Amazon founder Jeff Bezos will be stepping down later this year as CEO after almost 30 years to join the Amazon Board as the Executive Chairman. The role of CEO will be taken over by Andy Jassy, who currently runs Amazon’s cloud computing business. Bezos, who started the company as an online bookstore and built it into the online shopping and entertainment behemoth, will be handing over the reins of the company to Jassy. Here’s more about the next leader in line of the largest global retail company. Also Read: E-commerce Giant Amazon’s Founder, Jeff Bezos Will Step Down As CEO
- Jassy, who obtained a MBA from Harvard Business School, started working with Amazon in 1997.
- Jassy is married to Elana Rochelle Caplan and is the father of two children. He is also a self-proclaimed sports and music fan.
- In one of the podcasts in HBS in September, Jassy stated that he took the final exam at HBS on the first Friday of May in 1997 and started working with Amazon next Monday. He had then said, “No, I didn’t know what my job was going to be, or what my title was going to be. It was super important to the Amazon people that we come that Monday.”
- In 2006, Jassy went on to establish Amazon’s AWS, Amazon’s cloud service platform that used by millions of businesses across the world. The platform has competitors including Microsoft Corp’s Azure and Alphabet Inc’s Google Cloud.
- Jassy has been vocal about social issues and he has tweeted about the need for police accountability after Breonna Taylor, a Black woman, was slain in her home by white policemen during a botched raid, and in favor of LGBTQ rights.
- On the other hand, Amazon on Tuesday reported its third consecutive record profit and quarterly sales above $100 billion for the first time and made the announcement that Jassy will replace Bezos.
- Jassy, 53, would succeed Jeff Bezos later this year, the company reported that AWS pulled in $12.7 billion in sales in the fourth quarter, making the unit a $50 billion business on an annual basis.
