Do the math. Amazon also has at least two major verticals - retail and AWS. Within AWS, Amazon has multiple departments and markets.
Without giving too much away, let’s start with the obvious (and I’m just guessing, I am not looking at the internal tool to see the hierarchy right now)
CEO of Amazon -> CEO of AWS -> Manager of my specific department worldwide -> manager of specific geographies -> manager of specific verticals within that market -> my manager.
That’s 6. I’m sure I’m missing a few and I just completely made up that hierarchy. But it is a logical division.
A typical McDonalds worked in a corporate owned store could probably go up 6 levels
- worker
- shift lead
- store manager
- regional manager
- district manager
- two more levels
- CEO
He has 6 people between him and the CEO. Oddly close. Maybe Amazon isn’t bloated and is just unbelievably huge.