PHOTOS COURTESY OF JASON KILAR
ONLINE: Kilar delivered JOMC’s Park Lecture in October, was interviewed by a journalism
student, and he later spoke at Kenan-Flagler Business School. Those videos are available online,
along with more about Kilar’s accomplishments, at
alumni.unc.edu/kilar.
focused — a real customer advocate at
Amazon for many years, and we were super
lucky to have him.” (Bezos would not say if
he feels lucky to have Kilar as a competitor.)
Nine years at Amazon left Kilar craving
a change. He had always wanted to start his
own company, and his wife and children
needed him around. Keeping a promise
made to Jamie, he left the business world
and took his family around the real world
— 56 cities and 12,000 photos over the
better part of a year in 2006.
“It really was a magical time for us as a
family ... in stark contrast to the previous
eight and a half years,” Kilar says. The old-
est child, Sadie, was then 2, her younger
sister Ivy just 6 months old (the family has
since grown by two: Ruby, now 2, and
Atticus, 10 months).
