In 1997, the day before Greg Hart joined Amazon, he was summoned to a meeting—on a Sunday—with its founder, Jeff Bezos.
At the time, Bezos had interviewed virtually every one of Amazon’s circa 200 employees; Hart was one of the few the tech entrepreneur hadn’t personally appointed. Over the next 23 years at the online giant, Hart reported directly to Bezos as technical advisor to the CEO, and to Amazon’s current CEO, Andy Jassy.
The lessons Hart learned at one of the world’s most famous businesses have stayed with him to this day, where he leads $1.35 billion online learning giant, Coursera. Hart tasked himself with shepherding the company through a transformation—conveniently, in time for demand to explode, as job seekers and employees alike rushed to add an all-important AI qualification to their CVs.
Many of the changes Hart brought to Coursera—and its more than 1,000 employees—will be familiar to Amazon alumni. Hart said that Bezos’ practice of interviewing every employee in the early days set the tone as Amazon grew, explaining, “He wanted to make sure that the passion, customer focus, the high standards, and the move fast traits that the early set of employees had stayed true as the company grew in scale.”
