Jeff Bezos to step down as Amazon CEO, AWS chief Andy Jassy to fill role in Q3

AppleInsider

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos will step down from his role as CEO of the retail giant later this year, with Andy Jassy tapped to be his replacement, the company announced on Tuesday.

Credit: Amazon

Jassy is set to take over for Bezos as Amazon's chief executive officer in the third quarter of 2021, Amazon announced during its quarterly earnings call on Tuesday. Previously, Jassy served as CEO of Amazon Web Services. Bezos will transition to the role of executive chair of the Amazon Board, the company said.

"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," Bezos said in a prepared statement. "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 also penned an email to Amazon staffers that was published on the company's blog following the announcement. In the message, the Amazon CEO said he wants to devote proper time and attention to his "Day 1 Fund, the Bezos Earth Fund, Blue Origin, The Washington Post, and [his] other passions."

"In the Exec Chair role, I intend to focus my energies and attention on new products and early initiatives," Bezos writes.

Amazon reported revenue of $125.6 billion for Q4 2020 and earnings per share of $14.09, both beating expectations for the quarter. As with Apple, the holiday 2020 quarter also represented the first time Amazon's revenues have eclipsed $100 billion.

Previous predictions have identified Jassy as a likely successor to Bezos. The AWS chief joined Amazon in 1997 and led the cloud services team to its current dominant position in the industry. In the fourth quarter of 2020, AWS reported revenue growth of 28% and net revenues of $12.74 billion. AWS also continues to drive much of Amazon's profits.

"[Jassy] 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," Bezos said of the AWS chief in his email to employees.

Bezos founded Amazon as an online bookstore in 1994 and, under his leadership, the company has grown to a retail juggernaut. Amazon has also expanded into other areas, including web infrastructure through AWS; hardware products like the Echo; and even physical retail with the acquisition of Whole Foods.

The Amazon founder was only named the "richest man in modern history" in July 2018 when his net worth increased to more than $150 billion. It was a title he held onto until January 2021, when Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk passed them.

Amazon and Apple have crossed swords under Bezos' watch. Beyond retail operations, Amazon moved into the lifestyle products and services arena with Siri competitors Alexa and Echo. Amazon's smart digital assistant has become ubiquitous in the consumer electronics space, while Apple's Siri, HomePod and HomeKit platforms have seen slower adoption rates.

In 2011, the online retailer was involved in an antitrust suit targeting Apple's iBookstore platform. When the service launched, Apple upended Amazon's wholesale pricing model with a so-called "agency" model that allowed publishers to control fees for access to digital books. The strategy prevented resellers like Amazon from undercutting those rates, increasing e-book prices and provoking the ire of government oversight agencies. Ironically, a law firm that leveled a successful class action suit against Apple for its iBookstore indiscretions is now taking aim at Amazon over the same issue.

tht

Wow, wow, wow!

jagbatth

Selling Amazon stock now!

gmgravytrain

I can't imagine why Bezos would do something like that.  I don't think big investors will be happy hearing this news.  I know it shouldn't make a difference but big investors have some weird ways of thinking about succession issues.

Wow! Amazon's revenue of $125B absolutely crushed Apple's measly $111B.  No wonder investors are dumping Apple.  I guess you can't blame them for wanting to own a company that makes that much money.  I suppose Bezos can step down after that sort of finale performance.  It's back to the drawing board for Apple.

lkrupp

jagbatth said:

Selling Amazon stock now!

Yeah, the same hysteria happened when Jobs died. Apple was doomed they said. Bezos must feel he can step back because he has built a competent team that knows how to continue, much like Jobs picked Cook and his team. 

yojimbo007

He is heading for Washington......

ronn

gmgravytrain said:

I can't imagine why Bezos would do something like that.  I don't think big investors will be happy hearing this news.  I know it shouldn't make a difference but big investors have some weird ways of thinking about succession issues.

Wow! Amazon's revenue of $125B absolutely crushed Apple's measly $111B.  No wonder investors are dumping Apple.  I guess you can't blame them for wanting to own a company that makes that much money.  I suppose Bezos can step down after that sort of finale performance.  It's back to the drawing board for Apple.

Quarterly Operating Income: Apple = $12.67B VS Amazon = $6.87B. So much for "back to the drawing board for Apple" 

n2macs

gmgravytrain said:

I can't imagine why Bezos would do something like that.  I don't think big investors will be happy hearing this news.  I know it shouldn't make a difference but big investors have some weird ways of thinking about succession issues.

Wow! Amazon's revenue of $125B absolutely crushed Apple's measly $111B.  No wonder investors are dumping Apple.  I guess you can't blame them for wanting to own a company that makes that much money.  I suppose Bezos can step down after that sort of finale performance.  It's back to the drawing board for Apple.

What! You are comparing apples to grapefruits. Amazon sells everything under the sun. Apple sells consumer electronics and services. I would say Apple is David and Amazon is Goliath. David did very well.

roundaboutnow

Maybe now the new guy can get something done about their search, filter and sort features. Maybe it's just me, but it's often hard to get good results. One example is a simple sort by price, low-to-high. You'll get items with a higher price at the top of the list if they happen to have a lower "used" price somewhere (even if you filter for only "new" items). Also, some items cheat the system with a low sales price, and a high shipping price, with no E-Bay style method of sorting by combined price+shipping.

jd_in_sb

Seems out of the blue and urgent. Health issues?

lkrupp

yojimbo007 said:

He is heading for Washington......

He’s already there as he owns the Washington Post. He can influence Washington more with that newspaper than he can as a politician.

lkrupp

gmgravytrain said:

I can't imagine why Bezos would do something like that.  I don't think big investors will be happy hearing this news.  I know it shouldn't make a difference but big investors have some weird ways of thinking about succession issues.

Wow! Amazon's revenue of $125B absolutely crushed Apple's measly $111B.  No wonder investors are dumping Apple.  I guess you can't blame them for wanting to own a company that makes that much money.  I suppose Bezos can step down after that sort of finale performance.  It's back to the drawing board for Apple.

Are you really this stupid or did you forget to add the sarcasm tag? Let us know please. 

sdw2001

The new CEO headed the division that wiped Parler off the internet and left Twitter up, despite objectively more “dangerous” amounts of content on the latter.  Fantastic. 

fastasleep

gmgravytrain said:

I can't imagine why Bezos would do something like that.  I don't think big investors will be happy hearing this news.  I know it shouldn't make a difference but big investors have some weird ways of thinking about succession issues.

Wow! Amazon's revenue of $125B absolutely crushed Apple's measly $111B.  No wonder investors are dumping Apple.  I guess you can't blame them for wanting to own a company that makes that much money.  I suppose Bezos can step down after that sort of finale performance.  It's back to the drawing board for Apple.

You're trolling, correct? 

fastasleep

sdw2001 said:

The new CEO headed the division that wiped Parler off the internet and left Twitter up, despite objectively more “dangerous” amounts of content on the latter.  Fantastic. 

Free market, terms of service, etc etc. You'll have to go get your Q drops elsewhere.

muthuk_vanalingam

lkrupp said:

gmgravytrain said:

I can't imagine why Bezos would do something like that.  I don't think big investors will be happy hearing this news.  I know it shouldn't make a difference but big investors have some weird ways of thinking about succession issues.

Wow! Amazon's revenue of $125B absolutely crushed Apple's measly $111B.  No wonder investors are dumping Apple.  I guess you can't blame them for wanting to own a company that makes that much money.  I suppose Bezos can step down after that sort of finale performance.  It's back to the drawing board for Apple.

Are you really this stupid or did you forget to add the sarcasm tag? Let us know please. 

It is fairly obvious that he was being sarcastic. And so many people don't get sarcasm in this forum. So Sad.

roake

gmgravytrain said:

I can't imagine why Bezos would do something like that.  I don't think big investors will be happy hearing this news.  I know it shouldn't make a difference but big investors have some weird ways of thinking about succession issues.

Wow! Amazon's revenue of $125B absolutely crushed Apple's measly $111B.  No wonder investors are dumping Apple.  I guess you can't blame them for wanting to own a company that makes that much money.  I suppose Bezos can step down after that sort of finale performance.  It's back to the drawing board for Apple.

I’ll trade my Amazon stock for your Apple.

  

the1maximus

gmgravytrain said:

Amazon's revenue of $125B absolutely crushed Apple's measly $111B.  No wonder investors are dumping Apple.

Amazon sells countless products, makes money from third party sellers, and has their hands in a massive amount of web services. Also, can’t forget Amazon also owns Whole Foods.  Apple sells two dozen or so products / services / subscriptions.  

To compare their revenue is like comparing a Supermarket to a Ferrari dealership. 

mike1

gmgravytrain said:

I can't imagine why Bezos would do something like that.  I don't think big investors will be happy hearing this news.  I know it shouldn't make a difference but big investors have some weird ways of thinking about succession issues.

Wow! Amazon's revenue of $125B absolutely crushed Apple's measly $111B.  No wonder investors are dumping Apple.  I guess you can't blame them for wanting to own a company that makes that much money.  I suppose Bezos can step down after that sort of finale performance.  It's back to the drawing board for Apple.

Really?! You can't believe why a guy who started a company like Amazon,from NOTHING and grew it into a trillion dollar behemoth might want to step down and enjoy the benefits of that success or move on to the next phase of his life??? He has certainly earned the right to chart his own course. The succession path has been laid out for years now. Stock is up $57 in pre-market trading today. Clearly Wall Street doesn't care.

Let me get this right. You're saying there can only be one successful company? I never realized that. Ugh!

Beats

muthuk_vanalingam said:

lkrupp said:

gmgravytrain said:

I can't imagine why Bezos would do something like that.  I don't think big investors will be happy hearing this news.  I know it shouldn't make a difference but big investors have some weird ways of thinking about succession issues.

Wow! Amazon's revenue of $125B absolutely crushed Apple's measly $111B.  No wonder investors are dumping Apple.  I guess you can't blame them for wanting to own a company that makes that much money.  I suppose Bezos can step down after that sort of finale performance.  It's back to the drawing board for Apple.

Are you really this stupid or did you forget to add the sarcasm tag? Let us know please. 

It is fairly obvious that he was being sarcastic. And so many people don't get sarcasm in this forum. So Sad.

You’re on an Apple forum. We get WORSE and much dumber people than that and they’re being serious. There’s this crazy anti-Apple religion out there.

muthuk_vanalingam

Beats said:

muthuk_vanalingam said:

lkrupp said:

gmgravytrain said:

I can't imagine why Bezos would do something like that.  I don't think big investors will be happy hearing this news.  I know it shouldn't make a difference but big investors have some weird ways of thinking about succession issues.

Wow! Amazon's revenue of $125B absolutely crushed Apple's measly $111B.  No wonder investors are dumping Apple.  I guess you can't blame them for wanting to own a company that makes that much money.  I suppose Bezos can step down after that sort of finale performance.  It's back to the drawing board for Apple.

Are you really this stupid or did you forget to add the sarcasm tag? Let us know please. 

It is fairly obvious that he was being sarcastic. And so many people don't get sarcasm in this forum. So Sad.

You’re on an Apple forum. We get WORSE and much dumber people than that and they’re being serious. There’s this crazy anti-Apple religion out there.

What you said is absolutely true. That is where the posting history of the person comes into the equation. I don't remember gmgravytrain being an Apple hater ever. If you had gone through gmgravytrain's past posts, he is either sarcastic (against the "Apple is doomed" category people) or positive towards Apple mostly. That should help in understanding the context of the poster/post.