Amazon founder Jeff Bezos stepped down as CEO on Monday, handing over daily leadership of the company as it navigates a world fighting to emerge from the coronavirus pandemic, but he won’t relinquish control of the company anytime soon.
Andy Jassy, who ran Amazon’s cloud-computing business, replaced Bezos, a change the company announced in February.
Bezos, Amazon’s biggest shareholder with a stake worth about $180 billion, will still hold sway over the company he started out of his Seattle garage in 1994. He takes over the role of executive chair, with plans to focus on new products and initiatives.
‘He’ll likely still stay involved, though no longer focusing on the day-to-day and instead able to focus on company-wide initiatives and new products and services,’ said global technology analyst at market research firm Nucleus Research Daniel Elman according to CNN.
‘His skills for cutting through noise, identifying high-value opportunities cannot be overstated … so it would make sense for Amazon to free him from the operational grind to maximize those areas.’
Jassy, who will earn $215M in stock for the promotion, takes the helm of a $1.7 trillion company that benefited greatly from the pandemic, more than tripling its profits in the first quarter of 2021 and posting record revenue as customers grew ever more dependent on online shopping.
News of the leadership change did little to affect confidence in Amazon’s stock prices, with shares increasing a modest 2.27 percent on July 2, the last trading day before the switch was made, according to NASDAQ.
At the same time, Amazon faces activism from a restive workforce just as a rapid economic recovery causes a labor crunch that has retailers, manufacturers and other companies competing for workers with higher wages and other benefits.
The company defeated an attempt by workers to unionize at an Alabama warehouse earlier this year, but faces a more formidable challenge as the International Brotherhood of Teamsters launches a broader effort to unionize Amazon workers.
