Rick, Joel, and John Vlastelica, who then headed up technical recruiting for the company, set out to codify a process for hiring high-level talent that matched Amazon’s culture. From the start, they fixated on the core problem of maintaining a consistent hiring standard as the company grew. Thus, contrary to common lore, the Bar Raiser program, as it later came to be known, wasn’t a top-down initiative from Jeff but rather a response to a specific problem that needed to be addressed. Even in these early days of the company, we can see the Leadership Principles beginning to develop. Rick, Joel,
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