Founder of Amazon, Jeff Bezoz will step down from his CEO post later this year. He started Amazon as an online bookstore and transformed it into an online giant e-ecommerce company. Bezos, who was the CEO of Amazon for nearly 30 years, will be replaced in the summer by Andy Jassy, who runs Amazon’s cloud-computing business.
“Jeff is really not going anywhere. It’s more of a restructuring of who’s doing what,” said Amazon’s Chief Financial Officer Brian Olsavsky.
In a blog post to employees, Bezos said he planned to focus on new products and other initiatives being developed at Amazon and have more time for side projects, including overseeing The Washington Post, which he owns.
Bezoz was always intrigued by computers and liked building things, so he pursued and got a degree in electrical engineering and computer science at Princeton University. He worked at several Wall Street companies and quit his job at D.E Shaw to start his own online retail business. He started an online bookstore and Amazon began operating out of the Bezos’ Seattle garage on July 16, 1995. The company is now one of the most valuable in the world, worth nearly 1.7 trillion.
Amazon saw huge profits during the lockdown period and Bezoz’ stake in Amazon is currently worth about 180 billion.