General Warning: don’t work for or hire @IanMmmm - he’s a zero-integrity-self-serving manipulator. He destroyed an entire org at AWS.

He’s the reason I left @awscloud. He’s not just incompetent, he’s dishonest in the extreme. You’re throwing away your career working with him.

Also, pro-tip: record every call you have with a manager that you suspect is lying to you.
Here's what happened: I lost my shit when I didn't get promoted, because I was a child. That's on me. I had worked my ass off for 3 years and Ian said that if I moved to Seattle and signed a non-compete then I would get my promotion. I did those things - I didn't get promoted.
What does losing my shit mean? I sent a message to Ian and others that said "Fuck you, I'm not moving to the depressive hell hole that is Seattle. I'm not signing a non-compete. I'm going to stop working 100 hours a week for a company that doesn't give a shit about me."
Later, I found out that Ian had never actually reached out to anyone about my promo document. He just lied. He just ignored it until the last second because he was too focused on taking credit for my work for his own promo document. He got promoted.
For context: no one in AMER had been promoted in 6 years. Our EMEA and APAC colleagues were promoted. AMER? Nah, fuck you guys - ~"you don't have British accents and you won't cover for me cheating on my wife" - so ~"why should I promote you stupid fucks?"

^ that's Ian.
Fewer than 90 days after he submitted me for a promotion, I found out that I wasn't eligible to transfer to another team because he had placed me on a "dev list" - but with no stated goals or ways of getting off it. It took another 60 days to find out why I was even on the list.
So they had fabricated performance issues because "losing your shit at incompetent managers" wasn't in the handbook. All of their fabrications got brought to HR and successfully refuted by cold hard facts. Lying piece of shit.
Now's the best part... this douche told me he wanted me to stay on the team and he would get me promoted... he had the audacity to make this claim after lying to my face for 3 years. Then I try to leave the team and all of a sudden I'm blocked? Nah. I was out.

Fuck Ian.
Lots more stories here but essentially: the fact that @awscloud lets this moronic fuckwit roam around with any semblance of authority is a continuing insult to EVERYONE who works there.
Ian took a job that many people loved and would have done for years for only modest pay raises and decided that he would fuck it up for everyone in his own misguided quest for power.

I really doubt he sees himself as a villain in any of this. Doesn't change the fact that he is.
Why wait 2 years to put all this bullshit on twitter? A friend of mine is dealing with similar shit from the same guy right now and I'm just tired of seeing incredibly shitty human beings get away with being shitty human beings.
I loved working at AWS. I loved the products. I loved the customers. I loved the hustle.

It permanently fucking broke me to leave all that behind. I had a full blown fucking panic attack and froze to the ground the last time I saw Ian in an airport. Fuck him.
I left Ian's team and I spent my last year and change at AWS working on the Amazon Connect team with a really wonderful group of people. I don't want any of the negative stuff I've said in this thread to reflect on them. I'm proud of what we built there.
And for anyone considering AWS: I really hope this isn't the typical experience.

Ian is an outlier.

I had two amazing managers in my last year at AWS and they dealt with me accurately, precisely, and honestly. I only wish that'd been my experience the entire 5 years.

More from Business

A solo media founder like Rogan or Mr Beast can make as much money as a strong tech founder, with significantly less managerial stress.

Tech created this ecosystem but there’s a historical cultural bias in tech towards media as unprofitable. That changed a long time ago.

Many more angels that invest in people will invest in media founders. Many traditional media people will *become* media founders.

But not necessarily big companies. Just solo individuals or small groups doing content, like Notch doing Minecraft. Because media scales like code.

Increasingly feeling like “keeping the team size as small as possible, even to one person” is the unarticulated key to making media profitable.

Substack and all the creator tools are just the start of this ecosystem.


The process of converting social influencers into media founders (a trend that has been going on for 10+ years at this point) will be increasingly streamlined.

V1 is link-in-bio, Substack, and sponcon.

V2 likely involves more angels & tokenization a la @tryrollhq. What else?

Why lack of awareness? Influencer monetization numbers are not as public as tech numbers.

There isn’t a TechCrunch & CrunchBase for media founders, chronicling the valuations of influencers.

But that’d be quite valuable. If you are interested in doing this, please DM with demo.

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1/ Here’s a list of conversational frameworks I’ve picked up that have been helpful.

Please add your own.

2/ The Magic Question: "What would need to be true for you


3/ On evaluating where someone’s head is at regarding a topic they are being wishy-washy about or delaying.

“Gun to the head—what would you decide now?”

“Fast forward 6 months after your sabbatical--how would you decide: what criteria is most important to you?”

4/ Other Q’s re: decisions:

“Putting aside a list of pros/cons, what’s the *one* reason you’re doing this?” “Why is that the most important reason?”

“What’s end-game here?”

“What does success look like in a world where you pick that path?”

5/ When listening, after empathizing, and wanting to help them make their own decisions without imposing your world view:

“What would the best version of yourself do”?