The New York Times noted that 'in recent years, Mr. I'm super passionate about the impact I think these organizations can have.' I've never had more energy, and this isn't about retiring. As exec chair, I will stay engaged in important Amazon initiatives but also have the time and energy I need to focus on the Day 1 Fund, the Bezos Earth Fund, Blue Origin, the Washington Post, and my other passions. When you have a responsibility like that, it's hard to put attention on anything else. Being the CEO of Amazon is a deep responsibility, and it's consuming.

Millions of customers depend on us for our services, and more than a million employees depend on us for their livelihoods. In an e-mail to employees, Bezos, 57, said, 'As much as I still tap dance into the office, I'm excited about this transition. Right now I see Amazon at its most inventive ever, making it an optimal time for this transition.' When you look at our financial results, what you're actually seeing are the long-run cumulative results of invention. That yawn is the greatest compliment an inventor can receive. If you do it right, a few years after a surprising invention, the new thing has become normal. We pioneered customer reviews, 1-Click, personalized recommendations, Prime's insanely-fast shipping, Just Walk Out shopping, the Climate Pledge, Kindle, Alexa, marketplace, infrastructure cloud computing, Career Choice, and much more. We do crazy things together and then make them normal. In 2003, he launched AWS and was became AWS CEO in 2016.Īmazon announced the move in a way that was as much an advertisement for the company as an explanation, quoting Bezos as saying, 'Amazon is what it is because of invention. Jessy, 53, is a graduate of Harvard Business School and joined Amazon in 1997 as a marketing manager. Andy Jassy, who is currently CEO of Amazon's highly profitable cloud division, Amazon Web Services (AWS), will succeed him as CEO.

The big news from Amazon yesterday wasn't so much its fourth-quarter results-which set a record as more consumers did more buying online because of the pandemic-as the announcement that founder and CEO Jeff Bezos is giving up the CEO post sometime after July 1 and will become executive chair.

Storybook Travels by Colleen Dunn Bates