Nov 28, 2018 - Technology

Amazon has become Silicon Valley's CFO factory

Kia Kokalitcheva

Amazon's regional headquarters in Sunnyvale, California. Photo: Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images

Amazon is quickly emerging as the go-to source for Silicon Valley tech startup chief financial officers amidst a shortage of experienced candidates.

The big picture: In many ways, Amazon is the perfect breeding ground for future C-suite execs of pre-IPO tech companies. It provides them with big public company experience and a good deal of autonomy as finance chiefs of large divisions, but not so much autonomy that they don't aspire to run their own shops.

Just this month alone, three Amazon finance execs left for startup CFO roles:

Last year, Jason Child left to become CFO at Opendoor.

Ex-Amazon senior employees have also taken up other top jobs at tech companies, such as Greg Greeley joining Airbnb as its president of home-sharing, Sebastian Gunningham as WeWork's vice chairman, Assaf Ronen as SoFi's head of product, and Len Eschweiler as The RealReal's chief revenue officer.

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Amazon has become Silicon Valley's CFO factory

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