Shortly after being named Amazon.com Inc.’s global logistics chief in 2013, Dave Clark held a conference call with his new reports. During the meet-and-greet, according to a person on the call, Clark described his early-career habit of lurking in the shadows of Amazon warehouses and scoping out slackers he could fire, which earned him the nickname The Sniper. Clark speaks in a monotone and is hard to read, but the message was clear enough: The new boss wanted his underlings to know that he will let little stand in the way of ensuring that customers get their orders on time.
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