In a memo to employees, Jeff Bezos announced that he was going to transition to Executive Chair of the Amazon Board and have Andy Jassy will be CEO of the company. Leaving the helm of the company he founded 27 years ago would be hard for anyone to do. Bezos said that the transition will give him “the time and energy I need to focus on the Day 1 Fund, the Bezos Earth Fund, Blue Origin, The Washington Post, and my other passions.”
Wallstreet reacted to the announcement quickly and after a small drop the stock increased back to normal levels to an increase today of 1.11% With a change in the administration in the White House there is some concern how large businesses will fare. With videos of large company CEOs testifying in front of congress for everything from anti-trust concerns to censorship on web based services, it is not surprising some successful CEOs may want step into a different role and allow someone else to deal with the legal stuff. Bezos himself was called before the House Judiciary Committee last year and was questioned about the company’s competitive practices, along with accusations of pricing out competitors on its plateform and using third-party seller data to inform the sale of its own products.
Bezos founded Amazon in 1994 as an online bookstore, and turned it into one the largest employers in the US with warehouses touching almost every part of the country. So it looks like now he is going to dedicate his time to his space exploration company Blue Origin and to the media company he owns, The Washington Post, as well as some of his philanthropist efforts.
