END OF HIS PRIME
Jeff Bezos stepping down as Amazon CEO and says it’s ‘optimal time’ for Andy Jassy to takeover
JEFF Bezos has announced he will step down as the CEO of Amazon as the company announced record profits.
announced on Tuesday that Andy Jassy will replace as CEO during the third quarter of this year.
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Bezos founded Amazon in 1994 and since then has turned it from an online bookstore into the world's largest online retailer.
Jassy joined the company in 1997 and has led Amazon’s Web Services cloud team.
The announcement came as Amazon reported a blowout holiday quarter with profits more than doubling to $7.2billion and revenue jumping 44 percent to $125.6billion.
The record revenues for its core Christmas quarter saw the company exceed $100billion for the first time with help from the .
Amazon is now worth $1.6trillion.
Bezos said Amazon's latest results showed it was the right time to make the transition.
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In a letter to employees announcing the move, Bezos said: “I’m excited to announce that this Q3 I’ll transition to Executive Chair of the Amazon Board and Andy Jassy will become CEO.
“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."
Bezos added: "He will be an outstanding leader, and he has my full confidence.”
Bezos said he will stay engaged in important Amazon projects but will also have more time to focus on the Bezos Earth Fund.
He will also dedicate more time to his Blue Origin spaceship company, The Washington Post, and the Amazon Day 1 Fund.
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Speaking of the future of the company under new leadership, he said Amazon will continue to "astonish" with new ventures that are "in the pipeline."
"Amazon couldn’t be better positioned for the future. We are firing on all cylinders, just as the world needs us to," Bezos explained.
"We have things in the pipeline that will continue to astonish.
"We serve individuals and enterprises, and we’ve pioneered two complete industries and a whole new class of devices.
"We are leaders in areas as varied as machine learning and logistics, and if an Amazonian’s idea requires yet another new institutional skill, we’re flexible enough and patient enough to learn it."
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