Anastasia Basheer
Arts & Entertainment Editor
The mastermind behind the billion-dollar organization and one of the richest men in the world, Jeff Bezos, announced his stepping-down as Chief Executive of Amazon on Feb. 2.
According to NBC news, he steps down to assume the position of executive chair starting in the third quarter of the year, which starts on July 1.
Andy Jassy, who joined the company in 1997, built the company’s cloud services business, and currently serves as the chief executive of Amazon Web Services, will take over as chief executive officer.
Bezos will use his newfound time to put, “the time and energy I need to focus on the Day One Fund, the Bezos Earth Fund, Blue Origin, The Washington Post, and my other passions,” a company memo from Bezos, obtained by NBC news, states.
“The Day One Academies Fund is building a network of high-quality, full-scholarship Montessori-inspired preschools in underserved communities,” states the Bezos Day One Fund on it’s website.
“The Bezos Earth Fund joins The Solutions Project to accelerate the transition to 100 percent clean energy and equitable access to healthy air, water, and land,” stated The Solution Project on it’s website.
From a garage in Seattle, Bezos founded Amazon twenty-seven years ago.
The company has since grown into the biggest online retailer in the world. Not to mention one of the biggest employers in the U.S as the company has facilities in almost every part of the country.
Due to the company’s rapid growth, it has faced antitrust questions on how they have used their dominance to take over the market and push our competitors.
Last year, the company’s CEO was called to the House Judiciary Committee, where as stated by NBC news, he, “…faced questions about the company’s competitive practices, including accusations of pricing out competitors on its platform and using third-party seller data to inform the sale of its own products.”
While the Blue Origin is a space exploration company, and The Washington Post is a leading newspaper in the U.S.
After reading the NBC News Article, there is no doubt that the announcement set off alarms on Wall Street and in the business community, but the transition does not mean the company will see any significant change to it business.
This was evident as according to NBC news, “…The company reported a year of record growth…including a 38 percent increase in net sales from 2019, netting the company $21 billion in income, nearly double from the year before.”
The company’s investors were clearly not phased as the share price was up 1.5 percent after the announcement.
It is left to be seen where Amazon, one of the most valuable companies in the world will expand too next.
Email Anastasia at:
abasheer@live.esu.edu
