Bezos, the 2nd richest man in the world, founded Amazon in 1994 as an online bookseller. It’s since morphed into a Silicon Valley giant responsible for a massive 37 percent of all online sales in the US, according to Statista.
The announcement set off alarm bells on Wall Street and throughout the business community, t\although the change in leadership will not be any great change to Amazon’s business \, according to NBC News.
Amazon reported a year of record growth on Tuesday, including a 38 percent increase in net sales from 2019, netting the company $21 billion in income, almost double its income from the year before. Investors weren’t bothered by the news and Amazon shares were up about 1.5 percent following the announcement.
It remains to be seen if Bezos will continue to be an active participant in the company he founded. But his successor – Andy Jassy – is a longtime Amazon employee who joined in 1997 and built the company’s cloud services business, AWS.
Amazon Web Services (AWS) started as a small addition to its e-commerce operations but has grown in recent years to account for almost 60 percent of operating profit and has become one of the leaders of the cloud computing industry.
Bezos is going to concentrate on his passions
While Bezos says he is still going to be “engaged in important Amazon projects,” he also plans on devoting more time to his philanthropic efforts that include the Bezos Earth Fund, his Blue Origin spaceship company, The Washington Post and the Amazon Day 1 Fund, according to CNBC News.
“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.”
