Even after stepping down as CEO, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos appears to continue to identify new frontiers for the world’s dominant e-commerce company. His successor, meanwhile, deals with increasing efforts to restrain his power.
Tuesday’s announcement that Bezos will step down as CEO this summer was a surprise. But that doesn’t mean Amazon is losing the visionary that turned an online bookstore founded in 1995 into a $ 1.7 trillion giant that sometimes seems to do a little bit of everything.
Bezos, 57, never let Amazon rest on its laurels. Only last year, it bought an autonomous taxi development company; launched an online pharmacy that sells inhalers and insulin; and obtained government approval to place more than 3,200 satellites in space to transmit Internet services to Earth.
Longtime Amazon executive Andy Jassy will be the new CEO, but Bezos will be the company’s executive chairman – a corporate speech for board leaders who, unlike most, remain involved in key operational decisions. Think of Robert Iger at Disney, Howard Schultz at Starbucks or Eric Schmidt at Google after handing over the reins a decade ago.
“Jeff Bezos has maintained firm control over the company for a long time,” said Ken Perkins, president of RetailMetrics LLC, a retail research firm. “I have to believe that he will have a say in what is going on and will have a big influence on general decisions.”
Amazon’s chief financial officer, Brian Olsavsky, made the move sound like a mere dragging of chairs. “It’s more of a restructuring of who is doing what,” he said during a call with reporters on Tuesday.
Investors didn’t give up after hearing about Amazon’s imminent change of command and instead focused on the profits of the company’s blockbuster, which also announced Tuesday. Amazon’s shares rose slightly in Tuesday’s protracted trading – something that does not tend to happen when Wall Street is concerned about a change in management.
“I don’t think he will be completely turned off,” CFRA analyst Tuna Amobi said of Bezos.
In a blog post, Bezos said that the position of CEO took him away from exploring new ideas and initiatives that could generate opportunities for growth. He now plans to focus more on this innovation, along with other ventures, such as his rocket company Blue Origin and its newspaper, The Washington Post.
“Being the CEO of Amazon is a deep and exhausting responsibility,” wrote Bezos. “When you have a responsibility like that, it’s hard to put your attention to anything else.”
The move will overwhelm Jassy with some of the responsibilities that Bezos clearly disliked. Perhaps most frightening is the growing scrutiny of Amazon’s influence in an online shopping market that became even more essential for consumers during last year’s pandemic.
The United States government has already opened two other technological powers, Google and Facebook, with antitrust lawsuits. Both regulators and lawmakers have left little doubt that they are seriously examining whether similar action is justified against Amazon and Apple.
Jassy will likely have to fend off the antitrust threat while also trying to forge his own legacy. A revered company founder can cast a long shadow.
“The size of Amazon makes some industries uncomfortable, some governments uncomfortable and Andy Jassy will have to deal with the consequences,” said Gartner analyst Ed Anderson. “This will be part of the new era of your leadership.”
Jassy may also face pressure from critics who believe that Amazon’s success was built in part by the mistreatment of many of its 1.3 million employees, especially those in distribution warehouses and delivery trucks that receive much less than IT engineers. technology, although they also face more dangerous conditions.
“Jeff Bezos’ departure as CEO is a chance for Amazon to turn a new page,” said Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen, an activist group living in Washington. “You must start by paying all your workers a minimum wage and ensuring that they have safe and healthy working conditions.”
Analysts said Bezos appears to have chosen a successor who is ready for the challenge. Jassy is highly respected for building Amazon’s Web services division, which operates many of the world’s largest sites. The gains from this cloud computing service also helped to subsidize the company’s online shopping operations, as it cut prices so low that it lost money for many years.
“He proved his worth in building the most profitable part of the company,” said Amobi. “Your challenge is to translate that into a broader e-commerce platform.”
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Pisani reported from New York and Liedtke reported from San Ramon, California. Associated Press writers Mae Anderson and Anne D’Innocenzio in New York, Marcy Gordon in Washington and Matt O’Brien in Providence, Rhode Island, contributed to this story.