Andy Jassy is taking the throne as the upcoming CEO of Amazon. Amazon founder, Jeff Bezos, announced that he would be stepping down as the chief executive officer of the tech giant later this year. He would vacate the position on July 5. This is a “sentimental” date, being the day that Amazon was incorporated in 1994.
In a letter addressing the employees, Bezos said that he would transition to executive chairman. In this position, he will focus his time on “new products and early initiatives” in the third quarter. The position of chief executive will be filled by Andy Jassy. He is the current CEO of Amazon Web Services, the tech company’s cloud platform.
Jassy is set to take the throne at a time when Amazon has struck a $8.45 billion deal to buy the TV company, Metro-Goldwyn Mayer (MGM). Let us take a look at some of the interesting things to know about the incoming CEO…
Jassy has worked at Amazon for just as long as Bezos has- 24 years to be exact.
Jassy was employed at Amazon in 1997. This is the same year that the company went public. He was given the task of exploring what would result in AWS in 2003. The 53-year-old has built AWS from the ground in the past 20 years. In 2016, he became the CEO of the cloud platform.
He has managed to make AWS a massive revenue-driver for the tech giant, bringing in $13.5 billion in the last quarter alone. AWS is responsible for propping up Netflix, Fortnite, Spotify, and other major services.
Analysts predict that AWS’s revenue will reach $71 billion in 2022. This would cause the division to gain a valuation of about $350 billion.
Jassy was also instrumental in founding Amazon Music, Amazon’s song streaming platform.
According to the analyst Dan Ives, Jassy is:
“One of the most powerful leaders not just within the cloud and tech sector but in the world of business.”
Jassy is a close counsellor of Bezos
Jassy acted as a so-called “shadow” adviser of Bezos at some point. He would join the chief executive during high-level meetings. The CEO, in his letter to his staff breaking the news about his exit, said that Jassy “will be an outstanding leader.”
It seems almost likely that he will pretty much run the company just like Bezos. This follows his long tenure and the fact that he has been a lieutenant of Bezos for years.
Jassy is among the highest-paid bigwigs at Amazon
Jassy brought in an estimated total of more than $20 million in the past 3 years. In 2016 alone, he raked in more than $36 million. Of this sum, he received $175,000 as salary, $35,431,144 as stock and $3,500 was from other kinds of compensation.
On the other hand, Bezos brought in about $1.7 million in total.
However, he is not a billionaire. As of February 2021, he had an estimated net worth of around $440 million. By comparison, the net worth of the outgoing Amazon CEO is 400x that of Jassy. This is in spite of the fact that, besides Bezos, Jazzy has the most Amazon stock than any other employee.
Jassy owns 81,500 of the company’s shares, though he’s still not a billionaire. However, this did not hinder him from spending $6.7 million on a 5,500 square ft house in Santa Monica, California.
Jassy was reportedly taken into consideration for the role of chief executive at Microsoft and Uber.
Ex-Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer spoke to Jassy at one point about taking the helm of the company. Also, word on the street said that he was considered to replace Travis Kalanick, the Uber CEO, when he stepped down in 2017.
In March 2016, the 53-year-old was hailed as the Person of the Year by the Financial Times. This was in recognition for his main role in the astronomical success of AWS, in spite of him lacking a technical background.
AWS is arguably the world’s largest technology infrastructure provider and serves the likes of Slack, Airbnb and Netflix.
Jassy’s not afraid to be vocal about political and social issues
Jassy has been vocal against the police killings of Black Americans. He has also been in support of court decisions that outlaw discriminating against members of the LGBTQ community. Here is a tweet he made on June 15, 2020:
“I look at the Supreme Court decision today on making it illegal to discriminate against LGBTQ people in the workplace and think about how crazy it is in 2020 that this was even a question. Good for the Supreme Court for getting this right.”
Jassy has also been plain-spoken against former President Donald Trump’s scorn for Amazon. He headed AWS in the midst of the corporation’s decision to ban Parler. Parler was a social media app that was favored among the far-right.
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