Bezos hands Amazon crown to cloud boss Jassy

AWS chief will take on the Amazon CEO mantle when founder steps into executive chairman position in Q3

AWS boss Andy Jassy will become CEO of the entire Amazon business after founder Jeff Bezos announced his decision to move to an executive chairman role.

Bezos announced his decision to step back into the role of executive chairman in a letter to employees, stating that the transition will occur in the third quarter of 2021.

"I intend to focus my energies and attention on new products and early initiatives," he wrote.

"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 the tech behemoth in 1994 as an online bookseller, morphing it into the e-tail, cloud and streaming giant that has seen Amazon become the third company ever to reach a $1tn market valuation in January last year. The unstoppable growth of Amazon has also led Bezos' personal net worth to skyrocket to nearly $200bn.

He is stepping aside to focus on his numerous projects which include climate initiative The Bezos Earth Fund and newspaper The Washington Post.

"Being the CEO of Amazon is a deep responsibility, and it's consuming," he continued in the letter.

"When you have a responsibility like that, it's hard to put attention on anything else. As exec chair I 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.

"I've never had more energy, and this isn't about retiring. I'm super passionate about the impact I think these organisations can have."

Jassy joined Amazon 24 years ago and has headed the cloud arm since its inception in 2006. It has long been the propulsion behind Amazon's massive growth and in October over half of the online giant's operating income was attributed to AWS. Jassy is well-known for his acerbic public takedowns of his cloud rivals, particularly Oracle.

Amazon CFO Brian Olsavsky told analysts on the company's recent Q4 earnings call that this was an opportunity for Jassy to put his "imprint" on the organisation and that Bezos will still be involved in larger decision-making processes, such as acquisitions and overall strategy.

"Andy is not only a visionary leader, he is a strong operator and he has got a great track record of developing multiple things and businesses within Amazon, not the least of which is AWS, which is arguably the most profitable, important technology company in the world," Olsavsky stated.

"We're very happy to see both Jeff and Andy get new perspectives, so Andy has a chance to put his imprint on Amazon. He is certainly going to carry through the culture and the vision and the invention factory that Amazon is and will take that to the next level.

"We will be working on backfilling the AWS role and we will talk more about that in the future, but for now, today is about Andy and Jeff Bezos."