In a very noteworthy move, Amazon’s founder and long-time CEO Jeff Bezos has announced that he’ll be stepping down from his role as CEO in the third quarter of 2021 and become the Executive Chairman of the e-commerce giant he founded. He’ll be replaced by Andy Jassy, the current CEO of Amazon Web Services (AWS).

Andy Jassy has for long been considered the second in command and heir to the Amazon empire after Bezos and this has just been proven.

As he steps down, Bezos says that he’ll remain involved in Amazon initiatives but now spend more time on his other projects such as the aerospace company Blue Origin, newspaper The Washington Post, and philanthropic initiatives.

Bezos will definitely be stepping down in grand style from the mere online bookstore he founded 27 years ago and built into a mammoth e-commerce and technology company. Taken public in 1997, Amazon is currently one of the most valuable publicly-traded companies worldwide, with a market cap of $1.7 trillion.

Obviously, with a net worth reported at $196 billion, money isn’t a concern for Bezos as he’s stepping down from Amazon to focus on his other projects. He’ll now be replaced by Andy Jassy, a long-time Amazon executive who was the founding CEO of Amazon Web Services, the company’s cloud hosting division that brought in over $40 billion in revenue last year.

Andy Jassy. Photo credit: jdlasica, licensed under CC BY 2.0

“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,” Bezos said in a press statement regarding his stepping down from the role of CEO.

“I’ve never had more energy, and this isn’t about retiring,” he noted.

Photo credit: national museum of American history, licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0

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