Jeff Bezos Steps Down as Amazon’s Chief Executive

Tuesday 2nd February, founder of e-commerce giant Amazon, Jeff Bezos announces his plans to step down as CEO of the company. This move comes after Bezos wishes to focus on other ventures.

Bezos has led the company since its beginnings as an online bookstore in 1994. In this time, the company now employs 1.3 million people internationally and has expanded its products from electricals, food, clothing, beauty and streaming services. This led Bezos to accumulate a fortune of $196.2 billion, which makes him the world’s richest man according to Forbes’ list of billionaires. The company continued to thrive during the pandemic with the increase in supply and demand of goods, with the company reporting in 2020 an increase of 38% of sales from 2019.

In a letter to Amazon staff, Bezos said: “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 on anything else.” This change will take place in the second half of 2021, with his replacement Andy Jassy taking over.

Bezos’ will remain a part of the company in the role of executive chairman. This will allow how him to still stay a part of the company, whilst allowing him to pursue other ventures, such as focusing on his ownership of The Washington Post. Bezos said: “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.”

Who is Andy Jassy?

Jassy has worked at Amazon for twenty-three years after attending Harvard Business School and now runs Amazon Web Services (AWS), a cloud hosting product that creates the infrastructure used by millions of companies, schools and governments to run websites. AWS was founded by Jassy in 2003 and now accounts for half the company’s operating outcomes. It saw the potential in outsourcing computing and storage before its rivals Google and Microsoft, therefore becoming the clear leader in the field.

Bezos’ backed Jassy stating that he has “full confidence” in this replacement and went on to say in a letter addressed to Amazon staff: “Andy is well known inside the company and has been at Amazon for almost as long as I have. He will be an outstanding leader.” 

Jassy has also been known to speak out on social issues. On his Twitter account, he tweeted about the shooting of Breonna Taylor saying the police needed to be held accountable. He also announced his support for LGBTQ+ rights. However, he did come under fire after comments made in a PBS documentary about the company, where he defended the company’s sales of facial recognition technology to law enforcement, despite concerns over racial bias and misuse. Therefore, Jassy’s comments on social justice issues should be taken with a pinch of salt.

Future steps

Once Jassy takes over he will have several issues to deal with, namely the treatment of Amazon warehouse workers and their drives towards unionisation. Amazon workers have said that they were retaliated against for pushing for better working conditions, which was covered in an earlier article for Relawding.

Analysts have said that Bezos’ departure could lead to a shift in the company’s focus to business-to-business operations. Research director at Forrester, Allen Bonde said in the Evening Standard: “While consumer e-commerce is a big market, B2B is an even bigger prize. Picking a leader who is driving their main enterprise offering may indicate the future of Amazon is in fact selling more to businesses than consumers.” 

Whatever Jassy decides to do, there is little doubt that the company will suffer, as Andrew Goodacre, CEO of the British Independent Retailers Association said it’s: “Hard to imagine how Amazon will lose its dominance of online shopping. It is a very well defined and managed business and in reality I suspect it will grow.”

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