The surprise announcement that Jeff Bezos will leave later this year and hand over the reins to AWS leader Andy Jassy marks a remarkable rise for Jassy. He began as a marketing manager in 1997 and started AWS in 2003.
I didn’t see this coming and neither, it appears, did anyone else outside of Amazon’s inner circle. Were you to ask me what major tech CEO might step down in the near futire, I’d have guessed Arvind Krishna at IBM could walk away this year — making room for heir-apparent James Whitehurst. Or maybe at long last Larry Ellison would decide to spend more time on his Hawaiian island, Lanai. But Jeff Bezos, walking away from the CEO job at Amazon? No way! In a shocking move, after Amazon reported its Q4 2021 revenue — even better results than expected — the company also announced that Bezos, its founder and CEO, would become Executive Chair in the third quarter of 2021. AWS’ Andy Jassy. The top spot will go to Amazon Web Services (AWS) leader Andy Jassy. At what company does the founder and CEO’s decision to leave take second-billing in the statement announcing his departure? Well, Amazon, obviously. In a statement, Bezos detailed how Amazon upended both online and brick-and-mortar retail: «Amazon is what it is because of invention. We do crazy things together and then make them normal.
