Jeff Bezos announced on Tuesday that he was stepping down as CEO of the e-commerce giant Amazon in the third quarter of 2021. He will retain the title of chairman. The new CEO of the e-commerce giant will be Andy Jassy, currently head of the group’s cloud arm Amazon Web Service (AWS).
The company announced the news alongside its financial results with net sales increasing 44% to $125.6 billion (R1.8 trillion) in the fourth quarter of 2020, versus $87.4 billion (R1.2 trillion) in fourth quarter 2019.
“I’m excited to announce that this Q3 I’ll transition to Executive Chair of the Amazon Board and Andy Jassy will become CEO. In the Exec Chair role, I intend to focus my energies and attention on new products and early initiatives. Andy is well known inside the company and has been at Amazon almost as long as I have. He will be an outstanding leader, and he has my full confidence,” said Jeff Bezos in a to his employees published on the company’s blog.
Bezos started Amazon some 27 years ago.
“Amazon was only an idea, and it had no name. The question I was asked most frequently at that time was, “What’s the internet?” Blessedly, I haven’t had to explain that in a long while,” he wrote.
He founded Amazon Web Services there in 2003.
Today, Amazon employ 1.3 million talented, dedicated people, to serve hundreds of millions of customers and businesses. The group is recognized as one of the most successful companies in the world.
“I don’t know of another company with an invention track record as good as Amazon’s, and I believe we are at our most inventive right now. I hope you are as proud of our inventiveness as I am. I think you should be,” he explains.
“As Amazon became large, we decided to use our scale and scope to lead on important social issues. Two high-impact examples: our $15 minimum wage and the Climate Pledge. In both cases, we staked out leadership positions and then asked others to come along with us. In both cases, it’s working. Other large companies are coming our way. I hope you’re proud of that as well.”
In his letter, Jeff Bezos predicts a glossy picture for Amazon.
“Amazon couldn’t be better positioned for the future,” he said.
“We are firing on all cylinders, just as the world needs us to. We have things in the pipeline that will continue to astonish. We serve individuals and enterprises, and we’ve pioneered two complete industries and a whole new class of devices.
“We are leaders in areas as varied as machine learning and logistics, and if an Amazonian’s idea requires yet another new institutional skill, we’re flexible enough and patient enough to learn it.”
