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Jeff Bezos Plans to Step Down as Amazon’s CEO

Jeff Bezos
WSJ

Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon plans to step down from his position as chief executive officer. The multi-billionaire is handing over his position to the CEO of Amazon Web Services, Andy Jassy.

In an email sent out by Bezos on Tuesday to Amazon employees, he states that he’ll “transition to Executive Chair of Amazon Board,” while Jassy will become the new CEO.

Bezos still remains the biggest shareholder of the company with 10.6% shares. And he’ll also remain on the board of directors. However, it’s the day-to-day activities he won’t be overlooking. Instead, he’ll “stay engaged in important Amazon initiatives”.

Jeff Bezos had stepped back from overlooking most of the daily business of the company. Rather, he was more involved in the future of Amazon and other personal projects.

Jeff Bezos Decides to Step Back.

57-year-old Bezos started Amazon as an online bookseller in his garage in 1994. 27 years later, Amazon is the biggest e-commerce industry in the world that’s worth $1.7 trillion. It employs over 1.3 million people along with delivery trucks, physical stores, streaming services, cloud computing, and AI services.

Andy Jassy
Business Insider

And with the introduction of Amazon Web Services (AWS), Amazon’s profits skyrocketed. 53-year-old Andy Jassy, the future CEO of Amazon was the key factor in the development of AWS.

In the letter, Bezos writes “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 has my full confidence”.

The Amazon CEO plans to handover the responsibility in the third quarter which begins in July.

Future Plans.

MSN/Medium

Jeff was in fact planning on the transition for a long. However, due to the coronavirus pandemic, he had to get back into the office in order to take control. While the worldwide lockdown was hard on everyone, it spiked online shopping like never before. Amazon was one of the companies profiting from the situation.

According to Amazon’s financial chief Brian Olsavsky, Bezos will not disappear from Amazon. However, he’ll put more focus on other projects like his space travel company Blue Origin, the Washington Post, Bezos Earth Fund, and Day 1 Fund.

Jeff, who went through an ugly divorce two years ago with MacKenzie Scott, is the richest man in the world. He has a net worth of $196.2 billion.

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