Jeff Bezos To Step Down As Amazon CEO

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos will be stepping down as CEO in the third quarter of this year, according to an email to company employees. Bezos’ announcement came after Amazon reported a record quarterly revenue of over US$100 billion (~RM404.7 billion) – the largest in its history.

The world’s second-richest man will then become Amazon’s executive chairman, while Andy Jassy, the founder and CEO of Amazon Web Services, takes his place at the helm.  “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,” Bezos told employees.

“I’ve never had more energy, and this isn’t about retiring. I’m super passionate about the impact I think these organisations can have.” If that statement is not clear enough, Bezos is certainly not leaving the business he started 27 years ago anytime soon.

According to Amazon CFO Brian Olsavsky during the latest investors call said, “He will be involved in many large one-way-door issues, as we say, one-way doors meaning the more important decisions things like acquisitions, things like strategies, and going into grocery and other things.”

So, you will likely still hear about Bezos from time to time. Nevertheless, analysts believe that Jassy’s pick spoke volumes on how Amazon views the way forward and its strategic priorities.

“Jassy’s background in steering AWS shows just how top of mind those services are to Amazon’s business strategy. It’ll be interesting to see how that affects their strategy and balancing that priority with a growing ad business and the commerce behemoth,” Tom Johnson, chief transformation officer at global marketing firm Mindshare, told Reuters.