Amazon founder Jeff Bezos will step down as the company’s chief executive officer to take on an executive chairman role.
The company made the announcement in its fourth-quarter financial results, noting that Amazon Web Services CEO Andy Jassy would transition to Bezos’s current position by the third quarter of 2021.
“I’m excited to announce that this Q3 I’ll transition to Executive Chair of the Amazon Board and Andy Jassy will become CEO,” Bezos said in a letter to employees. “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.”
Jassy has been with Amazon since 1997 when he was hired as a marketing manager and has led AWS since it was established in 2006.
Bezos founded Amazon in 1994 as a book store operating out of his garage. It is now one of the largest companies in the world, projected to capture nearly half of all online retail transactions in 2021, according to Statista. When the company went public in 1997, shares sold for less than $2. Shares now fetch more than $3,000, for a total market cap of $1.7 trillion.
The company employs more than 1 million people and serves hundreds of millions of customers and businesses.
Amazon’s successes propelled Bezos to reign for years as the world’s richest man, having only recently been supplanted by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
“I find my work meaningful and fun,” Bezos said. “I get to work with the smartest, most talented, most ingenious teammates. When times have been good, you’ve been humble. When times have been tough, you’ve been strong and supportive, and we’ve made each other laugh. It is a joy to work on this team. As much as I still tap dance into the office, I’m excited about this transition.”
Bezos said that stepping down will allow him to have more time to focus on some of his other projects, including the homelessness nonprofit organization Day 1 Fund, the Bezos Earth Fund, the Washington Post, and his “other passions.”
