Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos is vacating the role of chief executive later this year, marking a huge change at the world’s most illustrious and successful online retailer.
The shock announcement, which came during Amazon’s quarterly earnings call on Tuesday, will see the current head of Amazon Web Services Andy Jassy take over the top job at the company.
In a statement, Bezos, 57 didn’t offer any reasoning for its decision over than saying it was “an optimal time” for this transition. Bezos, who founded Amazon at the dawn of the World Wide Web era back in 1994 has become the richest man in the world thanks to his success in building the company.
The outgoing CEO did not comment on his plans for the future. The mogul has many other business interests including the Blue Origin commercial space company and The Washington Post newspaper.
In a statement, he says: “Amazon is what it is because of invention. We do crazy things together and then make them normal. We pioneered customer reviews, 1-Click, personalised recommendations, Prime’s insanely-fast shipping, Just Walk Out shopping, the Climate Pledge, Kindle, Alexa, marketplace, infrastructure cloud computing, Career Choice, and much more.
“If you do it right, a few years after a surprising invention, the new thing has become normal. People yawn. That yawn is the greatest compliment an inventor can receive. When you look at our financial results, what you’re actually seeing are the long-run cumulative results of invention. Right now I see Amazon at its most inventive ever, making it an optimal time for this transition.”
Bezos steps aside at a time when Amazon continues to smash records. The most recent quarter saw another high watermark as the first to top $100 billion in revenue in the history of the firm. $125.6 billion to be precise. What comes after that, Jeff?