Jeff Bezos hired this Amazon job candidate ‘on the spot’ – here are his 2 interview questions

People always want to know how I got Jeff Bezos to take a chance and hire me to work directly for him at Amazon in 2002.

At first I hadn’t thought about applying to Amazon. When I was growing up in Redmond, Washington, most of my friends’ parents were tech executives, and while they made good money, their lives didn’t seem like much fun to me. But many of my classmates were graduating without job offers, so I felt like I should explore all the options.

I submitted my resume to Amazon without much thought. To my surprise, I was invited for a first round interview for the role of Junior Assistant. I had no connections at the company, no degree in computer science, and absolutely no experience working for a CEO.

My initial interviews at Amazon were dizzying in volume and pace. I had back-to-back interviews with all the senior assistants, some of which lasted all day.

One interview took place in a dark office with only the glow of a code-filled monitor and a strange multi-colored rotating night lamp in the corner. But I’ve known enough techies in my life to be used to the awkward setups. I just recorded meeting one of those individuals uniquely suited to the tech world, and it didn’t bother me.

A few months later, after getting no response and beginning to lose all hope, the phone rang: An Amazon employee asked me to come back for a final interview. She apologized for the long, drawn-out process and promised me that this would be the last.

What she didn’t tell me was that it would be with Bezos himself.

I felt relaxed walking into the interview that October morning. I was patiently sitting in the chair in the conference room when the door opened and Bezos entered. He sat across from me and introduced himself.

Bezos began the interview by promising that he would only ask two questions, and that the first would be a “fun” brainteaser.

I took a deep breath as he stood up and freed a pen from the whiteboard wall. “I’ll do the math,” he said. “I want you to estimate the number of panes in the city of Seattle.”

I was momentarily terrified.

Then I paused to calm myself, reminding myself to think about his motivation for asking me that question. He wants to see how my mind works, I told myself. He wants to see me break down a complex problem into small, manageable steps. I can do it.

I outlined how I would start with the number of people in Seattle, which luckily I correctly guessed as around 1 million, just to make the math easier. Then I said that each of them will have a home, a mode of transport and an office or school – they will all have windows. So I suggested we base the estimate on the averages of these.

And then we did the math.

We’ve looked at every possible scenario, group, anomaly, and ways to report these exceptions. I felt like I talked to him for hours as Bezos filled the whiteboard with numbers. I’m sure it actually took more than 10 minutes.

I remember getting a thrill when he wrote the final grade. He walked around it. “That seems right,” he said.

ugh!

He then asked me the second question, “What are your career goals?”

I told him that Amazon has proven to be a company full of ambitious and passionate people. I wanted to be like them and learn what they knew. Their strengths were in areas that I personally wanted to develop, so the value of the experience was obvious, even though it felt like a distraction from my goal of being a professor.

I explained that I had no idea how to be an assistant, but I knew the importance of constantly being out of my comfort zone. I wanted to jump into an astronomical learning and growth curve.

Knowing Bezos as well as I do now, I understand why those were his only two questions. He was measuring my potential by asking questions that would test if I had the grit, courage and motivation to run at his pace and be brave enough to consistently jump with him and keep up.

By the end of the interview we both knew that I would do anything to succeed even though I was a very young candidate.

And then I was done. Exhausted, elated, ready.

Bezos ended up hiring me on the spot. He gave me the open desk just three feet from his. It was the closest desk to him in the company.

It took me years to fully understand why Bezos took a chance on me and gave me this big break. He surrounded himself exclusively with people he had to hold back, not push forward. He created teams of people so ambitious, creative and determined that they made up for any expertise they lacked.

In such an environment, Bezos would only need to use his energy as a leader to channel our energy, rather than trying to wrest it from us.

I learned that the key to Bezos and Amazon’s early success was this relentless pursuit of the extraordinary.

Ever since that early hiring experience, I’ve always aspired to be the person to be retained, not pushed forward. I sought out teams that would challenge, support, and inspire me to do things far beyond my current abilities, and that has brought more satisfaction to my professional life than anything else.

Ann Hiatt is a Silicon Valley veteran with 15 years of experience as an executive business partner to Jeff Bezos, Marissa Mayer and Eric Schmidt. Anne recently founded consulting firm with CEO clients around the world, where she applies the lessons of innovation, ambition, growth at scale, and forward-thinking leadership she learned at Amazon and Google. She is also the author of “Bet on yourself: Recognize, own and implement revolutionary opportunities.” Follow her on Twitter @annrhiatt.

Do not miss: