got away with telling a story without being interrupted constantly with questions about the details or decisions you made jassy said in a 2018 commencement address he could easily have been describing how amazon employees feel sitting across from him in highpressure meetingsa skilled youth tennis player jassy also played soccer and considered himself a jock he didnt read outside of his studies school was a bit of a game to me he said in a speech at the scarsdale school district booster club where he credited a talented american history teacher with getting him to engage more with schoolworkafter following his father to harvard and earning a degree in government jassy moved to new york to pursue a career as a sportscaster stints at abc sports and fox ended in frustration at the prospect of putting in years of work before getting a shot impatience often found in the halls of amazon jassy later worked for a collectibles company and cofounded a shortlived startup before returning to harvard for business schoolhis thenfiance elana caplan grew up in southern california and jassy said he would go out west after business school if she agreed to move back to new york after a few years jassy figured he was in the running for a job in san francisco with tax preparation software maker intuit when cast then amazons marketing chief spotted his resume in a pile from the businessschool career officejassy took his final exam on a friday in may 1997 and joined amazon in seattle the next monday a week before the companys initial public offeringposted to the tiny marketing department jassy was quickly drafted to explore what the company should sell after books while two businessschool classmates studied video and packaged software jassy wrote the plan for amazons entrance into the music businessan obsessive fan whose tastes span guitarheavy rock east coast jam bands and singersongwriters jassy was passed over to be the first leader of amazons cd business he was crushed and considered quitting he later recalledafter another year or so back in marketing he made it to the music team helping lead a ragtag group of mbas software engineers former journalists and djs working on an upper floor of a dingy brick building in downtown seattle the team often stayed late enough to feel the thumping bass from a club on the ground floor stale cigarette smoke from the bar still hung in the air when the amazonians returned early the next morning jassy sometimes played cds in the evenings as the team ate dinner at their deskspeter hilgendorf a designer who did three stints at amazon starting in the late 1990s was on a ski trip near vancouver british columbia when he got a call from jassy at about 6 am amazon was considering making an offer for napsterhes like can i get you to come into the office in a couple hours hilgendorf said im like im in canada he says ok can you get