Jeff 'Bye-zos' - Is passing the baton easy?

After nearly 30 years, Jeff Bezos, 57, will be handing the position of CEO over to Andy Jassy, who currently manages the company’s cloud computing business. This major change will take place on July 5th. Jeff Bezos has mentioned that he will become the executive chair at Amazon, and will focus on creating new products and/or initiatives. Bezos also said that he wanted this handover to take place on July 5th as the date is sentimental for both him and the company. July 5, 1994, is Amazon’s incorporation date, and the same date as of 2021 will be the 27th anniversary of Amazon’s official founding. He will also be focusing his time on his other ventures; The Washington Post, and Blue Origin. Amazon started out as an online market for books, and eventually expanded to selling items such as electronics, apparel toys, etc. Bezos founded Amazon from his garage.

There was previous news of Bezos stepping down in February, but an exact date was not provided at the time.

Andy Jassy has been working at Amazon for - 24 years - almost as long as Jeff Bezos himself. Jassy joined Amazon in 1997, which is the same year the company went public.

After joining the then start-up bookseller in 1997, Jassy seemed to have made a strong - and painful - first impression on Jeff Bezos. During a rather boisterous game of “broomball”, Jassy, who was - at the time - an energetic recruit from Harvard Business School, inadvertently hit Bezos over the head with a kayak paddle. Bezos forgave Jassy and rapidly promoted the recruit, who he recognized to be nearly as competitively driven as he was himself. Andy Jassy has had many brilliant ideas - perhaps before joining amazon as well - during his time in the company. In the early 2000s, Jassy - chief of staff at the time - was the one who had the idea of Amazon’s move into cloud storage. In 2003, he also pitched the idea of extending the internal network to other companies. It also seems - in Amazon’s early days - to have been his idea for Amazon to not only sell books but to start selling CDs and DVDs.

Jassy, who is the current chief executive of Amazon's rapidly growing cloud service division, AWS, will be once again promoted as Amazon’s second-ever chief executive. Jassy also has the trust of Bezos after running the AWS division, which is one of Amazon’s most reliable sources of profit. The 53-year-old built Amazon Web Services (AWS) from the ground in the past twenty years, becoming the CEO of the cloud platform - nearly 5 years back - in 2016.

Andy Jassy has been described as one of the most powerful leaders within the cloud and tech centre and in the world of business by Dan Ives, an analyst at Wedbush. Most of Jassy’s time at the company was spent acting as Jeff Bezos’s ‘shadow’ and ‘intellectual sparring partner’. On many occasions, however, he has shown himself to be - in fact - more prepared and willing than Bezos himself, to use his stage to speak out on political issues. He has openly spoken out against the police dispatching of black people (Americans) and is also in favour of any court decisions to make discrimination against members of the LGBTQ community illegal.

Jeff Bezos announced his leave as CEO to his staff through a letter. In this letter, he has said that he has “full confidence” in Jassy and that he is sure Andy will be an “outstanding leader”.

In his letter, he mentioned why he wanted to leave the helm. “Being the CEO of Amazon is a deep responsibility, and it’s consuming. When you have a responsibility like that, it’s hard to put attention to anything else. 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. I’ve never had more energy, and this isn’t about retiring. I’m super passionate about the impact I think these organizations can have.”

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