Exit Interview

The Life and Death of My Ambitious Career

By: Kristi Coulter

Narrated by: Kristi Coulter

Length: 10 hrs and 48 mins

Publisher's summary

This program is read by the author.

A candid, intensely funny memoir of ambition, gender, and a grueling decade inside Amazon.com, from the author of Nothing Good Can Come from This.

"A unique and brilliant book." —Oliver Burkeman, author of Four Thousand Weeks

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.com, but she never expected the soul-crushing pressure that would come with it.

In no time she found 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. It is 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.

A Macmillan Audio production from Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

©2023 Kristi Coulter (P)2023 Macmillan Audio

Critic reviews

"A unique and brilliant book—both a hilarious memoir of one woman's journey through the extremes of corporate America and a poignant and arresting account of what modern work culture can do to the soul. I found myself reading passages aloud to anyone who'd listen."—Oliver Burkeman, author of Four Thousand Weeks

"With wry humor, Coulter provides candid insights about life, love, and gender as well as surviving a toxic workplace."—Kirkus

“Kristi Coulter has given us the most vivid account yet of Amazon’s chaotic, mercurial, dignity-crushing office culture. Exit Interview is also a very funny and intensely personal depiction of what it’s like to be female in the oppressively male world of technology.”—Brad Stone, author of The Everything Store and Amazon Unbound

Touted as a book about women in tech, but ....

Coulter does talk a lot about the experience of a woman working in tech, but this book is about so much more. Also, the futility of the struggle that is corporate work. Also becoming a good German, and following orders. How mediocre managers ruin lives managing everything but people. Well worth the time.

Women, Wine, and Work

I read the author’s first book and loved it, which is also about women, work, and wine. It’s a smart documentary into the life of the ambitious working woman and why we all drink. I enjoyed it and the author is honest and witty.

A mirror of my own experiences

I’m thankful as a woman & Amazon employee that this book exists. Listening to this, I could feel so much of my own experience reflected in the ways she 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 coworkers-workers or girlfriends grinding through corporate life.

Not Just an Amazon Story

I started listening to this account to better understand the culture of Amazon, the nature of assimilating to its corporate "hamster wheel" and, in the process, better support a dear friend who also courageously moved her family across the country to work for Amazon. I was awe before; my respect has only grown exponentially.

Little did I know that this memoir would also tell my professional story, as educator and counselor. The final chapter (and all others) drew me in, exposing how universal the Amazon experience is in reality.

This is a must-read! I laughed outloud many times and learned so much.

True, kind, smart

Embodied truth-telling. I feel more free within myself for having read-experienced Kristi’s story. This isn’t just a thing my intellect consumed, but the whole of me experienced.

Great Memoir

I’ll admit that I am slightly biased as a fellow Amazonian that didn’t know the author, but worked there during the same time frame. I truly loved listening to her memoir and learning about her experience as another person working in the same demanding, exhilarating, challenging and exhausting place. There are so many parallels to my own experience that at times I felt like she was in my own head, putting words to things I had observed along the way. She is an excellent story teller and I don’t think you need to have worked here to appreciate her experience and insights into the benefits and pitfalls of corporate tech. A great read!

It's not just Amazon

Kristi does a great job of describing what a career in tech looks like over time. Those of us who've been caught in the toxic shadow of Sheryl Sanders' "Lean In" mythology rarely want to admit -- and never publicly -- that Kristi is right: you can NEVER outrun being a woman. And boys clubs designed for boys are inherently designed to make sure women remain the outsiders, not matter how many token examples sneak in the door.

I appreciated Kristi's personal evolution to redefining her priorities for herself, and to stepping away. I am seeing this happen more and more among my female peers after 25+ years in the space. Kristi's story speaks to a lot of our collective experiences across the industry, not just for the people -- and especially the women -- at any one company.

Nailed the Amazon experience

At Amazon, I found sobriety. I’m a better leader for reading. Thanks Kristi for forcing me to think introspectively and readdress some of my own flaws.

A Feast of a Book

Once the story began, I was hooked! I devoured every bit of it. It is not just a singular story about one woman’s experience at Amazon; it speaks to generations of women, hacking their uncharted paths through this world. It is a story of hunger, desire, trauma, love, compassion, and understanding. It is the Serenity Prayer: “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, The courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

Well done and please keep writing!

Relatable as a woman in tech

Love the story, but some chapters are doubled apparently. I heard three times the part about tips on how to be a woman at work, is this on purpose?