Jeff Bezos has announced that he will no longer remain Amazon CEO during 2021. As reported by Business Insider alongside Amazon’s financial results, Bezos will transition the role in the second half of the year.
Bezos leaves the position having made a huge mark on the industry and on the world. Having broken the $100 billion barrier in becoming the wealthiest person in the world he has gained much attention.
Bezos has also pioneered many innovative moves for Amazon. These include the development of a drone delivery fleet as well as the ambition to build physical stores in partnership with Whole Foods.
As reported by Tech Crunch, current AWS CEO Andy Jassy will take the top job over after a transition period. The news was met with a mixed reception on the stock market.
Initially, stocks grew after hearing the CEO news and the company’s earnings. However, the stocks have since dipped after further digestion of such a significant move.
Jeff Bezos set to step down as Amazon CEO
Amazon’s earnings for Q4 of 2020 hugely exceed all expectations. This likely softened any fears about Bezos’ exit from the top job given the tangibly strong position the company finds itself in.
This quarter was the first in Amazon’s history to break the $100 billion mark, in total bringing in $125.6 billion. The expectation was for revenue of $119.7 billion. This resulted in earnings per share almost doubling from $7.23 to $14.09.
Bezos’ replacement, Andy Jassy who is Amazon Web Services (AWS) CEO could also report some strong figures on a momentous day for the man. The company grew its revenues by 28% in the quarter.
This was lower than its growth rate of 34% a year ago. However, operating income and net revenues increased significantly during this period.
Bezos announced the news in an email to staff during the week as well as in a public company blog post. He stated that continues to “find [his] work meaningful and fun”. However, wishes to devote more time to his “Day 1 Fund, the Bezos Earth Fund, Blue Origin, The Washington Post, and [his] other passions”.
Blue Origin, which is Bezos’ space company expects a busy year this year with its launch vehicle New Shepard expected of fly people for the first time.
The company is also in the middle of development of a human lunar landing system for NASA. Therefore, its safe to say that Bezos has plenty to keep him busy going forwards and this is likely not the last time we will hear from him.