Amazon.com has announced that CEO Jeff Bezos will step down from his position and become the executive chairman in the third quarter of this year. The head of Amazon’s cloud division Amazon Web Services (AWS) Andy Jassy will succeed Bezos and become the next Amazon CEO, the company confirmed.
The news of Bezos’ decision to step down as CEO comes after Amazon reported quarterly sales above $100 billion for the first time.
To recall, Bezos began Amazon.com as an internet bookseller 27 years ago has become one of the world’s most valuable companies today.
Jassy, who will be the next Amazon CEO, joined the company in the year 1997. He has been mainly responsible to grow the cloud division AWS, which is used by millions of customers today.
As per Reuters, Tom Johnson, chief transformation officer at global marketing firm Mindshare said “Jassy’s promotion underscored the centrality of the web hosting business to Amazon’s strategy.”
“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,” he added.
In a note to employees, posted on Amazon website, Bezos said, “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.”
For the unaware, Blue Origin is Bezos’ space company. He further added, “I’ve never had more energy, and this isn’t about retiring.”
