Jeff Bezos is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of the giant corporation Amazon. But, by the time 2021 wraps up, one of those things will no longer be the case.
No one will take the “founder of Amazon” away from Bezos, but he won’t be chief executive of the company for much longer. In a report today from The New York Times, Bezos will be stepping down as the CEO of the company as of this summer. Moving forward, Bezos will be taking up the role of executive chairman at the company.
Someone’s already been tapped to fill the role, so it won’t be empty for long. The report indicates that Amazon’s head of the cloud computing division, Andy Jassy, will be the new chief executive of the company after Bezos officially steps down.
The report also indicates that Bezos has stepped back from most of the day-to-day operations of the company over the last few years. Last year, though, Bezos stepped back into that role due to the ongoing pandemic.
In a statement, Bezos had this to say:
Amazon is what it is because of invention. We do crazy things together and then make them normal. We pioneered customer reviews, 1-Click, personalized recommendations, Prime’s insanely-fast shipping, Just Walk Out shopping, the Climate Pledge, Kindle, Alexa, marketplace, infrastructure cloud computing, Career Choice, and much more,’ said Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder and CEO. ‘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. 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.
Bezos has been the face of Amazon for so long that it feels wild to hear that he’s stepping down. But, if the decision makes sense for him, then it appears it’s the right time.
Amazon made the announcement of Bezos’s decision as it released its latest fiscal earnings report.
This story is developing…