A former Amazon Vice President has claimed that a startup CEO he once worked with seduced his wife, leading to their divorce. Ethan Evans, who is based in Seattle, penned a lengthy post on his LinkedIn account, explaining how he handled “unethical leaders” and navigated “political snake pits” in the workplace. Notably, Evans wasn't referring to the Executive chairman of Amazon, Jeff Bezos.
In his LinkedIn post, Evans said, “A CEO that I worked for seduced my wife in direct retaliation for my pushback on him at work. He won. I got divorced and left the company. When I say I truly understand how some executive teams can be political snake pits, I trust you will believe me.” He then asked his readers to learn from his pain and explained how to do so in a few pointers.
He mentioned that when you have a good manager, lean in and take advantage of it. "Also, notice I say take advantage of “it”, not “them”. Don't become dishonest and take advantage of someone else for your benefit," he said.
I recognised early on that my CEO in the divorce story was unethical and dishonest, he added. "My mistake was letting fear of a tough economy convince me to try to stay in the job and "win" by pushing back. It cost me far more than I ever thought it could. Leave before the snake bites."
Evans then explained how to spot the "snakes". He asked his readers to ‘investigate the managers' pasts and added, “Talk to someone who used to work for them but is now safely away.”
“With the CEO I talk about, I had "spotted the snake" – my mistake was staying too long and getting bitten,” Evan continued.
Check out the post here:
Following this, in one of the pinned comments, Evans made it clear that his wife was also equally responsible for the act leading to conflicts in their marriage and added, “As a PS, I want to acknowledge that what this CEO did would not have worked if my then wife had not been open to his proposition. This, in turn, reflects that our marriage had problems. That said, I share this story because he openly acknowledged at the time that it was purposeful retribution for conflict at work. Our marriage may or may not have failed anyway, but it is the intentional action that is relevant to this story here.”
Evans then gave a detailed account in his Level Up newsletter, elaborating on his claims. The post created an uproar amongst his followers. One user wrote, “The snakes are good at hiding and biting. Hence my advice: if you encounter a seemingly incompetent person in a high position, run! Don’t fight! They will have skills that you don’t have (and probably don’t want to have).” ‘
Evans, too, acknowledged this and replied, “Exactly. I've realised I need to write a post on exactly this point and will do so soon.”
It is noteworthy that, according to Evans, the incident occurred 19 years ago, and based on his LinkedIn profile, he was working as the VP of Engineering at Lightningcast at that time. Now, his bio reveals that he is ‘teaching leaders to become true executives'.