Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos has officially stepped down as head of the world’s largest online retailer and transitioning to the role of Executive Chair on Monday.
This is coming on the day Amazon was incorporated in 1994 and forever changed millions of lives.
Bezos has handed the role of CEO over to Andy Jassy, in order to focus on “new products and early initiatives”.
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“In the Exec Chair role, I intend to focus my energies and attention on new products and early initiatives,” Bezos told Amazon employees and investors in an email during the company’s annual shareholder meeting in February.
“This journey began some 27 years ago. Amazon was only an idea, and it had no name. The question I was asked most frequently at that time was, ‘What’s the internet?’
“Blessedly,” he said. “I haven’t had to explain that in a long while.”
With a total net worth of $203bn (£146bn) according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, the 57-year-old is now expected to devote more of his time to a handful of personal projects.
Among the most immediate adventures for Mr Bezos is a launch with his private spaceflight company Blue Origin, scheduled for 20 July, on which he will be joined by his brother, Mark; a mystery customer who paid $28m (£20m) for the seat in an auction, and 82-year-old Mary Wallace “Wally” Funk.
The Amazon founder also said that he would be investing more of his time (and one expects, wealth) in fighting climate change and overseeing The Washington Post, the newspaper he owns.
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