Amazon’s founder Jeff Bezos to step down as CEO
NEW YORK: Jeff Bezos, who founded Amazon as an online bookseller nearly three decades ago, will step down as the CEO of the $1.7 trillion global e-commerce giant and will become the executive chairman, a move he said would give him “time and energy” to focus on his other ventures and passions.
Amazon, which announced on Wednesday that 2020 net sales increased 38% to $386.1 billion, compared with $280.5 billion in 2019, said Bezos will transition to the role of executive chair in the third quarter of 2021 and Andy Jassy, CEO of the company’s cloud business, Amazon Web Services, will become CEO at that time. Bezos has been Amazon’s CEO since its founding in 1995. He oversaw its growth from an online bookseller into a $1.7 trillion global retail and logistics giant, which
has also made the 57-year-old into one of the world’s richest persons. “Amazon is what it is because of invention. We do crazy things together and then make them normal,” Bezos said,
adding that the company pioneered customer reviews, 1-Click, personalised 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 do it right, a few years after a surprising invention, the new thing has become normal. People yawn. That yawn is the greatest compliment an inventor can receive. When you look at our financial results, what you’re actually seeing are the long-run cumulative results of invention. Right now I see Amazon at its most inventive ever, making it an optimal time for this transition,” he said in a statement.
In a letter to Amazonians, Bezos said he will transition to Executive Chair of the Amazon Board, a role in which he said he intends to focus his energies and attention on new products and early initiatives. Jassy, 53, who is “well known” inside the company and has been at Amazon almost as long as Bezos has, “will be an outstanding leader, and he has my full confidence.”