Jeff Bezos Is Stepping Down as Amazon CEO After 27 Years

In a press release on the official website of Amazon, the company’s founder Jeff Bezos announced that he will step down as CEO in the third quarter of this year to be replaced by Andy Jassy, who is now CEO of Amazon Web Services (AWS).

“Amazon is also announcing today that Jeff Bezos will transition to the role of Executive Chair in the third quarter of 2021 and Andy Jassy will become Chief Executive Officer at that time,” the statement says.

According to Bezos, good financial indicators and a stable position of the company allow him to transition to the position of executive chairman. Bezos also believes that the company's financial indicators make it possible to call its position very stable.

Andy Jassy joined Amazon back in 1997 and has led the Amazon Web Services since 2003. It has long been the profit engine of Amazon, providing cloud computing and storage for governments and companies like Netflix.

“We’ve done crazy things together, and then made them normal. We pioneered customer reviews, 1-Click, personalized recommendations, Prime’s insanely-fast shipping, Just Walk Out shopping, the Climate Pledge, Kindle, Alexa, marketplace, infrastructure cloud computing, Career Choice, and much more. If you get it right, a few years after a surprising invention, the new thing has become normal. People yawn. And that yawn is the greatest compliment an inventor can receive,” said Bezos in an email to Amazon employees.

This move means that Bezos will be more removed from the day-to-day operation of the e-commerce giant, which will allow him to focus on his other ventures. For instance, the Bezos Earth Fund established last year, One Day Fund, and Blue Origin, the space company that is testing its own New Shepard launch vehicle, which is supposed to send people to the Moon in 2024.

Bezos also said that as executive chairman, he will focus his energy and attention on the company's new products and initiatives.

Bezos founded Amazon in 1994, and it has grown into one of the largest online retailers in the world, offering various products and services, such as Amazon Prime, the Echo and Kindle line of devices, package delivery, along with cloud services and advertising.

Amazon, which started out as an online bookseller, is now the dominant company in the cloud, food, electronics, and entertainment industries, and employs 1.3 million people globally.

During his prosperity as head of Amazon, the wealth of Jeff Bezos skyrocketed to the point that he became the richest human on Earth with a net worth of nearly $180 billion, but he later became replaced by Elon Musk.

By the way, Amazon experienced an explosive growth this year as the coronavirus pandemic prompted a surge in online shopping. The company reportedly had $386 in sales last year, up 38% compared with 2019, and its profits rose to $21.3 billion.