In this episode of High Net Purpose, Joe McCarthy sits down with Greg Greeley, CEO of Simon & Schuster and former Amazon and Airbnb leader, for a conversation about purpose, customer obsession, Amazon Prime, transformation, AI and legacy.
Greg describes purpose as giving back to society more than you take by building companies that serve customers, suppliers, employees and stakeholders. The conversation moves from his childhood in a farming community and the bankruptcy that shaped his appetite for risk, through Amazon’s dot-com-era pressure and the creation of Prime, to his current role leading Simon & Schuster through a period of change.
Greg shares:
Why his definition of purpose is simple: give back more than you take
What he learned building Amazon Prime alongside Jeff Bezos and the team
How childhood adversity and family bankruptcy shaped his appetite for risk
Why the best leaders stay obsessed with customers, not competitors
Why transformation requires builders, not just operators
How AI is changing leadership, decision-making and long-term value creation
If you're a senior operator, founder, family office principal, or leader navigating uncertainty, this episode will challenge how you think about purpose, growth and long-term impact.
The practical test at the centre of the episode is simple: are you building something that will outlast you, and are you building the team that can carry it forward?
Greg Greeley | Bio
Greg Greeley is Chief Executive Officer of Simon & Schuster, the 102-year-old publisher now operating as an independent company. He grew up in a small farming community, where his father moved from selling insurance to farmers into running restaurants - an entrepreneurial household whose later bankruptcy, just as Greg left for college, taught him self-reliance and shaped his appetite for doing hard things.
Trained as an engineer with a computer systems degree and an MBA in finance, Greg began his career in aerospace before moving to Sun Microsystems in the mid-1990s. In 1999 he left Sun - then at the top of its game - to join Amazon, initially in finance for worldwide operations. Over nearly two decades at Amazon he led the worldwide media business through the digital transition, created Super Saver Shipping, and was central to the creation and global expansion of Amazon Prime. He went on to join Airbnb in a senior leadership role during its period of hyper-growth, and today applies that builder's playbook to publishing, where he is focused on making a century-old company “work like a 102-year-old startup”.
He describes his purpose simply: to give back to society more than you take by building great companies - and to be remembered as a builder.
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