Jeff Bezos steps down for Andy Jassy as Amazon CEO

Amazon founder, CEO, and world’s richest man, Jeff Bezos will step down as head of the company he founded 30 years ago.

In a letter sent to employees on Tuesday, Amazon announced that Andy Jassy will replace Jeff Bezos as CEO while Bezos will transition to the executive chair of Amazon’s board.

“I’m excited to announce that this Q3 I’ll transition to Executive Chair of the Amazon Board and Andy Jassy will become CEO,” Bezos said in a letter to employees.

“In the Exec Chair role, I intend to focus my energies and attention on new products and early initiatives. Andy is well known inside the company and has been at Amazon almost as long as I have. He will be an outstanding leader, and he has my full confidence.”

Bezos founded Amazon in 1994 and since then has morphed it from an online bookstore into a mega online retailer that sells and delivers all sorts of products all over the world. In January of last year, Amazon surpassed a $1 trillion market cap under Bezos’ leadership.

Jassy, the chief of Amazon’s cloud computing division, joined Amazon in 1997 and has led Amazon’s Web Services cloud team since its inception.

Andy Jassy, incoming Amazon CEO

The company’s shares were essentially flat shortly after the market closed Tuesday, but gained almost 1% two hours after the closing bell. Amazon’s stock has grown nearly 69% over the past year.