Bezos announces he will step down as Amazon CEO to focus on new products Amazon announced on Tuesday that Jeff Bezos will step down as CEO later this year and hand over the helm to the company's cloud computing

Department Director Andy Jassy.

Jassy will become only the second CEO in Amazon's 27-year history, while Bezos will serve as executive chairman of the board.

Bezos said in a letter to employees: I am excited to announce that in the third quarter of this year, I will assume the role of executive chairman of the Amazon board of directors and Jassy will become CEO.

As Executive Chairman, I intend to focus my energy and attention on new products and early initiatives.

Andy is well known within the company and has been at Amazon almost as long as I have.

He will be an outstanding leader and I have full confidence in him.

?Bezos said he will continue to be involved in important projects at Amazon, but will also have more time to focus on the Bezos Earth Fund, Blue Origin, the Washington Post and

Amazon Day 1 Fund.

He said in the letter: Although I will still be in the office, I am excited about this transition.

Millions of customers rely on us to deliver our services, and more than 1 million employees rely on us for their livelihoods.

Being the CEO of Amazon is a heavy responsibility and a daunting task.

When you have such responsibilities, it's hard to focus on anything else.

Bezos' announcement that he will step down as Amazon's CEO comes as the company's stock price and his personal wealth are near all-time highs.

The Bloomberg Billionaires Index puts Bezos' net worth at $197 billion.

He is the second-richest man in the world, behind Tesla CEO Elon Musk.

Jassy, ??53, joined Amazon in 1997 and has been leading Amazon's cloud computing unit, AWS, since then and is now a member of Bezos' elite executive team, the S-Team.

Jassy graduated from Harvard Business School in 1997, then went directly to Amazon and never left.

The key to Jassy's success is his ability to attract all types of businesses and organizations to use AWS products, serving the smallest startups to the world's largest enterprises, such as Apple.

In recent years, more and more AWS contracts have been made public as companies such as Pinterest, Slack, Lyft and Snowflake have launched initial public offerings (IPOs) and been forced to disclose their huge spending on the cloud.

When AWS began launching services in 2006, the focus was on providing cloud storage and computing power, primarily to smaller technology companies and development teams.

As these businesses grew, many never purchased their own servers or storage arrays, instead relying on Amazon for all their data center needs.

By the time Microsoft got serious about Azure and Google started investing heavily in its cloud platform, Jassy had built a lead that was so far insurmountable.

According to Synergy Research, as of mid-2020, Amazon controlled 33% of the global cloud infrastructure services market, followed by Microsoft and Google at 18% and 9% respectively.

Amazon said on Tuesday that fourth-quarter AWS revenue jumped 28% to $12.7 billion.

Operating income increased 37% to $3.56 billion, accounting for 52% of Amazon's total operating profit.

After taking office, Jassy will need to lead the company to deal with antitrust issues.

In October last year, after a 16-month investigation into the competitive practices of major technology companies such as Amazon, the U.S. House of Representatives Antitrust Subcommittee concluded that Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google all enjoyed monopoly power.

Amazon also faces antitrust charges in the European Union.

Bezos founded Amazon in 1994. Since then, the former online bookstore has grown into a large-scale retailer with global reach, involving products and services in different categories such as electronics, groceries, and streaming media.

Amazon's market capitalization surpassed $1 trillion last January under Bezos' leadership and now stands at $1.6 trillion.

Amazon has always been secretive about Bezos's succession plan, but outsiders speculate that in addition to Jassy, ??his successor may also be Jeff Wilke, CEO of Amazon's global consumer business. However, in August last year,

Amazon announced that Wilke will retire in 2021. Amazon Chief Financial Officer Brian Olsavsky said that the executive change was decided in consultation with Amazon’s board of directors. He said that Jassy is a good person.

A visionary leader, but Amazon hopes to maintain policy continuity during the transition, both Alphabet and Microsoft CEOs sent congratulations to Bezos and Jassy.