Wednesday, February 03, 2021
Jassy becomes Amazon boss
This man is supposed to be the new Bezos
Jeff Bezos resigns as CEO, Andy Jassy takes over. The decision for the Amazon man, who is rather unknown to the public, is no surprise internally. Jassy stands for change and innovation.
The previous head of the cloud division AWS, Andy Jassy, will take over the helm at Amazon in the third quarter, replacing company founder Jeff Bezos at the helm. Who is the new man at the helm of the world's largest online retailer who is so far little known to the public?
Internally, the successor is no surprise. After Jeff Wilke, who was responsible for the retail business, retired at the beginning of the year, Jassy was already the second highest manager at the Seattle-based company. At the same time, Jassy probably benefited from being a man of change. In December he said at a company event: "You want to reinvent yourself when you're healthy, you want to reinvent yourself all the time." Bezo's reason for his withdrawal can also be applied to Jassy. "Right now, Amazon is more inventive than ever, so this is the best time to switch," said Bezos.
Jassy, 53, joined Amazon straight away after graduating from Harvard. "I took my last final exam on the first Friday in May 1997 and started at Amazon the following Monday," said Jassy in a podcast. In 2006 he founded the cloud business AWS at Amazon and built it into the world's largest platform ahead of Microsoft and Google with millions of users. Since then, the business has been an important second mainstay for Amazon alongside online trading.
Jassy is married and has a father of two. He is considered a sports and music lover. He is involved in the Seattle Kraken hockey team, which will start in the league next season. In connection with the violent death of Afro-American Breonna Taylor, Jassy has called for greater police accountability. He is also considered a supporter of the rights of LGBT people.
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