I had the pleasure to work with Werner in many occasions, from my early AWS days as Tech Evangelist in Europe, then in Asia, then in America, from 2008 to 2014, when I left.
He has always been one of the nicest person I've met at Amazon (and I've met a few like these! They aren't rare), and has helped me a few times over the course of my career while I was there.
I can safely recall a particular memory to illustrate how nice Werner is: one evening, back in 2011, after a very successful event in Australia (here's one of my videos [0] of that event, after being introduced by him as "the magician" [1] - something I didn't expect at all!), a few of us, including the head of AWS Asia-Pacific, the head of marketing, etc, were in his hotel room celebrating the event with a glass of wine.
Out of the blue, without any need to do it and without me asking, he decided to praise my work in front of them, and even humbly suggested that he was going to take inspiration from a couple of things I did during the past few presentations. I've rarely seen such humility in someone so accomplished.
Little did he know that I was going through a tough period where I didn't feel fully recognized or rewarded for my work, and his praise helped me significantly as I felt much better about it, and possibly my bosses saw me in a different (better) light.
I think it was the first unexpected praise I have received in my life, and that's probably why I remember it so fondly.
My job was high pressure, and at that point I had been at AWS for more than 2 years, worked crazy hours, and had my fair share of tough moments in my career (mostly with PR, but that's for another time).
I even considered the idea of working for him, but unfortunately in these years he didn't want to manage an organization because he didn't want to handle the related stress, so he stayed an Individual Contributor, and I believe he still is to this day.
Nevertheless, many great memories about him, both as a human being and as a colleague. Amazon is lucky to have him, and I am lucky to have worked with him.
Thank you for sharing this awesome personal story.
And not just because it was nice to read, but also because it reminds those of us in leadership roles that giving sincere praise to a colleague costs us virtually nothing and yet has lasting positive impact.
Here we are years later, and this anecdote you've shared will no doubt inspire some of us to follow Werner's example.
He has always been one of the nicest person I've met at Amazon (and I've met a few like these! They aren't rare), and has helped me a few times over the course of my career while I was there.
I can safely recall a particular memory to illustrate how nice Werner is: one evening, back in 2011, after a very successful event in Australia (here's one of my videos [0] of that event, after being introduced by him as "the magician" [1] - something I didn't expect at all!), a few of us, including the head of AWS Asia-Pacific, the head of marketing, etc, were in his hotel room celebrating the event with a glass of wine.
Out of the blue, without any need to do it and without me asking, he decided to praise my work in front of them, and even humbly suggested that he was going to take inspiration from a couple of things I did during the past few presentations. I've rarely seen such humility in someone so accomplished.
Little did he know that I was going through a tough period where I didn't feel fully recognized or rewarded for my work, and his praise helped me significantly as I felt much better about it, and possibly my bosses saw me in a different (better) light.
I think it was the first unexpected praise I have received in my life, and that's probably why I remember it so fondly. My job was high pressure, and at that point I had been at AWS for more than 2 years, worked crazy hours, and had my fair share of tough moments in my career (mostly with PR, but that's for another time).
I even considered the idea of working for him, but unfortunately in these years he didn't want to manage an organization because he didn't want to handle the related stress, so he stayed an Individual Contributor, and I believe he still is to this day.
Nevertheless, many great memories about him, both as a human being and as a colleague. Amazon is lucky to have him, and I am lucky to have worked with him.
[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJ6XvQ94UnM
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BZoq_NrwTw&t=6m18s