Amazon founder Jeff Bezos stepped down as CEO on Monday, handing over the reins as the company navigates the challenges of a world fighting to emerge from the coronavirus pandemic. Andy Jassy, who ran Amazon’s cloud-computing business, replaced Bezos, a change the company announced in February.
Bezos, Amazon’s biggest shareholder with a stake worth about $180 billion, will still hold sway over the company he started out of his Seattle garage in 1995. He takes over the role of executive chair, with plans to focus on new products and initiatives.
Jassy takes the helm of a $1.7 trillion company that benefited greatly from the pandemic, more than tripling its profits in the first quarter of 2021 and posting record revenue as customers grew ever more dependent on online shopping.
Bezos founded Amazon as an online bookstore and built it into a shopping and entertainment empire that is the second-largest private employer in the U.S., behind Walmart. Amazon, which is buying the MGM movie studio in its latest major acquisition, now makes movies and sofas, owns a grocery chain and has plans to send satellites into space to beam internet service to Earth.
Jeff Bezos history
Bezos quit his job in June 1994 and started Amazon on July 5, 1994 in a garage. Older books were initially available on Amazon. As of the end of 1997, the company had more than 1.5 million customers in more than 150 countries, according to Amazon. The company suffered losses in the first few years. But then the company started making huge profits. In 2022, Amazon had revenue of ८ 3.86 trillion (Rs 28.76 trillion) and a profit of, 21,331 million (Rs 1.58 trillion).
When Bezos started Amazon in his father’s garage, he had no idea that it would be the largest company in the world. According to media reports, the company’s market cap reached dollar 1 billion three years after its inception . In September 2018, Amazon’s market cap reached 1 trillion. Amazon has the fourth highest market cap.Jeff Bezos first appeared on the Forbes list in 1999. He was the 19th richest person in the world at the time and had a net worth of around 10 billion. But today, Bezos is the richest man in the world with a net worth of over 200 billion.
Jassy, who has been with Amazon since 1997, ran the cloud-computing business that powers video-streaming site Netflix and many other companies, making it one of Amazon’s most profitable businesses.