Amazon reported very strong financial results Tuesday—along with the news that CEO Jeff Bezos is stepping down after almost 30 years. Bezos, who founded Amazon in 1994 and turned the firm into an e-shopping juggernaut, become incredibly rich in the process, will transition to executive chair of the company's board, the AP reports. The company says Andy Jassy, chief of cloud service Amazon Web Services, will replace Bezos as Amazon CEO in the third quarter of this year. Jassy, who joined Amazon in 1997, "is well known inside the company and has been at Amazon almost as long as I have," Bezos said in a letter to employees, per CNBC. "He will be an outstanding leader, and he has my full confidence."
Bezos said he sees Amazon "at its most inventive ever, making it the optimal time for this transition," per the company blog. "As much as I still tap dance into the office, I’m excited about this transition," Bezos said. He told employees that being CEO had been a "consuming" responsibility. Now, he said, he "will stay engaged in important Amazon initiatives but also have 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." The 57-year-old added: "I've never had more energy, and this isn’t about retiring." (More Jeff Bezos stories.)
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