Welcome!
We write this newsletter is to help you grow fast, avoid mistakes, and make optimal career moves.
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 upgrade to a paid subscription, we hope you’ll join us.
Free subscribers have access to:
Occasional career growth guidance 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.
Paid subscribers receive all free content plus:
Full access to weekly articles and years of archive.
Access to our private Level Up Community (on Slack) of 1300+ members and 23 specialized career channels with active peer support.
The new and upgraded Ethan Evans AI for 24/7 personalized career coaching with voice conversation mode, cross-session memory, and proprietary executive coaching material.
Exclusive events (e.g. accountability groups, virtual networking, AI fundamentals club, AI reading club, peer mentoring).
Invitation to watch Ethan executive coach leaders and builders (and opportunity to apply for one free coaching session yourself).
Weekly weekend article with member-only resources and events.
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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
Over the past 15+ years, I’ve run $1B+ organizations in eCommerce, advertising, media, and marketplaces — led 40+ person teams, owned P&L, and managed $400M+ marketing budgets that delivered measurable growth and ROI.
At Amazon, Dentsu Aegis, and Universal McCann (IPG), I operated at global scale. Later, as a founding team member of a venture-backed software startup, I helped raise $8M in seed funding and built the go-to-market motion from zero to traction.
Today, I am the Cofounder & COO of Level Up, a career acceleration platform with 250,000+ followers. Alongside Ethan Evans (retired Amazon VP), we combine executive coaching, leadership courses, weekly newsletter, an engaged community, and custom AI GPT tools to help ambitious professionals grow faster, avoid mistakes, and make better career moves.
I also serve on the Harvard Business Review (HBR) advisory council and as a mentor at First Round Capital and 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)
Sponsorship Opportunities
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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.
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Connect with Jason (Ethan’s 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.
