Amazon To Transition To A New CEO

Since first starting in a garage back in 1995, Amazon has known one leader – Jeff Bezos. This changed today when Amazon announced that Jeff Would be stepping down, replaced by current cloud computing chief, Andy Jassy. Bezos will, however, remain influential in his role as an executive chairman. After 27 years we could forgive Jeff for wanting to take a step back and enjoy the fruits of his labour having built one of the most successful companies in world history and in the process becoming (at time of writing) the 2nd richest person alive. When one thinks about waking up with over $185,000,000,000 in the bank, their minds naturally turn to thoughts of flying their private jet to their private island, then taking a cruise on their private superyacht.

However, when asked about the shift Bezos made it clear that he has no interest in retiring and the move was intended to free up time to focus on other initiatives, stating “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.”

His replacement, Andy Jassy has long been considered Bezos heir apparent off the back of his successful leadership of Amazon Web Services (AWS). An arm of Amazon which launched in 2006 and has gone on to become its most profitable venture (in some quarters accounting for 89% of its total operating profit). The transition to Jassy was made far more likely as Jeff Wilke, who joined Amazon in 1999 as the head of global operations will step down in 2021 to pursue other interests.

Despite the change in leadership, it seems clear that nothing will slow Amazon down as e-commerce sales we’re up 44% in the USA alone, and 89% of e-commerce customers say they would prefer to buy through Amazon. That combined with their success in other arenas like cloud computing technology means the trend toward dominance is likely to continue for another decade or more.