Amazon founder Jeff Bezos will step down as chief executive of Amazon, turning over the reins to the company’s longtime cloud-computing boss Andy Jassy.
Jeff Bezos in a letter to employees at Amazon announced starting this third quarter he will no longer be the CEO of Amazon. Andy Jassy will take over while Bezos will transition to Executive Chair of the Amazon Board. Andy Jassy has worked with Bezos for a long time as Bezos himself said in his letter, “Jassy is well known inside the company and has been at Amazon almost as long as I have.” While Jeff Bezos will continue to focus on new products and early initiatives, Andy Jassy will take care for all things at Amazon.
Here’s what you should know about Andy Jassy, the new CEO at one of the world’s largest cloud computing businesses.
Some important points you should get to know about Andy Jassy
- Andy Jassy is also known for his wit and humour. He apparently does not think twice before taking a pot shot at competitors.
- Jassy joined Amazon in 1997. He was a project manager at MBI at an early stage of his career.
- Andy Jassy got his job at Amazon after doing his MBA from Harvard Business School.
- In the early 2000s, he worked as a technical assistant for Jeff Bezos. He was an important person who led Amazon to look outside just book sales.
- Jassy is known as the founder of Amazon Web Services (AWS) inside the company where he started the service with a team of 57 people. After 13 years, he got promoted to CEO at AWS. One of the key reasons for Jassy being the new CEO is due to his success at AWS which converted Amazon into a cloud computing company from just e-commerce.
- He is married to Elana Rochelle Caplan with two kids and lives in Seattle, US.
- After consumer chief Jeff Wilke announced his retirement, it was quite certain that Jassy would take over. Wilke was Amazon’s second most high-ranking official.
- One of his big challenges has been navigating the loss of a $10 billion Pentagon cloud contract to Microsoft and Jassy did not mince words when going after former President Donald Trump for unfairly influencing the process.
- Apart from his work at Amazon, Jassy loves sports and is a part-owner of the new Seattle National Hockey League franchise, the Kraken, which will join the league in the 2021-2022 season.
- “You want to be reinventing when you are healthy, you want to be reinventing all the time. You have got to be manancial and relentless and tenacious about getting to the truth…. You have to know what’s working and what’s not working,” Jassy had said in December at a company forum, as per a report by Reuters.
- He is said to have stocks over $30 million at Amazon. His base compensation was $175,000 while he was the CEO of AWS in 2020.
- Jassy has occasionally spoken out on social issues, tweeting about the need for police accountability after Breonna Taylor, a Black woman, was slain in her home by white policemen during a botched raid, and in favour of LGBTQ rights.
- Outside of Amazon, Andy Jassy is an avid sports fan. Andy Jassy is part-owner of the new Seattle National Hockey League franchise, the Kraken, which will join the league in the 2021-2022 season.