Jeff Bezos, who started e-commerce giant Amazon as an online bookstore and turned it into a shopping and entertainment mammoth, will step down as CEO later this year.
The news of Bezos’ stepping down as CEO came after Amazon recorded quarterly sales above $100 billion for the first time. Amazon which was launched 27 years back was a pioneer of pacy, free shipping that won over millions of shoppers who made the great use of website to buy anything. Under Bezos, Amazon also inaugurated the first e-reader that garnered mass acceptance and its Echo listening device made voice assistants a common commodity at every other home.
The 57-year-old led the company since its start as an online bookshop in 1994. The firm now has over 1.3 million people globally. The company has its hand in almost every process from cloud services and advertising to package delivery and streaming video. According to Forbes’ he's combined a fortune of $196.2 billion.
BEZOS NEXT PLANS
In a blog to employees, Bezos stated that he planned to emphasis on new products and early creativities being developed at Amazon. He further said he would have more time for other side projects, including Blur Origin, his space exploration company and his philanthropic work. He will also oversee The Washington Post after stepping down. He also said that he will focus on The Bezos Earth Fund which seeks to accelerate the change to 100 per cent clean energy and reasonable access to healthy air, water, and land. It has a $10 billion fund to counter climate change.
Apart from this, he will also work for Bezos's Day One Fund, with a $2 billion commitment, that focuses on making meaningful and lasting impacts. It funds for existing non-profits that help homeless families, and making a system of new, non-profit tier-one preschools for those with low-income.
ANDY JASSY TO SUCCEED
Andy Jassy, who runs Amazon's cloud-computing business AWS will be appointed as new CEO of Amazon. Jassy joined Amazon in 1997 and is responsible to produce the cloud division AWS, which is used by millions of customers currently.