  • Your First 60 Days After Inheriting a Bigger Team

  • “I Failed in My First Director Role. Can I Recover and Grow?”

  • “Am I Just a Loser?”

  • I Told My Client He Was Being a “B-Player”

• Quarterly AMAs (Ask Me Anything) with Ethan & Jason, example:

  • Career Questions Leaders Are Asking Right Now

• Archives (searchable database covering every common career challenge), examples:

  • 10 Ways to Work With Intense Executives

  • 15 Insider Negotiating Secrets for Higher Compensation

  • The Skills That Matter Most Right Now (And They’re Not What You Think)

Community

• Private Slack with 1300+ members and 23 specialized career channels with active peer support.

• Events (e.g. accountability groups, virtual networking, AI fundamentals club, AI reading club).

Product Perks

• Course discounts (highest discount offered for select courses).

• Ethan Evans AI (upgraded) for 24/7 personalized career coaching with voice conversation mode, cross-session memory, and proprietary executive coaching material.

Level Up Members get a monthly member-only newsletter with the latest events, news, and resources (example).

Become a Level Up Member today

Many members expense this newsletter to their Learning & Development budget, use this email template to send to your manager.

About us

Ethan Evans

In my 15+ years at Amazon, I led global teams of 800+ and invented well-known businesses and products such as Prime Video, Amazon Video, Amazon Appstore, Merch by Amazon, Prime Gaming (formerly Twitch Prime), and Twitch Commerce.

• Hold 70+ patents.

• Reviewed 10,000+ resumes, conducted 2,500+ interviews, and 1,000+ hires.

• Was an Amazon Bar Raiser and Bar Raiser Core Leader, responsible for training and maintaining Amazon's group of interview outcome facilitators.

• Helped advocate for and draft the Amazon Leadership Principle (LP) “Ownership” — the words, “They never say ‘that’s not my job.’” are mine (read the story).

I've promoted 8 reports from Senior Manager (Amazon L7) to Director (Amazon L8), contributed to 25+ Director promotions, hired 10+ Directors internally and externally, and drove the promotion of 3 engineers to Principal. Of my former reports, 2 are current Amazon VPs (L10) and 5 are C-Suite outside Amazon.

I retired from Amazon as a Vice President in September 2020.

Prior to Amazon, I spent 12 years at 3 startups.

Jason P. Yoong

Jason has run $1B+ organizations in eCommerce, advertising, media, and marketplaces — led 40+ person teams, owned P&L, managed $400M+ marketing budgets, and won multiple awards for driving measurable growth and ROI.

Operating leader at Amazon, Dentsu Aegis, and Universal McCann (IPG). Then, raised $8M seed as the founding team of a venture-backed software startup and built the go-to-market motion from zero to traction.

Today, Jason is the Co-Founder & COO of Level Up, a career success platform built to help ambitious professionals make career breakthroughs and become AI+ to win in the AI age. The platform spans a weekly newsletter, video podcast, paid membership community, leadership development courses, and custom AI GPTs for 24/7 executive coaching.

Jason also serves on the USC Asian Pacific Alumni Association Board of Directors, Harvard Business Review (HBR) advisory council, and as a mentor at Techstars.

Real results (from real people)

• “You got me promoted. Full stop.”

• "Your content helped me get promoted, thank you!”

• “I got a 100%+ comp increase because of the tactics you shared." It works.”

• “I made REAL connections in the Slack community.”

• “A leader in my org recommended your newsletter and he was right…it is gold.”

• "Ethan's writing has been instrumental in providing valuable tools and guidelines. His insights have been a guiding force as I strive towards my objective of becoming a VP (or possible CEO). Thank you for sharing your wisdom and contributing to my professional growth!"

Photos from Level Up Community meetups (virtual and in-person)

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Our readers are exec-track leaders, builders, and decision-makers — if your product helps people work smarter, scale faster, or lead better, this is your audience.

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Connect With Ethan & Jason

• Follow Ethan on LinkedIn.

• Get our career advice on YouTube.

• Connect with Jason (Co-Founder & COO) on LinkedIn.

• Learn more about our live online courses and on-demand courses.

• Contact us for corporate training, keynote speaking, guest writing, and more.

• Join our Level Up Slack Community of 1300+ members and 23 specialized career channels with active peer support.

• Reach out if you want to sponsor this newsletter trusted by leaders and builders scaling companies and careers across Fortune 500s, Big Tech / FAANG, and high-growth startups.