Amazon founder, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), and world’s richest man, Jeff Bezos, 57, is said to step down in the 3rd quarter of 2021 as the CEO of the e-commerce titan he began in a garage nearly 30 years ago.
Jeff Bezos who founded Amazon in 1994 has since transformed what started as an online bookstore into an omega retail institution. Amazon now offers varying categories from electronics, to groceries, to streaming services, that have a global reach. Under Jeff Bezos’s leadership, Amazon surpassed a $1 trillion market cap last year and now worth more than $1.6 trillion.
After a successful 2020, with a reported $386billion (£283billion) in sales, and profits almost doubling to $21.3billion, Jeff Bezos is convinced it was time to step down for someone else to handle the helm of affairs. While he (Jeff Bezos) becomes executive chairman. He reckons, becoming executive chairman will enable him to have extra time to focus on his other passions such as the Day 1 Fund, the Bezos Earth Fund, Blue Origin, and The Washington Post.
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“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,” Jeff Bezos said in a letter to his staff.
“As Exec Chair I 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.”
I’ve never had more energy, and this isn’t about retiring. I’m super passionate about the impact I think these organisations can have,” he further said.
Jeff Bezos will be succeeded by Andy Jassy who has been with Amazon since 1997 and heads Amazon’s cloud computing infrastructure.
Who is Andy Jassy?
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Andy Jassy, 53 is a graduate of Harvard University and Harvard Business School. Soon after he graduated from Harvard Business School, Andy Jessy found his way into Amazon.
Jassy helped launch Amazon Web Services in 2006 and transformed it into a force to be reckoned with, in cloud computing.
By mid-2020, Amazon controlled 33% of the global cloud infrastructure services market, followed by Microsoft at 18% and Google at 9%. On Tuesday, February, 2, Amazon said its Web Services revenue in the 4th quarter of last year jumped 28% to $12.7 billion with operating income increasing by 37% to $3.56 billion. This accounts for 52% of Amazon’s total operating profit.
It is reported that Amazon paid Jassy a total of $348,809 in 2019, a fall from $19.7 million in 2018 when he received over $19 million in stock reward. At the close of trading on Tuesday, February 2, Andy Jassy is reported to own about 85,000 shares, valued at $287.3 million.
It is worth mentioning that Andy Jassy is a member of Jeff Bezos’s elite group of executives, called the S-team which is short for Senior Team. The S-team which is made of Amazon’s top company executives meets with Jeff Bezos to make key business decisions that will shape the company’s culture.
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