Jeff Bezos is stepping down as Amazon CEO and will be replaced by AWS boss Andy Jassy
World’s richest man Jeff Bezos, 57, steps down as Amazon CEO and will be replaced by longtime co-worker Andy Jassy – the man who built Amazon Web Services and pulled the plug on Parler
- Bezos told staff he will become Executive Chair in the third quarter of this year
- Bezos announced the change in an email to staff on Tuesday afternoon and as the company reported bumper 2020 Q4 earnings of more than $100billion
- Throughout the whole of 2020, Amazon shares went up by 85%
- He founded Amazon with his ex-wife MacKenzie Bezos in 1994 on a road trip
- The company is now worth $1.7trillion and Bezos is the richest man in the world
- He is followed by Elon Musk and the pair often trade the title depending on how their respective businesses perform in the markets
- Bezos will be replaced by Andy Jassy who currently CEO of Amazon Web Services
- Jassy, 53, was recently described by Amazon staff as a ‘shark’ who can ‘smell blood’
- It was his decision to end AWS’ business with Parler, the unregulated social media site, after the January 6 Capitol riot
Jeff Bezos is stepping down as the CEO of Amazon, 27 years after founding it with his ex-wife and building it into one of the most successful companies of all time that is now worth $1.7trillion.
Bezos, 57, will be replaced by 53-year-old Andy Jassy, the current CEO of Amazon Web Services (AWS) Amazon’s cloud service. He has been with the company for 24 years and built AWS into the $40billion, internet-dominating machine it now is.
AWS dominates a third of the internet’s cloud business – by far the largest. It is how governments, companies and individuals keep data and operate online.
Bezos will move to the role of Executive Chair where he says he wants to focus on ‘new products and initiatives’.
It is not clear who will take over Jassy’s role at AWS and what the future holds for the cloud computing giant.
The move will not happen until the third quarter of this year. Bezos announced the change in an email to staff on Tuesday afternoon and as the company reported bumper 2020 Q4 earnings of more than $100billion.
Throughout the whole of 2020, Amazon stocks rose by 85 percent.
In the memo, Bezos insisted this ‘isn’t about retiring’ and said he was ‘excited about this transition’.
He described the role he has occupied for almost three decades as ‘consuming’ and said it was ‘hard to put attention on anything else’.
Bezos said he ‘will stay engaged in important Amazon initiatives but also have the time and energy I need to focus on the Day 1 Fund, the Bezos Earth Fund, Blue Origin, The Washington Post, and my other passions.’
He said: ‘Fellow Amazonians,
‘I’m excited to announce that this Q3 I’ll transition to Executive Chair of the Amazon Board and Andy Jassy will become CEO.
‘In the Exec Chair role, I intend to focus my energies and attention on new products and early initiatives.
‘Andy is well known inside the company and has been at Amazon almost as long as I have. He will be an outstanding leader and he has my full confidence.
‘This journey began some 27 years ago. Amazon was only an idea, and it had no name.
‘The question I was asked most frequently at that time was, ‘What’s the internet?’ Blessedly, I haven’t had to explain that in a long while.
‘Today, we employ 1.3 million talented, dedicated people, serve hundreds of millions of customers and businesses, and are widely recognized as one of the most successful companies in the world,’ he said.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos (pictured with his girlfriend Lauren Sanchez) announced on Tuesday he was stepping down as CEO of the company later this year
Bezos will be replaced by Amazon Web Services CEO, Andy Jassy
Bezos founded Amazon in 1994 on a road trip with his ex-wife MacKenzie. It made him the richest man in the world with a net worth of $188billion.
He and Elon Musk trade the title depending on their respective companies’ success in the markets.
Amazon’s share price went up by 1.1 percent after the announcement but were not dramatically changed.
Jassy, a married father-of-two and Harvard graduate, was recently hailed by Amazon employees as a decisive ‘shark’.
‘He has a tremendous amount of trust in his team, but you have to be at the highest levels of diligence and preparation for any meeting with him.
‘He’s a shark who will smell a drop of blood from 100 miles away if you’re not ready,’ one employee told Business Insider on January 31 in a profile about how he could become the next CEO.
AWS is one of if not the most promising arm in the company. Since it was formed in 2003, Jassy has helped turn it into a $40bn hosting service for other online businesses.
Analysts were calling Jassy and AWS the future of Amazon before Tuesday’s announcement.
‘AWS and Jassy — they’re the gatekeepers. Jassy’s one of the most powerful leaders not just within the cloud and the tech sector but in the world of business,’ Dan Ives, an analyst at Wedbush Securities, said.
Inside the company, he is widely known for ‘the Chop’ – the conference room next to his office and the term for his brainstorming meetings where big ideas and employees get chopped down to size, sources told Insider.
It was his decision to end Amazon’s business with Parler, an unregulated social media site favored by the alt-right that was used, in part, to orchestrate the January 6 Capitol riot.
The ban shone a greater spotlight on the ongoing conversation around the power of big tech.
Joining back in 1997 – the same year the company went public – Jassy quickly rose up the ranks at Amazon.
Before taking the helm of AWS, he served as Bezos’ ‘shadow’ advisor and joined in every one of his meetings.
He earned $20million over the last three years, according to Insider.
Bezos founded Amazon as an online bookstore in 1994, before the internet was widely used.
He told his wife about the idea while they were driving from New York City to Seattle. They’d been married for a year and had quit their jobs at law firms.
MacKenzie later recalled in an interview: ‘I’m not a businessperson. So to me, what I’m hearing when he tells me that idea is the passion and the excitement.
‘And to me, you know, watching your spouse, somebody that you love, have an adventure — what is better than that, and being part of that?’
She started working as an accountant and was one of the first Amazon employees.
They started by forming contracts with book stores like Barnes & Noble to sell their books online, then added from there.
Now, it is the single largest online retail marketplace in the world.
Amazon Web Services has emerged as one of biggest profit centers for the ecommerce giant, with the cloud business making up over 60 percent of Amazon’s operating profits and generating over $40 billion in revenue each year.
Prior to Tuesday’s announcement, speculation has been mounting for years that Amazon would spin off AWS into a separate business.
Amazon shares were largely unaffected at the time of the announcement on Tuesday afternoon
Amazon’s share price has grown hugely not only since Bezos and MacKenzie divorced but since the start of the pandemic. The company is worth more than $1.7trillion now
Bezos founded Amazon in 1994 as an online market place for books. He is shown in 1997
A 1999 60 Minutes interview shows Bezos in an office with a spray-painted amazon.com sign
Jeff and MacKenzie Bezos at Allen & Co in 2003
Wall Street investors have for some time believed AWS could do better broken off from Amazon and away from the increased scrutiny around the retail giant’s anti-trust suits.
With Jassy’s promotion, the future of AWS including whether it will be spun off from Amazon and who will now take the helm, isn’t clear.
But was is clear is that Jassy had become hot property in the tech industry in recent years, having previously been rumored to be in the running for the top jobs at both Microsoft and Uber.
Meanwhile, Bezos has hit the headlines of late as both his personal and professional dealings have come under increased scrutiny.
In January 2019, Bezos and MacKenzie announced they were divorcing after it was revealed he had been having a relationship with TV personality Lauren Sanchez.
The divorce split the company stocks, and made MacKenzie the richest woman in the world with a settlement of around $38billion.
That nearly doubled throughout the COVID-19 pandemic as Amazon – one of the only retailers that could continue because of its online retail model – thrived.
MacKenzie has put her ex-husband to shame in recent months with her charitable giving.
Bezos didn’t explain the timing for the announcement on Tuesday.
He signed off his email telling staff to ‘keep inventing’ and not be put off if the idea ‘looks crazy’.
Over the last four years, Bezos has, along with the rest of Silicon Valley, faced tougher criticism from governments around the world about monopolizing technology and the way the world depends on it.
He has testified at Congress about Amazon’s practices, along with other CEOs, and insisted that Amazon is not anti-competitive despite its market dominance.