Evans: Bezos banned PowerPoint because nested slides buried the Challenger launch risk
Ethan Evans · Ex-Amazon VP: Lessons from Working with Jeff Bezos that Changed My Life | Ethan Evans · Jun 3, 2026 · at 1:10:57
Former Amazon VP Ethan Evans explains why Jeff Bezos eliminated slide decks at Amazon in favor of written six-page briefs.
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“Jeff hated PowerPoint and the famous story why it it's old now, but when the space shuttle Challenger exploded, They went and found the PowerPoint slide had been used to justify the launch. And this PowerPoint had like seven levels of nested bullets and the tiniest bullet in the smallest font basically said, we have a launch risk that could make it blow up.”
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