Amazon founder Bezos to step down as CEO this year

Amazon announced Tuesday that founder and CEO Jeff Bezos will step down as CEO this summer, handing off the retail juggernaut to Andy Jassy, who runs the cloud computing business.

Bezos, one of the world’s most powerful business figures and one of its wealthiest, will transition to the role of executive chairman.

The surprise announcement came as Amazon reported record fourth-quarter sales that topped $100 billion for the first time.

“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,” Bezos, 57, said in a statement. “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.”

Like Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, Bezos is closely associated with his company’s brand.

Since founding Amazon as an online bookseller nearly 30 years ago, Bezos has expanded into selling just about anything. On his watch, the company grew into a $1.7 trillion retail monolith that employs more than 1.2 million workers.

“Amazon is big simply because it has given customers what they want. To grow it had to take share from other giants of retail, some of which were once seen as unassailable,” Neil Saunders, managing director of consultancy GlobalData Retail, said in a statement.

Among Amazon’s biggest success stories is its cloud computing business, which launched in 2006 led by Jassy, who’s long been viewed as Bezos’ heir. Jassy’s ascension was made possible in August when the company announced that another possible successor, Jeff Wilke, would soon retire.

In a letter to employees, Bezos said as executive chairman he would focus on new products and early initiatives. Amazon’s new leader has his “full confidence,” Bezos said.

Though he became more involved again last spring during the pandemic, Bezos had stepped away from Amazon’s day-to-day business in recent years, dabbling in other ventures, from a private space company Blue Origin to The Washington Post.

“This transition may free up Bezos to focus on other ideas that he’s been accumulating over the years,” Tim Hubbard, assistant professor of management at the University of Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business, said in an emailed statement. “In one way, I think it might be freeing for him to have the space to personally innovate again, without having to manage the rest of the company. Given the recent successes at Amazon, especially during the pandemic, it’s going to be hard to disrupt their momentum.”

After buying The Washington Post for $250 million in 2013, Bezos gave the newspaper the financial wherewithal to achieve a turnaround by investing in news gathering, technological upgrades and a digital subscription strategy.

The role also brought him unwanted scrutiny.

During Donald Trump’s administration, the president accused Bezos of using the Post as a tool to achieve political outcomes that bettered the newspaper.

In 2019, Bezos alleged that lawyers for supermarket tabloid National Enquirer owner American Media Inc. tried to blackmail him into getting The Post to drop its investigation into the company’s ties to Trump.

At the time, Bezos famously called his ownership of The Post a “complexifier” for him but said he was proud to stand up to what he called bullies.