Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has announced that he will leave his post later this year and has named the company’s top cloud executive, Andy Jassy as his successor. Jassy, 53, is set to take the helm in the third quarter.
In his announcement on Tuesday, Bezos said that he will transition to executive chairman of Amazon’s board.
Bezos, who is now 57, founded Amazon in 1994. The company has since then morphed from an online bookstore into a mega-retailer with global reach, selling a slew of different products, from gadgets to groceries to online streaming. Amazon surpassed a $1 trillion market cap under Bezos’ leadership in January of last year. It is now worth more than $1.6 trillion.
Amazon had kept its succession plans quiet, though it was speculated that either Jassy or Jeff Wilke, CEO of Amazon’s worldwide consumer business, would be Bezos’ eventual successor. In August, Amazon announced Wilke will retire in 2021.
Jassy joined Amazon in 1997 and has led Amazon’s Web Services cloud team since its inception. AWS continues to drive much of Amazon’s profit.
“I’m excited to announce that this Q3 I’ll transition to Executive Chair of the Amazon Board and Andy Jassy will become CEO,” Bezos said in a letter to employees. “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.”
Bezos said in his letter that he will stay engaged in important Amazon projects, but will also have more time to focus on the Bezos Earth Fund, his Blue Origin spaceship company, The Washington Post and the Amazon Day 1 Fund.
“As much as I still tap dance into the office, I’m excited about this transition,” Bezos said in the internal announcement. “Millions of customers depend on us for our services, and more than a million employees depend on us for their livelihoods. Being the CEO of Amazon is a deep responsibility, and it’s consuming. When you have a responsibility like that, it’s hard to put attention on anything else.”
Shares of Amazon were up about 1% in extended trading Tuesday on the back of an earnings report, in which Amazon posted its first $100 billion quarter. AWS, under Jassy, reported 28% revenue growth for the fourth quarter. About 52% of Amazon’s operating income was attributed to AWS as of October 2020. The company’s stock has gained about 4% so far in 2021 and is up nearly 70% in the last 12 months.
Brian Olsavsky, Amazon CFO, said that the executive change was decided in consultation with Amazon’s board of directors. He said Bezos will remain very involved and have his fingerprints on lots of different parts of the company. Olsavsky said Jassy is a visionary leader who will bring his own skill set but that the company expects a lot of continuity with the transition.
Amazon has taken a lot of flak in recent months over anti-trust complaints in the EU and the US. In October, after a 16-month investigation into competitive practices at big tech companies including Amazon, the House Judiciary subcommittee on antitrust concluded that Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google enjoy monopoly power.
Soon after Bezos’ announcement, Rep. Ken Buck, R-Colo., a member of the House Judiciary Committee, said on Twitter that he has questions for Jassy.
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