Here are three important things you should know about the new leader of the e-commerce giant.
He first worked in a marketing role and then was put on a “SWAT team” project exploring other categories of potential products for Amazon besides books. Jassy suggested entering the music world as part of the project.
Jassy also spent time in the early 2000s in a position known at the time as the “shadow” of Bezos, a role similar to a corporate chief of staff, which was designed to train promising young executives, according to Ann Hiatt, a former business partner executive for Bezos during Amazon’s early days (where she sat at one of Bezos’ now legendary “desks”). Now a leading technology consultant, Hiatt said she worked closely with Jassy during her time as Bezos’ “shadow”.
“If you had asked me yesterday what I think would be Jeff’s schedule for leaving the CEO position, I wouldn’t have guessed now. But if you said, ‘Okay, he’s leaving office, who will he choose?’ the first instant name that came out of my mouth would be Andy Jassy, ”said Hiatt.
“I saw him flourish as a handsome praising executive for Jeff, where he learned to anticipate the questions Jeff would ask, the things he would hate, the things he would love, his leadership style,” said Hiatt. “Although Andy, of course, has his own fantastic executive version, he was trained with these instincts, to prioritize the things Jeff would do and make decisions in the same way that Jeff would do when he wasn’t in the room. great heights in his role as CEO of AWS. ”
Jassy was there when Amazon decided to launch AWS and operate it as a separate company that served Amazon.com in the same way that it would with any other customer.
“From the beginning of AWS, we made the decision that if we were to serve many of Amazon’s competing consumers … we would have to make AWS its own separable business with a different leadership team and where Amazon’s consumer businesses were one important customer, but only one of many important external customers, “Jassy told CNN of the decision in an interview for a 2019 CNN documentary on Amazon’s history. “We treat Amazon’s consumer business as an external customer.”
At the time, many were skeptical of the decision, as the computing business was a far cry from Amazon’s top online retail activities. But Jassy has since overseen the growth of AWS on the backbone of much of the Internet – something he has managed despite not having much tech savvy.
“He brings a great degree of humility; people didn’t realize who he was until recently,” said Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a professor at the Yale School of Management. “He is definitely very humble, he is not a self-promoter, which is kind of unusual to be at this level in the technology space.”
How much does he earn?
In 2019, his total compensation was $ 348,809. But a year earlier, his payment totaled more than $ 19.7 million, thanks to a nearly $ 19.5 million share premium that year. On the other hand, Jeff Bezos’ base salary was $ 81,840 and the total remuneration in 2019 was almost $ 1.7 million, although Bezos owns a larger share of the company’s shares (almost 15% of the total, according to the statement 2020 Proxy).
It is unclear whether Jassy’s pay will change after becoming CEO.
The succession plan
At the time, Jassy said he did not expect Bezos leave your position in the near future.
“I’m very happy that Jeff isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, and none of us want him to go. He’s such an unusual leader and is part of the culture that I think he’s going to be here for a long time.”
While he was shy about his plans – saying to Harlow: “It’s kind of hard to imagine life without Jeff running the company” – analysts say Bezos has been planning the transition for years.
Sonnenfeld de Yale, author of a book on CEO transitions called “The Hero’s Farewell”, recalled a conversation with Bezos at a technology conference about seven years ago, during which the head of Amazon said he had studied the process of transition Bill Gates-Steve Ballmer.
“This has been his plan,” said Sonnenfeld of Bezos. “He wanted to convey this as a healthy business and this is an ideal time to do so.”