That person is Ron Vachris, who is currently the retailer’s COO. He began his 40+ year Costco journey with the classic Fortune 500 entry-level job o

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2025-01-15 14:00:13

That person is Ron Vachris, who is currently the retailer’s COO. He began his 40+ year Costco journey with the classic Fortune 500 entry-level job of forklift driver. His predecessor Craig Jelinek became CEO in 2012, decades after starting as a warehouse manager in 1984 (a year after Costco’s founding). Jelinek had originally been hired from discount retailer FedMart, where he worked with legendary Costco co-founder Jim Sinegal.

This is a long way of saying that the corporate ladder at Costco sounds a lot like checking into the “Hotel California”. You can never leave.

I scoured the internet for a comparable Jelinek warning in his handover to Vachris but found nothing (so far, only 50% of Costco CEO transitions have involved a death threat).

However, I did find many concerned voices on the r/Costco subreddit. For those who are not familiar, this corner of the internet has 469,000 Reddit users including current and former Costco employees. And since the forum is anonymous, you get great intel and also hysterical takes.

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