Jeff Bezos steps down as Amazon CEO

JEFF BEZOS STEPS DOWN AS AMAZON CEO

On February 3, 2021, Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon- the world’s largest retailer company, announced that he would be stepping down from the position of Chief Executive officer.

Bezos founded Amazon in his garage in Seattle about 27 years ago and he has been very active in the company ever since, however, in his memo to his employees, Bezos said he would be stepping down as CEO.

Meanwhile, he is not leaving Amazon, but transitioning to the role of executive chair in the third quarter of the year. He is the second richest man in the world and as at last month, he was estimated to be $182 billion rich. Therefore, making an announcement as big as this drew a lot of attention and made investors and the public wonder why he would make such decision.

According to NBC NEWS, he sent a memo to his employees and explained that stepping down would give him the time and energy he needed to focus on his other companies/projects such as ‘Blue Origin’, ‘The day 1 fund’, and ‘The Washington post’. This explains that he is not leaving Amazon but transitioning into a greater role of executive chairman which appears to be less time-consuming and more important.

The new role of CEO would then go to Andy Jassy. Andy Jassy is the Chief executive officer of web services at Amazon.

Jeff Bezos stepping down does not really portend any extreme change at Amazon, just restructuring. Although the share price has gone up 1.5%. Meanwhile, he is not the first to do this as Bill Gates already stepped down from Microsoft since 2008.

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