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Exit Interview: The Life and Death of My Ambitious Career
A candid, intensely funny memoir of ambition, gender, and a grueling decade inside Amazon, from the author of Nothing Good Can Come from This.
What would you sacrifice for your career? All your free time? Your sense of self-worth? Your sanity?
In 2006, Kristi Coulter left her cozy but dull job for a promising new position at the fast-growing Amazon, but she never expected the soul-crushing pressure that came with it.
In no time she finds the challenge and excitement she'd been craving―along with seven-day workweeks, lifeboat exercises, widespread burnout, and a culture driven largely by fear. But the chase, the visibility, and, let's face it, the stock options, proved intoxicating, and so, for twelve years, she stayed―until she no longer recognized the face in the mirror or the mission she'd signed up for.
Unsparing, absurd, and wickedly funny, Exit Interview is a rare journey inside the crucible that is Amazon. An intimate, surprisingly relatable look at the work life of a driven woman in a world that loves the idea of female ambition but balks at the reality.
What would you sacrifice for your career? All your free time? Your sense of self-worth? Your sanity?
In 2006, Kristi Coulter left her cozy but dull job for a promising new position at the fast-growing Amazon, but she never expected the soul-crushing pressure that came with it.
In no time she finds the challenge and excitement she'd been craving―along with seven-day workweeks, lifeboat exercises, widespread burnout, and a culture driven largely by fear. But the chase, the visibility, and, let's face it, the stock options, proved intoxicating, and so, for twelve years, she stayed―until she no longer recognized the face in the mirror or the mission she'd signed up for.
Unsparing, absurd, and wickedly funny, Exit Interview is a rare journey inside the crucible that is Amazon. An intimate, surprisingly relatable look at the work life of a driven woman in a world that loves the idea of female ambition but balks at the reality.
384 pages, Hardcover
Published September 12, 2023
716 people are currently reading
13833 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 907 reviews
May 27, 2023
I couldn’t put it down, in part because it’s so, so well written (in that kind of way that as a writer makes me think HOW and wish I could write like her), and in part because it’s similar enough to my own psychotic Lady In Business experience that it felt like if I were to stop reading before it resolved, I might spontaneously combust.
Just so well done. 10/10.
Just so well done. 10/10.
June 12, 2024
There are a number of excellent recent books that divulge the horrors of laboring at Amazon or large companies like it, but this one supplies an important and different perspective of a woman executive contending with boys’ club and glass ceiling issues, as well as Amazon’s/JB’s infamous lack of belief in the concept of “work/life balance,” as she spends seven critical years in Amazon’s middle management ranks as the company soars from online bookstore to whatever category of behemoth entity we can call it today. This book is refreshing in that there aren’t any single huge smoking guns or shocking reveals in it: it’s more just the subtly accumulating and indoctrinating, soul-crushing creep of the day to day banality of misogyny and microaggression, normalized severe overwork and perfectionism (as in elusively “superhuman” performance as a prerequisite for advancement), constant chaotic change, secrecy and compartmentalization, harsh or passive-aggressive “feedback,” and the overall strange, draining, insular cultish vibe of a megacorporation deadset on world domination despite human cost. Coulter is the exactly right author to chronicle this with her detailed diaristic style and dark humor. Incidentally, her memoir Nothing Good Can Come From This is my favorite addiction (alcohol abuse) memoir of all time, among many great contenders. She’s also great at reading her own works on audio. Highly recommend!
August 23, 2023
Wow, I knew I was in for some dark corporate experiences but this book took me to an unexpected dystopian level of corporate hell. It felt a bit like disaster voyeurism, peeking into the horrible career pitfalls and glass ceilings of the author. She is funny, whip-smart, and related able. I was rooting for her to make it out of the Minotaur maze that is Amazon corporate echelons. The narration is phenomenal! Readers who enjoy deep dives, feminism lite, corporate behind the scenes, book world, and struggle or redemption stories would love this book.
Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing this book in exchange for an honest review.
Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing this book in exchange for an honest review.
November 12, 2023
Right around the time Kristi Coulter was starting at Amazon, I was also a new transplant to Seattle. I remember being at a party and meeting Amazon employees for the first time. Two of them. Both devs. They told me, proudly, that they were "on 24-hour call" this weekend. I laughed. At that point, I (and probably most of the world) still associated being "on-call" with doctors. Firefighters. People who might be called into action to save lives. When I was like, "why?" They told me: in case something goes wrong with the website. All I could think was, "what? like somebody might NEED to buy Moby Dick at midnight on Saturday, and if they can't the world will end?"
I guess it seems naive now. But at the time, the idea that human lives (and 4o hour weeks) should be disrupted just so a few more books could be sold seemed absurd. Whether it should still seem absurd is probably a valid question.
Eighteen or so years later, I still live in Seattle. And nobody is more primed to hate Amazon (and both current and former Amazon employees) than people who live in Seattle. Every time I see the Spheres, I hate Amazon. Every time I'm in South Lake Union, I hate Amazon. Every time I have looked at real estate listings and thought about how I will never, ever be able to afford a house here, I hate Amazon. I also use Amazon. I buy socks and books and groceries and everyfuckingthing imaginable from Amazon. We get Amazon deliveries so often in my household, that we refer to them as Jeff deliveries. As in, "Oh, Jeff is going to drop by around 4 with the groceries - will you be home?" I hate Amazon. I depend on Amazon. Two sides of the same coin. All of which I mention because I went into this book very much expecting to dislike the author. To dislike and disdain her choice to work there, and to stay there, and be so inured to the suffering the company caused because of that fat paycheck.
To be clear: I DID do a lot of questioning of Coulter's choices. A lot of "really? and you STILL stayed?" But what I found, that I did not expect, was a much more universal and relatable story of what it means to be a women in a male-dominated workspace. And in all the ways she squeezed and shrank herself to fit the Amazon mold, I recognized the ways I have shrunk myself. The tightropes I have knowingly agreed to walk. The impossible, unwinnable games I have been told I have to play. And that I have watched so many of my insanely talented, intelligent, passionate female friends take part in as well. I know so many women who have to do their boss' job as well as their own, because of his incompetence. So many whose constant going above-and-beyond will never, ever been seen or acknowledged. Coulter put words to those feelings and those observations in a way that is sharp, witty, funny, and acutely painful. I didn't know how much I needed to see this part of my life experience reflected in the written word until I saw it on the page. This is a great book, and I've absolutely been recommending it to people.
But get it from your local library, because lord knows she doesn't need the money.
I guess it seems naive now. But at the time, the idea that human lives (and 4o hour weeks) should be disrupted just so a few more books could be sold seemed absurd. Whether it should still seem absurd is probably a valid question.
Eighteen or so years later, I still live in Seattle. And nobody is more primed to hate Amazon (and both current and former Amazon employees) than people who live in Seattle. Every time I see the Spheres, I hate Amazon. Every time I'm in South Lake Union, I hate Amazon. Every time I have looked at real estate listings and thought about how I will never, ever be able to afford a house here, I hate Amazon. I also use Amazon. I buy socks and books and groceries and everyfuckingthing imaginable from Amazon. We get Amazon deliveries so often in my household, that we refer to them as Jeff deliveries. As in, "Oh, Jeff is going to drop by around 4 with the groceries - will you be home?" I hate Amazon. I depend on Amazon. Two sides of the same coin. All of which I mention because I went into this book very much expecting to dislike the author. To dislike and disdain her choice to work there, and to stay there, and be so inured to the suffering the company caused because of that fat paycheck.
To be clear: I DID do a lot of questioning of Coulter's choices. A lot of "really? and you STILL stayed?" But what I found, that I did not expect, was a much more universal and relatable story of what it means to be a women in a male-dominated workspace. And in all the ways she squeezed and shrank herself to fit the Amazon mold, I recognized the ways I have shrunk myself. The tightropes I have knowingly agreed to walk. The impossible, unwinnable games I have been told I have to play. And that I have watched so many of my insanely talented, intelligent, passionate female friends take part in as well. I know so many women who have to do their boss' job as well as their own, because of his incompetence. So many whose constant going above-and-beyond will never, ever been seen or acknowledged. Coulter put words to those feelings and those observations in a way that is sharp, witty, funny, and acutely painful. I didn't know how much I needed to see this part of my life experience reflected in the written word until I saw it on the page. This is a great book, and I've absolutely been recommending it to people.
But get it from your local library, because lord knows she doesn't need the money.
March 2, 2024
Okay Boomer
Was going to be the entirety of my original review for this book, but there's a decent chance I can't attend book club next month and this compels me to write out some of my thoughts on this tone deaf, pointless, unfunny book so I can send it to my friends before the club if I'm absent.
I'm going to preface this by saying that I know that this is a memoir and not like a non-fiction journalistic text and a lot of my critiques are for the solipsistic perspective she presents in the book and that might be unfair. So maybe her hyper self-focused and meandering book that doesn't really make connections to greater trends or dig deeply into anything is a totally valid type of writing that people like and find fun, but I straight up do not understand the point of this book and did not find a single passage funny or relatable.
On another personal note, from 2016-2018 I worked at an e-commerce company with a toxic workplace in a supervisory position. I also spent almost three years at a Fortune 100 company that has systemic diversity and inequality issues (though, from what I understand, not to the extent that Amazon does). I don't know Kristi Coulter, but I have worked with women like her and that might also be negatively affecting my perception of this book for better (a lens of experience) or worse (internal biases). I have never worked at Amazon (though I do know someone who worked at Twitch and someone who was a warehouse worker) and am not trying to invalidate any of Coulter's experiences. I also don't follow the company closely or read a lot about Amazon, the stuff I mention is just stuff that I've happen to come by in research or talk in my current job which is HR and DEI adjacent.
So here are the reasons I think the book is bad actually:
The author has not fully mentally detoxed from Amazon
I think, maybe, that this book is supposed to be a story of a woman who escaped from Amazon, but clearly Kristi Coulter has not flushed the Amazon Kool-Aid from her system. It's like she thinks she's no longer a Kool-Aid woman because she doesn't smash through brick walls anymore but doesn't realize she's still wearing a yellow Hawaiian shirt and blue jean cutoffs. She consistently defends Amazon throughout the text, even when the critiques of the organization are right. Some examples: she repeatedly refers to Jeff Bezos as a genius even though he doesn't seem to actually produce anything of value and instead just stamps the work or ideas that others in his company come up with or get butt hurt about the algorithm suggesting he buy some lube; she claims Amazon pushed out independent book and music shops because it just has better customer service and is more innovative than brick and mortar and that they "didn't understand that change was coming no matter what and that they had a golden opportunity to help shape that change to wrangle emerging technology into something that would make them money"; and when she agrees to oust a manager popular with his team because he doesn't do exactly what corporate wants him to and creates more manageable workloads for his team and then paints herself as a tough no nonsense boss-bitch instead of a lackey to the toxic stack ranking system.
In the first chapter she notes that people don't believe that it's possible that she doesn't know about things going on in Amazon from employee abuses to misuses of AI in HR and that in a company that large it would be impossible for her to know. While some things, like the use of AI in employee termination were really well hidden until revealed by journalists and Amazon whistleblowers, other items she mentions are incredibly well known and commonly discussed in Seattle. I have some level of sympathy for the fact that her work schedule seemed so intense that she had bandwidth for little else, but I also don't think she is being honest about the level of intentional ignorance on her part to escape needing to confront her own complicity in the toxicity of Amazon as a workplace/company. Seriously, you couldn't listen to a podcast on your runs? When I worked at Disneyland most people I would meet from Disney Corporate were shocked when I would tell them that I and many of my coworkers in Parks Ops were in and out of homelessness due to Disney's unlivable wages and shady scheduling practices, and they were kept ignorant on purpose by Disney. The insane hours, constant re-orgs, cutthroat review system, lack of internal promotions, and departmental segregation are all there on purpose to keep you disconnected from what else Amazon is doing. This is also an example of what I mentioned earlier where the author just does not make connections to anything. She is confused as to why multiple people compare her to a "good German" or call her an Amhole and then complains about the hours, reorgs, reviews, and promotions but never seems to realize that these things are actually connected, and I think a huge part of that is because she seems to still genuinely believe Amazon is a mostly good company that just needs to solve their misogyny and workload problem.
Lack of critique of Amazon from a systemic level
Which leads me to point two, lack of critique of Amazon from a systemic level. At the end of the book, she has a fantasy about men at Amazon paying her to give them advice about how to fix the culture at Amazon: "Shut up about the pipeline. Keep the women who are already slogging it out beside you. Promote them. Pay them more than they ask for because they probably haven't asked for what they are worth". After over a decade with the company, is that really what you think Amazon needs to do to fix the culture? This is the most gaslight, gatekeep, girlboss book I have ever read. I genuinely think that if she had ended up getting the promotions she wanted she would've instead written a 2020s Amazon version of Lean In instead of a book that is even a little bit critical of sexism at Amazon.
Unless I missed something, it seems like Kristi Coulter thinks that the culture problems at Amazon would be mostly solved if we just taught men to be less sexist. Most of the parts of the book where she does criticize Amazon are a myriad of tales of men behaving badly and saying explicitly sexist things like, "women make poor executives because they have babies," or "we should spell it broccoli rape," and while those things are frustrating and would also make me want to scream, that does not seem to be the be-all-end-all reason as to why Amazon's workplace culture is toxic. But many of the things that are essential to Amazon's culture are what create the unequal workspace. Coulter often praises the way that Amazon "innovates" using data and large scale computing, but data and computer algorithms are not unbiased "facts", they are products that are created by people who create them using parameters based on their own worldview and biases. In fact, many recent reports around the use of AI in Amazon HR indicate that it's fairly likely that Coulter never got her promotion because the AI HR uses is highly sexist. But Coulter never interrogates how Amazon's reverence for data produced by large scale computing was part of the reason for her gender based discrimination at the company, and only talks about it in terms of how it innovates the user experience. She does criticize that element of the culture once, but only when it isn't "smart" enough to give her editors enough high quality self published books so that she can meet her quota. It causes a lack of faith in the text for me because it raises the question: how can Coulter be a reliable source about the culture at Amazon when she seems so blithely ignorant of their practices, the subsequent implications, and how they directly affect her?
Separation of misogyny from capitalism
But then again how can you have systemic insight or a feminist critique of Amazon culture if your feminism is only concerned with the most outrageous straightforward and overt misogyny? I think if this book was just supposed to be her wacky adventures at Amazon like idk a memoir version of The Office I think I would feel less frustrated with this book. However. it seems like this book is at least partially also trying to be some sort of critique or manifesto about sexism at Amazon, like if ChatGPT was given America Ferrara's speech in Barbie and instructed to write a girlboss memoir about Amazon with it.
There are multiple examples of this throughout the book, but a the best example of this is during the Amazon leadership training where men keep focusing on children as the reason that women are held back at the company. She is frustrated both because this is some hot bullshit, but also because she doesn't want kids, unlike those other women. She is frustrated several times throughout the text because of assumptions people make about her because of her gender, but the real issue is that people, regardless of gender, should be able to have children and rise in the ranks. The workload shouldn't be so intense that you have to choose one or the other, and if Amazon can't hire enough people so that employees of all levels can have a reasonable work life balance and maintain its profitability then it should scale down its operations, deconglomerate, or any number of other things. The view of the worker only as a productivity output machine and not as a human being is deeply tied to many of Coulter's gripes. You can also see this when she is advocating for one of the Kaitlyns to be hired while she is in charge of publishing. One of the other people in charge of hiring says that they don't want to hire her because she doesn't know how to perform a v lookup in Excel, which is not directly relevant to her job but relevant to the company overall. Coulter writes this off as a quirk of Amazon, but is it really? We live in an era where most jobs do little to nothing to train you how to do your job because training is expensive, people who work in learning and development are overwhelming women, and the work is considered a soft skill. Even though soft skills are in actuality the most difficult thing to train someone in, most organizations focus on hard skills (like Excel literacy), especially ones like Amazon whose staffing budget depends on high turn over and unregretted attrition rates, so culture fit and ability to gel within a team matters little. In addition to this, the constant reorg structure with no training means that people who have generalized hard skills in STEM and follow directions are the most desirable and as we know women, BIPOC, queer people, and people who grew up in poverty are the least likely to have advanced STEM literacy, especially in the first half of when this memoir was set. These are just some of the many ways that the financial structure of profit at Amazon affects diversity.
She doesn't really talk about any of the other isms that employees have spoken out about at Amazon from racism to ableism to classism to homo/transphobia. I understand that Coulter does not have any of those identities (unless you count alcoholism as disabled which is fair and valid to do) and I'm sure if she had addressed it, I would've hated it and it would've been cringey. Also representation and success of minorities is not and should not be seen as the end goal for enacting feminism at an institution. There have been many worker organized efforts at Amazon aligned with feminist values from warehouse employee unionization efforts to white collar workers organizing against selling facial recognition technology to ICE and other law enforcement agencies. That being said, the book just feels so lacking and entitled when a wealthy L7 manager who can afford to own two homes at once is uplifted as the voice that deserves to be published as the "book about misogyny at Amazon". Again maybe I'm criticizing this book too much on the vibe of its promos or for not being what I want it to be, but also what is the point of this book?
Inability to realize her own personal issues make her accept and perpetuate toxic behavior
I haven't read the author's previous book and it's possible that her book about her alcoholism and sobriety goes deeper into her psychological state and why she makes the decisions she makes. Maybe if I had read that book first I would have a different opinion about this book, but I didn't and I probably won't. Anyways she mentions her addiction briefly and not particularly with depth (like everything else in this book) multiple times throughout the middle and then mentions her journey to become sober briefly as well. While obviously it's super cool that she was able to get sober and no matter how much I hated this book I am rooting for her success in that regard, I don't feel like she really addresses how her addictive personality was used by Amazon to keep abusing her and using her as a tool to implement their toxic workplace policies.
At least based on the way this book is written, Kristi Coulter does not come off as a good manager to me. She reminds me of every manager I've had who pretends to be cool and trustworthy but is actually too invested in maintaining the structures of power within the organization to enact any real change or even stand up for her peers in any kind of meaningful way. Also the Karen-ness was off the charts in this book. Throughout the book there's this feeling of self-victimization and helplessness and she has some self-awareness of this with the ongoing discussion of being told to grow a spine but also being punished when she does speak out. However, she is at L7 out of 12 at this company, so a senior manager or director level. The overwhelming majority of interactions in this book take place between her and her superiors, but we know that she runs teams of a lot of people. I can't quite articulate it, but there is just something super white feminist-y to me about a book about being a woman at Amazon that focuses almost entirely on her mostly negative experiences with her superiors and doesn't focus on any sort of ability or attempt to build solidarity with her peers or to people to whom she is a superior. I'm not arguing that these people don't have an undue amount of say over her life, just that when the majority of things that are presented are scenarios where she is not in the position of power it erases the power that she does have and means there are little to no examinations of how she perpetuated this culture too.
Furthermore I feel like she is an insecure person and she needs constant and intense stimulation to keep herself distracted from whatever her inner demons are. She kind of but never quite really alludes to this throughout the book. She mentions multiple times that part of the draw for her is how "challenging" the work is and that she only feels like she is truly innovating or making a difference if she's constantly overstressed and that the pace of work at Amazon is this way because the work is so cutting edge in a competitive market, to the extent she calls women who do yoga "cowardly pussies". She gets so close to saying something at the end when she says, "They are not mean people, they are just doing what the organism wants. If the organization wanted employee to be sane and healthy the people would do things differently. [...] It feels as if every single on of us him [supervisor], me, superwomen like Calista, the scores of stolid men in the leadership program, even the omega alphas like Mitch were all in service to this one guy [...] all because nobody is willing to say when enough is enough. That this entire company is built on fear of being exposed as merely human." Which should be the thesis statement of this book, but is just kind of left there hanging with no further investigation into how this kind of system crops up, what keeps it maintained, or how it is or can be undermined.
Amazon is considered a leader by almost every industry. The way they do work and why their workspace is toxic is really important to examine since their practices often trickle down to other organizations. Sadly, I don't think this book is a good examination of this. Secondly, I'm not sure what this book is supposed to accomplish, maybe I'm just the wrong audience. There are so many people with insightful or important things to say about Amazon, why is Coulter's the voice we choose to platform? Overall, I'm glad that Kristi Coulter is no longer working in a corporate space, but it makes me sad that "feminism" is one of the most popular tags for this book.
I did a few hours worth of research rereading articles published at least two years before the publication of this book to make sure I didn't make any claims that weren't factual. Here's my sources if you are interested in reading more:
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/16/te...
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2...
https://jacobin.com/2021/12/amazon-hu...
https://www.businessinsider.com/amazo...
https://www.businessinsider.com/amazo...
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/busin...
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-509...
https://www.theguardian.com/technolog...
https://www.currentaffairs.org/2020/0...
https://www.currentaffairs.org/2020/1...
https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-c...
https://logicmag.io/commons/inside-th...
https://www.vox.com/recode/22407998/j...
https://www.vox.com/recode/2021/5/19/...
https://www.vox.com/recode/22524538/a...
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/washin...
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/topof...
I also used knowledge I acquired from the books Fulfillment: Winning and Losing in One-Click America by Alec MacGillis and Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men by Caroline Criado Pérez.
Was going to be the entirety of my original review for this book, but there's a decent chance I can't attend book club next month and this compels me to write out some of my thoughts on this tone deaf, pointless, unfunny book so I can send it to my friends before the club if I'm absent.
I'm going to preface this by saying that I know that this is a memoir and not like a non-fiction journalistic text and a lot of my critiques are for the solipsistic perspective she presents in the book and that might be unfair. So maybe her hyper self-focused and meandering book that doesn't really make connections to greater trends or dig deeply into anything is a totally valid type of writing that people like and find fun, but I straight up do not understand the point of this book and did not find a single passage funny or relatable.
On another personal note, from 2016-2018 I worked at an e-commerce company with a toxic workplace in a supervisory position. I also spent almost three years at a Fortune 100 company that has systemic diversity and inequality issues (though, from what I understand, not to the extent that Amazon does). I don't know Kristi Coulter, but I have worked with women like her and that might also be negatively affecting my perception of this book for better (a lens of experience) or worse (internal biases). I have never worked at Amazon (though I do know someone who worked at Twitch and someone who was a warehouse worker) and am not trying to invalidate any of Coulter's experiences. I also don't follow the company closely or read a lot about Amazon, the stuff I mention is just stuff that I've happen to come by in research or talk in my current job which is HR and DEI adjacent.
So here are the reasons I think the book is bad actually:
The author has not fully mentally detoxed from Amazon
I think, maybe, that this book is supposed to be a story of a woman who escaped from Amazon, but clearly Kristi Coulter has not flushed the Amazon Kool-Aid from her system. It's like she thinks she's no longer a Kool-Aid woman because she doesn't smash through brick walls anymore but doesn't realize she's still wearing a yellow Hawaiian shirt and blue jean cutoffs. She consistently defends Amazon throughout the text, even when the critiques of the organization are right. Some examples: she repeatedly refers to Jeff Bezos as a genius even though he doesn't seem to actually produce anything of value and instead just stamps the work or ideas that others in his company come up with or get butt hurt about the algorithm suggesting he buy some lube; she claims Amazon pushed out independent book and music shops because it just has better customer service and is more innovative than brick and mortar and that they "didn't understand that change was coming no matter what and that they had a golden opportunity to help shape that change to wrangle emerging technology into something that would make them money"; and when she agrees to oust a manager popular with his team because he doesn't do exactly what corporate wants him to and creates more manageable workloads for his team and then paints herself as a tough no nonsense boss-bitch instead of a lackey to the toxic stack ranking system.
In the first chapter she notes that people don't believe that it's possible that she doesn't know about things going on in Amazon from employee abuses to misuses of AI in HR and that in a company that large it would be impossible for her to know. While some things, like the use of AI in employee termination were really well hidden until revealed by journalists and Amazon whistleblowers, other items she mentions are incredibly well known and commonly discussed in Seattle. I have some level of sympathy for the fact that her work schedule seemed so intense that she had bandwidth for little else, but I also don't think she is being honest about the level of intentional ignorance on her part to escape needing to confront her own complicity in the toxicity of Amazon as a workplace/company. Seriously, you couldn't listen to a podcast on your runs? When I worked at Disneyland most people I would meet from Disney Corporate were shocked when I would tell them that I and many of my coworkers in Parks Ops were in and out of homelessness due to Disney's unlivable wages and shady scheduling practices, and they were kept ignorant on purpose by Disney. The insane hours, constant re-orgs, cutthroat review system, lack of internal promotions, and departmental segregation are all there on purpose to keep you disconnected from what else Amazon is doing. This is also an example of what I mentioned earlier where the author just does not make connections to anything. She is confused as to why multiple people compare her to a "good German" or call her an Amhole and then complains about the hours, reorgs, reviews, and promotions but never seems to realize that these things are actually connected, and I think a huge part of that is because she seems to still genuinely believe Amazon is a mostly good company that just needs to solve their misogyny and workload problem.
Lack of critique of Amazon from a systemic level
Which leads me to point two, lack of critique of Amazon from a systemic level. At the end of the book, she has a fantasy about men at Amazon paying her to give them advice about how to fix the culture at Amazon: "Shut up about the pipeline. Keep the women who are already slogging it out beside you. Promote them. Pay them more than they ask for because they probably haven't asked for what they are worth". After over a decade with the company, is that really what you think Amazon needs to do to fix the culture? This is the most gaslight, gatekeep, girlboss book I have ever read. I genuinely think that if she had ended up getting the promotions she wanted she would've instead written a 2020s Amazon version of Lean In instead of a book that is even a little bit critical of sexism at Amazon.
Unless I missed something, it seems like Kristi Coulter thinks that the culture problems at Amazon would be mostly solved if we just taught men to be less sexist. Most of the parts of the book where she does criticize Amazon are a myriad of tales of men behaving badly and saying explicitly sexist things like, "women make poor executives because they have babies," or "we should spell it broccoli rape," and while those things are frustrating and would also make me want to scream, that does not seem to be the be-all-end-all reason as to why Amazon's workplace culture is toxic. But many of the things that are essential to Amazon's culture are what create the unequal workspace. Coulter often praises the way that Amazon "innovates" using data and large scale computing, but data and computer algorithms are not unbiased "facts", they are products that are created by people who create them using parameters based on their own worldview and biases. In fact, many recent reports around the use of AI in Amazon HR indicate that it's fairly likely that Coulter never got her promotion because the AI HR uses is highly sexist. But Coulter never interrogates how Amazon's reverence for data produced by large scale computing was part of the reason for her gender based discrimination at the company, and only talks about it in terms of how it innovates the user experience. She does criticize that element of the culture once, but only when it isn't "smart" enough to give her editors enough high quality self published books so that she can meet her quota. It causes a lack of faith in the text for me because it raises the question: how can Coulter be a reliable source about the culture at Amazon when she seems so blithely ignorant of their practices, the subsequent implications, and how they directly affect her?
Separation of misogyny from capitalism
But then again how can you have systemic insight or a feminist critique of Amazon culture if your feminism is only concerned with the most outrageous straightforward and overt misogyny? I think if this book was just supposed to be her wacky adventures at Amazon like idk a memoir version of The Office I think I would feel less frustrated with this book. However. it seems like this book is at least partially also trying to be some sort of critique or manifesto about sexism at Amazon, like if ChatGPT was given America Ferrara's speech in Barbie and instructed to write a girlboss memoir about Amazon with it.
There are multiple examples of this throughout the book, but a the best example of this is during the Amazon leadership training where men keep focusing on children as the reason that women are held back at the company. She is frustrated both because this is some hot bullshit, but also because she doesn't want kids, unlike those other women. She is frustrated several times throughout the text because of assumptions people make about her because of her gender, but the real issue is that people, regardless of gender, should be able to have children and rise in the ranks. The workload shouldn't be so intense that you have to choose one or the other, and if Amazon can't hire enough people so that employees of all levels can have a reasonable work life balance and maintain its profitability then it should scale down its operations, deconglomerate, or any number of other things. The view of the worker only as a productivity output machine and not as a human being is deeply tied to many of Coulter's gripes. You can also see this when she is advocating for one of the Kaitlyns to be hired while she is in charge of publishing. One of the other people in charge of hiring says that they don't want to hire her because she doesn't know how to perform a v lookup in Excel, which is not directly relevant to her job but relevant to the company overall. Coulter writes this off as a quirk of Amazon, but is it really? We live in an era where most jobs do little to nothing to train you how to do your job because training is expensive, people who work in learning and development are overwhelming women, and the work is considered a soft skill. Even though soft skills are in actuality the most difficult thing to train someone in, most organizations focus on hard skills (like Excel literacy), especially ones like Amazon whose staffing budget depends on high turn over and unregretted attrition rates, so culture fit and ability to gel within a team matters little. In addition to this, the constant reorg structure with no training means that people who have generalized hard skills in STEM and follow directions are the most desirable and as we know women, BIPOC, queer people, and people who grew up in poverty are the least likely to have advanced STEM literacy, especially in the first half of when this memoir was set. These are just some of the many ways that the financial structure of profit at Amazon affects diversity.
She doesn't really talk about any of the other isms that employees have spoken out about at Amazon from racism to ableism to classism to homo/transphobia. I understand that Coulter does not have any of those identities (unless you count alcoholism as disabled which is fair and valid to do) and I'm sure if she had addressed it, I would've hated it and it would've been cringey. Also representation and success of minorities is not and should not be seen as the end goal for enacting feminism at an institution. There have been many worker organized efforts at Amazon aligned with feminist values from warehouse employee unionization efforts to white collar workers organizing against selling facial recognition technology to ICE and other law enforcement agencies. That being said, the book just feels so lacking and entitled when a wealthy L7 manager who can afford to own two homes at once is uplifted as the voice that deserves to be published as the "book about misogyny at Amazon". Again maybe I'm criticizing this book too much on the vibe of its promos or for not being what I want it to be, but also what is the point of this book?
Inability to realize her own personal issues make her accept and perpetuate toxic behavior
I haven't read the author's previous book and it's possible that her book about her alcoholism and sobriety goes deeper into her psychological state and why she makes the decisions she makes. Maybe if I had read that book first I would have a different opinion about this book, but I didn't and I probably won't. Anyways she mentions her addiction briefly and not particularly with depth (like everything else in this book) multiple times throughout the middle and then mentions her journey to become sober briefly as well. While obviously it's super cool that she was able to get sober and no matter how much I hated this book I am rooting for her success in that regard, I don't feel like she really addresses how her addictive personality was used by Amazon to keep abusing her and using her as a tool to implement their toxic workplace policies.
At least based on the way this book is written, Kristi Coulter does not come off as a good manager to me. She reminds me of every manager I've had who pretends to be cool and trustworthy but is actually too invested in maintaining the structures of power within the organization to enact any real change or even stand up for her peers in any kind of meaningful way. Also the Karen-ness was off the charts in this book. Throughout the book there's this feeling of self-victimization and helplessness and she has some self-awareness of this with the ongoing discussion of being told to grow a spine but also being punished when she does speak out. However, she is at L7 out of 12 at this company, so a senior manager or director level. The overwhelming majority of interactions in this book take place between her and her superiors, but we know that she runs teams of a lot of people. I can't quite articulate it, but there is just something super white feminist-y to me about a book about being a woman at Amazon that focuses almost entirely on her mostly negative experiences with her superiors and doesn't focus on any sort of ability or attempt to build solidarity with her peers or to people to whom she is a superior. I'm not arguing that these people don't have an undue amount of say over her life, just that when the majority of things that are presented are scenarios where she is not in the position of power it erases the power that she does have and means there are little to no examinations of how she perpetuated this culture too.
Furthermore I feel like she is an insecure person and she needs constant and intense stimulation to keep herself distracted from whatever her inner demons are. She kind of but never quite really alludes to this throughout the book. She mentions multiple times that part of the draw for her is how "challenging" the work is and that she only feels like she is truly innovating or making a difference if she's constantly overstressed and that the pace of work at Amazon is this way because the work is so cutting edge in a competitive market, to the extent she calls women who do yoga "cowardly pussies". She gets so close to saying something at the end when she says, "They are not mean people, they are just doing what the organism wants. If the organization wanted employee to be sane and healthy the people would do things differently. [...] It feels as if every single on of us him [supervisor], me, superwomen like Calista, the scores of stolid men in the leadership program, even the omega alphas like Mitch were all in service to this one guy [...] all because nobody is willing to say when enough is enough. That this entire company is built on fear of being exposed as merely human." Which should be the thesis statement of this book, but is just kind of left there hanging with no further investigation into how this kind of system crops up, what keeps it maintained, or how it is or can be undermined.
Amazon is considered a leader by almost every industry. The way they do work and why their workspace is toxic is really important to examine since their practices often trickle down to other organizations. Sadly, I don't think this book is a good examination of this. Secondly, I'm not sure what this book is supposed to accomplish, maybe I'm just the wrong audience. There are so many people with insightful or important things to say about Amazon, why is Coulter's the voice we choose to platform? Overall, I'm glad that Kristi Coulter is no longer working in a corporate space, but it makes me sad that "feminism" is one of the most popular tags for this book.
I did a few hours worth of research rereading articles published at least two years before the publication of this book to make sure I didn't make any claims that weren't factual. Here's my sources if you are interested in reading more:
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/16/te...
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2...
https://jacobin.com/2021/12/amazon-hu...
https://www.businessinsider.com/amazo...
https://www.businessinsider.com/amazo...
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/busin...
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-509...
https://www.theguardian.com/technolog...
https://www.currentaffairs.org/2020/0...
https://www.currentaffairs.org/2020/1...
https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-c...
https://logicmag.io/commons/inside-th...
https://www.vox.com/recode/22407998/j...
https://www.vox.com/recode/2021/5/19/...
https://www.vox.com/recode/22524538/a...
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/washin...
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/topof...
I also used knowledge I acquired from the books Fulfillment: Winning and Losing in One-Click America by Alec MacGillis and Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men by Caroline Criado Pérez.
September 19, 2023
Disclaimer: I am a former Amazonian and colleague of Kristi’s.
I started the book over morning coffee and ended up willingly losing the whole day to it. Kristi expertly captured so many complex feelings about her time at Amazon: the excitement, the lunacy, the pride, the infuriation, the debilitating self-doubt, how ambition can bloom “like neon ink in water” (god I love that imagery)…and so many other things I would never be able to articulate myself, but I could understand and/or identify with. She did this so well at times it brought me right back to those conference rooms – at Amazon and throughout my career. At other times it felt like the liberating feeling of having drinks with only female colleagues and the freedom of speaking filter-free. Kristi tells this story through her lens (never claiming it’s anyone else’s), and I thoroughly enjoyed looking through it. Laugh-out-loud funny, touching, and at times uncomfortably and painfully easy to identify with, Exit Interview provides a rich, insightful, and above all an expertly crafted and entertaining memoir. I wanted to stay in her brain and see how she reasoned through it all and answered the question I’m sure many readers are asking (“why did she stay so long?!!?”). And I love Kristi’s matter-of-fact approach to that question, told with vulnerability and charm. She skillfully and unapologetically tells her story, and so much of it spoke to me. The author is brave, talented, brutally honest, and funny as hell. I listened to the audio book (I generally do when the author reads – I want to hear how they read the sentences they wrote). Kristi does an expert job at narration, and hearing her reading makes it even better – recommended.
I started the book over morning coffee and ended up willingly losing the whole day to it. Kristi expertly captured so many complex feelings about her time at Amazon: the excitement, the lunacy, the pride, the infuriation, the debilitating self-doubt, how ambition can bloom “like neon ink in water” (god I love that imagery)…and so many other things I would never be able to articulate myself, but I could understand and/or identify with. She did this so well at times it brought me right back to those conference rooms – at Amazon and throughout my career. At other times it felt like the liberating feeling of having drinks with only female colleagues and the freedom of speaking filter-free. Kristi tells this story through her lens (never claiming it’s anyone else’s), and I thoroughly enjoyed looking through it. Laugh-out-loud funny, touching, and at times uncomfortably and painfully easy to identify with, Exit Interview provides a rich, insightful, and above all an expertly crafted and entertaining memoir. I wanted to stay in her brain and see how she reasoned through it all and answered the question I’m sure many readers are asking (“why did she stay so long?!!?”). And I love Kristi’s matter-of-fact approach to that question, told with vulnerability and charm. She skillfully and unapologetically tells her story, and so much of it spoke to me. The author is brave, talented, brutally honest, and funny as hell. I listened to the audio book (I generally do when the author reads – I want to hear how they read the sentences they wrote). Kristi does an expert job at narration, and hearing her reading makes it even better – recommended.
September 21, 2023
I don’t normally write reviews, but I’m thankful as a woman & Amazon employee that this book exists. Reading this, I could feel so much of my own experience reflected in the ways the author talked about being shuffled, meeting ever changing deadlines, and transforming herself into someone different to fit the culture, while also never quite measuring up. Though this book is hyper focused on the Amazon experience, I think many women can probably relate to the feeling of trying to make yourself more digestible for others, and I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend this to any of my female coworkers or girlfriends grinding through corporate life.
September 17, 2023
The complete obliviousness she claims to have had about so many things ranging from sexual assault, the conditions of the warehouses (that they even had warehouses), that Amazon had delivery vans, the inequalities in leadership was unbelievable. It’s a real thread through the whole book-she has no idea of what is going on in the company despite rising through the ranks to quite a high position, extensive travel, running large programs and working in many different arms of the company. Willful ignorance perhaps? I don’t know but I didn’t find it believable at all.
There are also some structural issues. Some of the chapters flowed but others were just lists. It was hard to get a firm grasp on the timeline of anything because she skipped around a lot. Some things she really harped on (for example paying both a mortgage in Michigan and rent in Seattle) got resolved in a really off handed manner which didn’t match the level she built them up to as an issue.
I didn’t get a real sense of her personality or anyone else’s from coworkers to her husband. I know her husband likes to cook on their fancy stove and she drank too much and wasn’t very assertive (yet still did very well at Amazon??) but that’s really it.
I’m puzzled by reviews and the blurb that said it was funny. Where? When? It was a bleak tale of a woman working in an awful place seemingly oblivious to how much more awful it was that she realized?
There are also some structural issues. Some of the chapters flowed but others were just lists. It was hard to get a firm grasp on the timeline of anything because she skipped around a lot. Some things she really harped on (for example paying both a mortgage in Michigan and rent in Seattle) got resolved in a really off handed manner which didn’t match the level she built them up to as an issue.
I didn’t get a real sense of her personality or anyone else’s from coworkers to her husband. I know her husband likes to cook on their fancy stove and she drank too much and wasn’t very assertive (yet still did very well at Amazon??) but that’s really it.
I’m puzzled by reviews and the blurb that said it was funny. Where? When? It was a bleak tale of a woman working in an awful place seemingly oblivious to how much more awful it was that she realized?
March 26, 2023
The cover and blurb were enough to draw me to Kristi Coulter’s memoir, and her humour, great writing, and relatability brought me to the finish line.
Exit Interview starts out in 2006, when Coulter is thirty-five, and after a seven-year stint with AMG in Michigan, she’s had enough of the hypermasculinity and path to nowhere, and accepts an offer to work with Amazon in Seattle.
When she arrives, it’s a crash landing, which Coulter assumes is just the onboarding phase. She hears the words, “drinking from the fire hose” used to describe what others are going through during their first few weeks, however it feel like this never ends for her as she hops from role to role, city to city, pedalling Amazon products in one way or another.
It was fascinating to read about the Amazon of the early aughts, Coulter’s interactions with Jeff Bezos, the incredible scope of projects she was involved in, and how long she actually lasted.
Amazon is no stranger to toxic workplace complaints, nor to passing over women for leadership roles and promotions, as Jodi Kantor and David Streitfeld reported for the New York Times in 2015, it did not have a single woman on its top leadership team.
Coulter covers these issues, the gender wage gap, sexual harassment, and Amazon’s toxic work culture, however she always returns to her own personal story, her path to sobriety, and rediscovering her passion for creative writing.
She grapples with the push-pull aspect that many feel in a job we do that takes over our lives, whether we do it for the money, the feeling that it might take us somewhere if we just wait it out a little longer, even if we’re not sure of the exact path. Coulter talks about fear, failure, and imposter syndrome. And then one day she finds the words: I don’t actually care, and I cheered her on every time she said it.
This is a fantastic workplace memoir.
Exit Interview starts out in 2006, when Coulter is thirty-five, and after a seven-year stint with AMG in Michigan, she’s had enough of the hypermasculinity and path to nowhere, and accepts an offer to work with Amazon in Seattle.
When she arrives, it’s a crash landing, which Coulter assumes is just the onboarding phase. She hears the words, “drinking from the fire hose” used to describe what others are going through during their first few weeks, however it feel like this never ends for her as she hops from role to role, city to city, pedalling Amazon products in one way or another.
It was fascinating to read about the Amazon of the early aughts, Coulter’s interactions with Jeff Bezos, the incredible scope of projects she was involved in, and how long she actually lasted.
Amazon is no stranger to toxic workplace complaints, nor to passing over women for leadership roles and promotions, as Jodi Kantor and David Streitfeld reported for the New York Times in 2015, it did not have a single woman on its top leadership team.
Coulter covers these issues, the gender wage gap, sexual harassment, and Amazon’s toxic work culture, however she always returns to her own personal story, her path to sobriety, and rediscovering her passion for creative writing.
She grapples with the push-pull aspect that many feel in a job we do that takes over our lives, whether we do it for the money, the feeling that it might take us somewhere if we just wait it out a little longer, even if we’re not sure of the exact path. Coulter talks about fear, failure, and imposter syndrome. And then one day she finds the words: I don’t actually care, and I cheered her on every time she said it.
This is a fantastic workplace memoir.
December 5, 2023
Kind of explains why Amazon is the way it is. No continuity in management is why so may aspects of it are developed and then dropped and forever forgotten. Less interesting is the author who is bothered sexism in her workplace only as much as it affects her next promotion.
January 14, 2024
Funny enough, I guess? But Coulter sounds like every Cool Boss I've ever had, blathering on about team and potential and cracking jokes & it's all a smokescreen for the truth, which is that the corporation expects the employee to give their all, do their best, not steal Post-It notes, show up on time, whatever,* and not to notice that they're only valuable insofar as they serve corporate ends. Exit Interview seems to be a memoir of someone in management belatedly discovering this reality, and honestly I don't give a shit about her or her managerial travails.
If I needed a reminder of why I could never hold a job, I guess this was it.
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*and of course all this has gotten much worse since I went freelance in the late 1980s, and now you're apparently supposed to be available night and day and never take a real vacation.
If I needed a reminder of why I could never hold a job, I guess this was it.
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*and of course all this has gotten much worse since I went freelance in the late 1980s, and now you're apparently supposed to be available night and day and never take a real vacation.
July 23, 2024
Exit Interview is a memoir by Kristi Coulter, who spent 12 years working for Amazon in various corporate roles from 2006-2018.
At Amazon, Kristi dealt with different personalities among coworkers, a workaholic and fear-driven corporate culture, and it often seemed, endless promises of future consideration for promotions. Kristi did work with other talented, smart professionals who also felt the pressure in this environment too. Parts of her story were relatable, for better or worse, and I appreciated her honesty.
As a book lover, I enjoyed hearing about Kristi’s time at Amazon Publishing most. That said, the frequently repetitive challenges in her work at Amazon across various roles made me wonder why she stayed and put up with it for as long as she did. I know most people have financial obligations to consider, but 12 years is long, and a pattern was becoming evident based on her experiences there. Kristi also shares her struggles with sobriety, fueled by her demanding work environment.
I listened to the audiobook which was an easy, interesting listen. I am glad Kristi has found peace, post-Amazon, and was willing to share her story in Exit Interview.
At Amazon, Kristi dealt with different personalities among coworkers, a workaholic and fear-driven corporate culture, and it often seemed, endless promises of future consideration for promotions. Kristi did work with other talented, smart professionals who also felt the pressure in this environment too. Parts of her story were relatable, for better or worse, and I appreciated her honesty.
As a book lover, I enjoyed hearing about Kristi’s time at Amazon Publishing most. That said, the frequently repetitive challenges in her work at Amazon across various roles made me wonder why she stayed and put up with it for as long as she did. I know most people have financial obligations to consider, but 12 years is long, and a pattern was becoming evident based on her experiences there. Kristi also shares her struggles with sobriety, fueled by her demanding work environment.
I listened to the audiobook which was an easy, interesting listen. I am glad Kristi has found peace, post-Amazon, and was willing to share her story in Exit Interview.
October 27, 2023
DNF at 48%
I didn’t know anything about the author prior to reading which I think might have hurt me? This is a biographical memoir following her near day to day job for 10(?) years at Amazon. While she occasionally shared some interesting tidbit or insight into Amazon workplace culture most of it was dribble about her job and I became bored very quickly. It’s like following her around at work plus having to hear her opinions.
She also compliments herself often; frequently describing herself as a good writer which she’s okay but 🛑 and while I tend to prefer authors narrate their own books she’s not great here. Another narrator probably would have improved my experience but I likely would have still been very very bored.
I’m glad she escapes..
I didn’t know anything about the author prior to reading which I think might have hurt me? This is a biographical memoir following her near day to day job for 10(?) years at Amazon. While she occasionally shared some interesting tidbit or insight into Amazon workplace culture most of it was dribble about her job and I became bored very quickly. It’s like following her around at work plus having to hear her opinions.
She also compliments herself often; frequently describing herself as a good writer which she’s okay but 🛑 and while I tend to prefer authors narrate their own books she’s not great here. Another narrator probably would have improved my experience but I likely would have still been very very bored.
I’m glad she escapes..
September 18, 2023
I don’t want to criticize a memoir for its content - BUT, recommend avoiding this book if you’re a middle manager in tech. Reading this book was very similar to my own experiences, in a way that had me thinking “so what?” as I read; I kept waiting for something novel to happen.
One example: the review that inspired me to buy this book talked about how Amazon’s leveling system was like a cult…but it is similar to every tech company I’ve ever worked at. Half my time as a manager is spent talking with my team about how they can go to the next level!
If you don’t work in a similar role/industry to the author, you might find this book very entertaining.
One example: the review that inspired me to buy this book talked about how Amazon’s leveling system was like a cult…but it is similar to every tech company I’ve ever worked at. Half my time as a manager is spent talking with my team about how they can go to the next level!
If you don’t work in a similar role/industry to the author, you might find this book very entertaining.
September 21, 2023
Once, while walking by an H&M, I spotted some graffiti of a woman working in a sweatshop making a shirt that read “the future is female.” Under the image it said “not my feminism.”
That graffiti just about sums up how I feel about this book. It glosses over the human rights abuses and global monopoly of Amazon to focus on the author’s own imposter syndrome and the boys’ club culture that failed to offer her a promotion. I find this brand of feminism out of touch with the world as it is and the many different women within it. The author seems to absolve herself of any culpability for her longtime employer’s misdeeds by emphasizing her focus on hustle culture and obsessively narrating the company’s failure to promote her. While the male-domination of the tech industry is worthy of our time, I think this book reads pretty tone-deaf in focusing only on that instead of on the ripple effects of Amazon’s problematic business practices all over the world.
That graffiti just about sums up how I feel about this book. It glosses over the human rights abuses and global monopoly of Amazon to focus on the author’s own imposter syndrome and the boys’ club culture that failed to offer her a promotion. I find this brand of feminism out of touch with the world as it is and the many different women within it. The author seems to absolve herself of any culpability for her longtime employer’s misdeeds by emphasizing her focus on hustle culture and obsessively narrating the company’s failure to promote her. While the male-domination of the tech industry is worthy of our time, I think this book reads pretty tone-deaf in focusing only on that instead of on the ripple effects of Amazon’s problematic business practices all over the world.
2023
October 13, 2025Memoir March TBR
📱 Thank you to NetGalley and MCD
📱 Thank you to NetGalley and MCD
November 2, 2023
I really enjoyed this book! I love a good memoir, but this one read like fiction. In a good way. I kept reaching to pick it back up. I live in Seattle & got a lot of joy from knowing the exact spots she was writing about. I *think* I even picked up this book at her brother-in-law’s bookstore! There’s something special about being right in the thick of the setting itself.
The writing itself was strong, too. If you’re a woman, especially a woman in tech, and especially a woman struggling with making peace with it, this book will give you comfort. And laughter. And maybe make you think again about your life choices.
I’m very glad Kristi finally got the courage to leave her corporate life behind! She was always meant to write.
The writing itself was strong, too. If you’re a woman, especially a woman in tech, and especially a woman struggling with making peace with it, this book will give you comfort. And laughter. And maybe make you think again about your life choices.
I’m very glad Kristi finally got the courage to leave her corporate life behind! She was always meant to write.
June 5, 2024
This should be required reading for any woman working a corporate job. Funny, relatable, and well-written, this is a super eye-opening account of the author’s time at Amazon and a ridiculously relatable testament to what it’s like to be a woman in the workforce. I’ve already recommended this to so many people and will probably continue to do so.
July 10, 2024
This is a riveting story of working at Amazon headquarters for 10 years. The pace is insane, the projects never end, and there are never enough employees to do the work. Kristi Coulter describes the highs and low of working in that challenging environment but finally had to call it quits. She is an excellent writer, so I really hope she has some novels in her future!
September 16, 2023
I couldn’t put Exit Interview down.
I openly admit to being one of those people who rubbed their hands together with glee as I opened Prince Harry’s book “Spare” — Getting a peek behind the curtain is fun, right? WELL. Exit Interview had me jumping up and down with excitement to read. I am the ultimate target audience:
1. I’m a woman with a 20 year career in tech
2. I lived in Seattle from 2003 to 2010 (worked at Starbucks in reporting and data analytics)
3. I sometimes debated applying at Amazon
4. I knew many a man who worked for Amazon (but unsurprisingly no women)
Kristi Coulter did not disappoint - Exit Interview appeared on my Kindle (I feel like I should apologize for that) on Tuesday and I finished it Friday morning. I can’t list the number of ways this book touched me — it was both fun and horrifying to learn more about how Amazon Corporate operates. It was validating and infuriating to see my own gender experiences playing out elsewhere in corporate America. It was soothing in a “solidarity” sort of way to see Coulter reach the same conclusions about being a woman in corporate America that I have recently come to - it took until my 40s to see clearly. And finally, the Seattle nostalgia was the cherry on top. The restaurants, the bars, the office buildings… I could picture the Amazon office on the edge of the International District. We used to pick up sandwiches on the first floor for lunch. Kristi, if you ever read this, thanks for writing this book.
I openly admit to being one of those people who rubbed their hands together with glee as I opened Prince Harry’s book “Spare” — Getting a peek behind the curtain is fun, right? WELL. Exit Interview had me jumping up and down with excitement to read. I am the ultimate target audience:
1. I’m a woman with a 20 year career in tech
2. I lived in Seattle from 2003 to 2010 (worked at Starbucks in reporting and data analytics)
3. I sometimes debated applying at Amazon
4. I knew many a man who worked for Amazon (but unsurprisingly no women)
Kristi Coulter did not disappoint - Exit Interview appeared on my Kindle (I feel like I should apologize for that) on Tuesday and I finished it Friday morning. I can’t list the number of ways this book touched me — it was both fun and horrifying to learn more about how Amazon Corporate operates. It was validating and infuriating to see my own gender experiences playing out elsewhere in corporate America. It was soothing in a “solidarity” sort of way to see Coulter reach the same conclusions about being a woman in corporate America that I have recently come to - it took until my 40s to see clearly. And finally, the Seattle nostalgia was the cherry on top. The restaurants, the bars, the office buildings… I could picture the Amazon office on the edge of the International District. We used to pick up sandwiches on the first floor for lunch. Kristi, if you ever read this, thanks for writing this book.
March 29, 2024
No more than a 3 out of 10, I have no clue how it made it to over 4 stars so far. I had zero expectations of this book and purely judged it off the title and artwork. I did not enjoy this book and I feel like the description is deceiving, it wasn't funny or absurd, it was just boring day to day activity of working at amazon. I learned that amazon was/is a terrible company and have only done things to hurt their workers and thier partners, others than that, trash company. I can't believe they were so against helping thier female workers.
I felt bad for her husband a few times because she complains about wanting men and women to be equal, understandably, but then immediately belittles her husband for not acting like a man and have more clout and complains he isn't more than her and complained he didn't make more than her.
I did not enjoy this book and I was surpirsed I finished it.
I felt bad for her husband a few times because she complains about wanting men and women to be equal, understandably, but then immediately belittles her husband for not acting like a man and have more clout and complains he isn't more than her and complained he didn't make more than her.
I did not enjoy this book and I was surpirsed I finished it.
November 4, 2023
3.5. It started out intriguing and interesting, then it got frustrating, then plodding, and finally in the last few pages, weird and trippy.
June 27, 2024
Having a relative who works in this organization, I was curious about what it might be like for him. Kristi Coulter convinced me Amazon would never work for me as a place of employment. I'm sure her experience was much like many larger organizations would offer, in a dog eat dog corporate world, which is a sad commentary on our current world.
Coulter describes an environment that is competitive, confusing, high-stress, often unrewarding, and offers many examples of misogynistic behavior throughout. It sounds particularly difficult to navigate as a woman, and women are significantly outnumbered as one rises through the ranks. She indicates that turnover is relatively high due to the expectations placed on the employees, who have a tough time finding any type of work/life balance.
I realize this is one person's take, and there may be others who are completely happy with their job at Amazon. I most valued hearing how departments and offerings evolved over time due to the push to always be making things "better" or at least more profitable and expansive. Amazon offers a number of useful services, but there can be too much of a good thing. Just ask local businesses. And I hate to think of all the potential collateral damage along the way to people just trying to make a living.
Coulter describes an environment that is competitive, confusing, high-stress, often unrewarding, and offers many examples of misogynistic behavior throughout. It sounds particularly difficult to navigate as a woman, and women are significantly outnumbered as one rises through the ranks. She indicates that turnover is relatively high due to the expectations placed on the employees, who have a tough time finding any type of work/life balance.
I realize this is one person's take, and there may be others who are completely happy with their job at Amazon. I most valued hearing how departments and offerings evolved over time due to the push to always be making things "better" or at least more profitable and expansive. Amazon offers a number of useful services, but there can be too much of a good thing. Just ask local businesses. And I hate to think of all the potential collateral damage along the way to people just trying to make a living.
January 4, 2024
An absolutely perfect read to begin 2024.
October 2, 2025
This book details the minutia of working as an executive at amazon, which is very boring to me. I also found this poorly written, which was annoying because the author kept bragging about how good of a writer she was. This was more about being a woman in corporate with bad work life balance and the undertones of sexism in the workplace and not necessarily anything revelatory about amazon or the tech industry IMO.
October 29, 2023
So I was incredibly excited to get this as an ARC. I’ve worked in the tech world for five years, so I thought this would be a really exciting book to read. This book completely disappointed me, especially for someone who’s lived in the tech world I don’t feel like I learned anything new or anything was really surprising to me. The book is titled exit interview and she didn’t even have a real exit interview, or even submit the form in time. The first part of the book was so boring to me with terms that didn’t fully make sense to me and was way too granular. Around 80% into this book I was hopeful this was going to end well - but the last chapter really did nothing for the whole book.
November 28, 2023
no exit interview here but a frustrating insider review of mid level management in the corporate cutthroat efficiency culture… Coulter’s self deprecating humor could put off the reader sometimes but that seems to be inevitable as you see shadowing her daily routine of lifeboat drills, dreary meetings, harrowing sexism. the stock options and bonuses could be intoxicating but there is no healthy way of balancing any of that.
January 31, 2024
Yeah screw Amazon!
- read on Kindle
- read on Kindle
June 10, 2025
TLDR - Amazon is not for the girls.
August 1, 2024
It's fitting that I read this on the Amazon shuttle to and from work, in the break room while eating my packed lunch, and on the couch while I "W"FHed, and that I'm writing this review on my work laptop. Self incriminating? Maybe, or just comfortingly honest, like this memoir. Like the way she describes a certain flavor of crying with the dry, mechanical imagery that characterizes emotional repression:
I've always had a vague idea of what career ambition is, but I felt like I could feel it take form in her attitude towards impossible expectations, unfair circumstances, and enraging discrimination:
But I think most of my adoration for this memoir stems from what makes me really love any book — seeing my reflection in the inner monologue, feeling represented analytically and emotionally. And Coulter is so good at getting to the root of everything preposterous about the tech and Amazon bubble; sexism in tech and Amazon and America around that bubble:
What really hit home for me, was how she prodded and jostled my recent feelings on the familiar discomfort towards conflict (in the workplace, a concept I'm still unnerved by and dangerously pattern matching with familial "conflict resolution"). And, oh my god, I loved how she quoted and picked apart all the leadership principles, Amazon's tenets of how to be a perfect cog (which were brought up in my midpoint review).
Of course I beamed when she mentioned Quiet by Susan Cain and the same revelations I had in high school upon discovering introversion could be advantageous and explanatory. Overall, permeating throughout the whole memoir, Coulter offers hilarious and comforting internal dialogue about the perils of going to work (that somehow an intern can ferociously relate to) and drinking from a fire hose all alone, when you're not even sure you're thirsty at all or if you even like hoses, but of course you're second guessing both of those things, constantly.
I've included so many quotes at this point that it probably is not devastating to reveal that she doesn't even get an exit interview. And her selection of "No" on the form for "Would you recommend Amazon as an employer to others?" doesn't even go through. But, I'm wondering, if she hadn't gone through all of this, would her writing be as impactful and powerful? Would her humor be as exacting and make such an impression on me? Even if she, at the end of her tech career, feels that writing books is what she was born to do, is it self-serving to go for it as soon as you have an inkling?
I’m now doing facial isometrics, trying to retract my eyeballs far enough into their sockets to keep the tears from being bumped off the ledge onto my face.
I can't allow myself to outright sob the way my body wants, but I do let the tears sort of push themselves up and through my eyes like water from a backed-up drain.
I've always had a vague idea of what career ambition is, but I felt like I could feel it take form in her attitude towards impossible expectations, unfair circumstances, and enraging discrimination:
In each of those places I’d had the momentary thrill of knowing my life had expanded a little more.
People who don’t make any mistakes probably aren’t making enough decisions.
I want the world to stay wide, and if that means reinventing myself again, sign me up.
And what is a job anyway, if not a chance to ruin your life?
But I think most of my adoration for this memoir stems from what makes me really love any book — seeing my reflection in the inner monologue, feeling represented analytically and emotionally. And Coulter is so good at getting to the root of everything preposterous about the tech and Amazon bubble; sexism in tech and Amazon and America around that bubble:
They don't just agree; they violently agree. They're blocking and tackling and focused on the inputs and not getting distracted by orthogonal matters. Going paleo has been huge for them, and tequila is allowed. Can they just play devil's advocate for a second? Can they just pressure test your idea? Can they just push back on that a little? These last three are them saying you are wrong. Sometimes they say it in an Amazon way and sometimes in a man way, though already the difference is getting pretty hard to discern.
It's an election year, so time for a new round of "Women: Are They People, or Just Host Bodies?" This year, we are blessed with the bonus topic of what constitutes "legitimate rape," as a congressman from Missouri has assured us that the bodies of legitimately raped women will automatically prevent a fertilized egg from implanting. Elsewhere, Rush Limbaugh calls the law student and contraception activist Sandra Fluke a slut who has to take lots and lots of birth control pills because everyone knows the pill is something you pop each time you fuck, sort of like taking Lactaid before an ice-cream social. I had no idea at eighteen that my basic bodily autonomy would still be in jeopardy at forty-two. No one tells you it will never, ever stop.
You can't outrun it. You will always be a deviation, an alien, a guest worker, an uneasily transplanted organ. You might be tolerated, even beloved and respected, but you will never be a citizen, and the problem isn't how you look or talk or act. The problem is that there is no right way to be a woman. In their eyes you will always be a bit too female or not quite female enough, and trying to walk the tightrope will kill you. The silver lining: if you can't outrun your gender, you might as well live as you please. It may be the freedom of the truly fucked, but I suggest you take it.
What really hit home for me, was how she prodded and jostled my recent feelings on the familiar discomfort towards conflict (in the workplace, a concept I'm still unnerved by and dangerously pattern matching with familial "conflict resolution"). And, oh my god, I loved how she quoted and picked apart all the leadership principles, Amazon's tenets of how to be a perfect cog (which were brought up in my midpoint review).
Have Backbone; Disagree and Commit Leadership Principle: "Leaders are obligated to respectfully challenge decisions when they disagree, even when doing so is uncomfortable or exhausting. Leaders have conviction and are tenacious. They do not compromise for the sake of social cohesion. Once a decision is determined, they commit wholly." In theory, this leads to healthy conflict and better ideas. In practice, it tends to be used as cover by loud, rude men who talk before they think and weaponized against anyone enculturated not to act like a loud, rude man.
But also, I don't really know how to disagree. My family had two settings: Everything Is Fine, and Screaming Fights with Lasting Damage. There was no tradition of lively debate around the dinner table. So when I see two Amazonians bluntly countering each other’s ideas in a meeting, it’s like watching an exotic martial art that I don't yet have the muscle to practice, even if had the guts. Also, when a bunch of men are arguing, or even just talking, it’s hard to break in. My habit at AMG was to wait for a pause, but there are so few pauses here; conversations are more of a round, like "Michael, Row the Boat Ashore," the men's voices overlapping and echoing until I'm no longer sure my point is relevant or what it was in the first place.
I’m distracted by memories of all the performance reviews where I was told I lacked a backbone, that I was too nice, that I should disagree more freely. Throughout the hour I'm hyperconscious of every inflection in my voice and movement of my lips. Even reaching for my coffee cup, I try to seem warm and nonchalant. I make inquisitive and encouraging faces at everyone who speaks, and I minimize my own talking. If I don't get my footing on the tightrope between spineless and spiny, I'll plummet to earth. Maybe the fall would at least be a break from the way my toes keep cramping around the rope. Maybe the landing would be less bloody than I imagine. I can't quite bring myself to risk finding out, but I'm thinking about it.
Of course I beamed when she mentioned Quiet by Susan Cain and the same revelations I had in high school upon discovering introversion could be advantageous and explanatory. Overall, permeating throughout the whole memoir, Coulter offers hilarious and comforting internal dialogue about the perils of going to work (that somehow an intern can ferociously relate to) and drinking from a fire hose all alone, when you're not even sure you're thirsty at all or if you even like hoses, but of course you're second guessing both of those things, constantly.
I wake up afraid of the day, just because it’s there and I can’t stop it from happening. “The only way out is through,” people say, but they’re talking about heartache or grief, not Tuesday.
You try so hard to be good at things you don't actually want to do. You never ask yourself if maybe you should just stop doing them.
I should tell her I’m talking from some place so far away that nothing I say has meaning, but it’s too hard to explain.
I've been shot from a cannon to the bottom of the sea and have to make my way back to the surface, mostly unassisted, and weighted down by salt and seaweed, by figuring out which starfish and shells and old cannonballs I need and how they fit together. It's not that I'm being hazed. My co-workers are kind and helpful. But they’re above the surface, so to reach one, I have to stretch my arm up blindly and hope I'm grabbing at the right person and that they have time to come hang with me under the sea. And even when they do, I can tell from their eyes that they don't really have time, that every minute spent orienting me is one where something else might be blowing up just out of sight.
Because Mitch gets to throw toddler fits while I'm not allowed to show emotion at all, I am angry but I think it's shame. Every morning I feel a little sick when I get on the elevator, as though I ate just a bite of something rotten, so I am angry but I think it's IBS. I have to put my worst employee in the bottom 10 percent to make the curve, even though she's still pretty good, so I am angry but I think it's softness. My best employee is a quivering wreck and my praise goes right through her, her eyes darting in mistrust until I'm half convinced I am lying to her, and I am angry but I think it's lack of compassion. I'm about to join the demographic known as "over forty," and I am angry but I think it's body dysmorphia. All the money is starting to seem normal and not like winning a prize every day, and I am angry but I think it's ingratitude. John gripes that it's distracting to have cleaners in the house and I read it as him saying I should be doing the cleaning myself, and my office is noisy and crowded all day long and John works in an empty house for all but the six hours a month our cleaners visit, so I am angry but I think it's lack of focus. Whole Foods has just four lanes open at rush hour, and the lines back up into the aisles, and I am angry but I think it's failure to be in the moment.
I've included so many quotes at this point that it probably is not devastating to reveal that she doesn't even get an exit interview. And her selection of "No" on the form for "Would you recommend Amazon as an employer to others?" doesn't even go through. But, I'm wondering, if she hadn't gone through all of this, would her writing be as impactful and powerful? Would her humor be as exacting and make such an impression on me? Even if she, at the end of her tech career, feels that writing books is what she was born to do, is it self-serving to go for it as soon as you have an inkling?
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