Amazon CEO Andy Jassy has spent the past 28 years helping turn the e-commerce giant into one of the biggest companies on earth.
But the 57-year-old executive didn’t start his career with aspirations of being a high-powered CEO. In a May 15 podcast appearance on “How Leaders Lead with David Novak,” Jassy said he too often sees young people who think they should be entering the professional world knowing what they want to do with the rest of their lives.
“I have a 21-year-old son and a 24-year-old daughter, and one of the things I see with them and their peers is they all feel like they have to know what they want to do with their life at that age,” he said. “And I really don’t believe that’s true.”
Before Jassy landed at Amazon in 1997 at age 29, he tried his hand at sportscasting, sports production, product management and entrepreneurship, he said. On top of that, he spent time working at a retail golf store, coaching his high school soccer team and investment banking.
Even though many of those jobs didn’t work out as he might’ve hoped, the experiences helped him understand the type of career that he wanted — and didn’t want — to have, he said.
