Featured Image Credit: @annhiatt/Instagram / Dan Istitene - Formula 1/Contributor via Getty
In 2002, Ann Hiatt was hired at tech giant Amazon but she didn't expect her first task from CEO Jeff Bezos to nearly put his life in danger.
Hiatt shared her story on the YouTube channel Partnering Leadership with host Mahan Tavakoli.
'My very first assignment Jeff gave me was to help him go and look at properties in Texas,' she described.
She also mentioned this being the first time Bezos addressed her by name.
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'And he walked up to my desk [...] with a piece of paper that had a long series of numbers on it and he said I need to visit these properties next week.
'And I thought is this another brain teaser,' Hiatt said, puzzled at the seemingly muddled series of numbers instead of actual addresses.
Turns out they were GPS coordinates for 'very large plots of land that he was considering buying in Texas' - and no one knew why.
Back then, there was no Google Maps, so Hiatt had to figure out the best way for Bezos to visit these properties with very limited time.
Initially, she went to her manager claiming the task was 'impossible' given the very short timeframe but was met with: 'No is not an answer.'
Fortunately, she managed to get the job done by hiring a helicopter service to take Bezos to the properties and back.
Then, one day she got a call from the charter pilots who were filing the paperforms for Bezos' return flight home the next day.
'But they had heard an emergency beacon go off and there had been a helicopter crash in the area,' the former Amazon employee recalled.
'They didn't know if it was him [Bezos]. There was no way to know, it was just one of those automatic beacons.'
She mentioned badly shaking to the point she 'couldn't hold a pen' as it dawned on her that she may have just killed the Jeff Bezos.
'And I just think to myself: "I just killed Jeff Bezos" and then it occurs to me that if I just killed Jeffo Bezos, the entire company was going to crumble.
'Because at that point all of our stock value, all of our investors and shareholders were invested in [...] the unique mind that was Jeff. And that might have just disappeared.'
Turns out, Bezos was in the crash but not only was he completely safe but became a hero, rescuing everyone inside. He then called for help using a satellite phone that Hiatt 'insisted he should take.'
Fun fact! That property Bezos later bought became the base for his space company, Blue Origin.
