Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is stepping down from the company he founded. He will be replaced by Andy Jassy, who is the chief executive of Amazon Web Services. Bezos will transition to the role of executive chair later this year.
In a letter to employees, Bezos said the transition will give him the time to focus "on the Day 1 Fund, the Bezos Earth Fund, Blue Origin, The Washington Post, and my other passions." He told employees that he continue to help Amazon in his new role.
"In the Exec Chair role, I intend to focus my energies and attention on new products and early initiatives. Andy is well known inside the company and has been at Amazon almost as long as I have. He will be an outstanding leader, and he has my full confidence," Bezos wrote.
Bezos founded Amazon in 1994 and grew it into a behemoth company with a market cap of $1.6 trillion.
"Amazon is what it is because of invention. We do crazy things together and then make them 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," Bezos said in a statement. "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."
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