Book: Exit Interview – The Life and Death of My Ambitious Career
By: Kristi Coulter
Reviewed by: Glain Roberts-McCabe
The Premise: Exit Interview: The Life and Death of My Ambitious Career is a candid, often biting memoir by Kristi Coulter, one of Amazon’s first female executives. In a series of essays, Coulter traces her twelve-year journey inside the tech giant, reflecting on what it took to rise—and eventually, what it took to walk away.
The book is less a linear narrative and more a mosaic of experiences: from being told she was “too direct” in performance reviews to realizing she had become “the woman who could outwork your dad.” Through sharp, often darkly humorous prose, Coulter explores themes of identity, ambition, gender dynamics in male-dominated environments, and the emotional toll of living in constant high-performance mode.
She doesn’t just critique the system—she turns the lens on herself. Coulter unpacks the ways in which she willingly contorted herself to fit Amazon’s “peculiar” culture, internalized its demands, and lost pieces of herself in the pursuit of career success. This is as much an exploration of personal awakening as it is a corporate exposé.
The Bottomline: Reading Exit Interview felt like holding up a mirror—one I wasn’t entirely comfortable looking into. For those of us who have a penchant towards taking our jobs a little too seriously, who secretly (or not so secretly) wear our ability to “power through” as a badge of honour, Coulter’s story lands like a cautionary fable.
I saw pieces of myself in her description of being an “insecure high performer”—someone who’s never met a personal boundary she couldn’t bulldoze. Her reflection on the numbing effects of ambition and the lengths we are willing to convince ourselves to go despite the toll on other aspects of our lives was, well, chilling.
This isn’t just a story about Amazon. It’s a wake-up call for anyone who has ever tied their worth too tightly to their work. Coulter’s eventual decision to leave wasn’t triumphant—it was necessary. And that nuance is what makes the book so powerful. It’s not about escape. It’s about survival.
Recommendation: I’d recommend Exit Interview to anyone who needs a cautionary tale about why work should never come first—especially if you’ve ever sacrificed your wellbeing on the altar of productivity. And if you’re curious about what it’s really like inside a global juggernaut like Amazon, this peek behind the curtain is equal parts compelling and unsettling.
