On an yet-undisclosed date in the third-quarter of this year, online retailer and tech giant Amazon, would have a change in top leadership for the first time since its inception in 1994. Its founder and the current world’s richest man Jeff Bezos, will be stepping down and handing over the reins of leadership to Andy Jassy, CEO of Amazon Web Service, Amazon’s cloud-business division.
WHO IS ANDY JASSY?
Although he is not a widely known or much talked-about public figure like Bezos, Andy Jassy is an accomplished business executive in his own right. In fact, the 52-year old is one of the most significant executive in the history of Amazon. He nurtured and grew AWS in a time when it was not a ‘thing’ in the tech-world into a $45 billion business, making it Amazon’s biggest revenue stream.
Jassy joined Amazon in 1997, immediately after his graduation from Harvard Business School. This was just three years after Bezos launched the company. His first role was in Marketing, before he was placed on a team-project to explore other potential product categories beyond books.
Some time in the 2000s, he served Bezos for one-and-half years in the role of Corporate Chief of Staff, shadowing his every movement, seating on all his meetings and attending all his business functions. The aim was to train him in management role as he showed great aptitude and potential.
Ms Ann Hiatt, a tech-leadership consultant and Bezos’ former business executive says:
‘I watched him (Jassy) blossom into this beautiful complimentary executive to Jeff, where he learned to anticipate the questions Jeff would ask, the things he would hate, the things he would love and his leadership style. While Andy, of course, is his own fantastic version of executive, he was trained with those instincts, to prioritize the things Jeff would, and make decisions the same way Jeff would. Obviously, he has taken that on to great heights in his role as CEO of AWS’.
JASSY AS CEO OF AWS
Bezos’ relationship with Jassy deepened in the years following those 18 months. In 2003, Bezos tasked Jassy with exploring the budding technology of cloud computing. The goal was to see whether it made business sense for Amazon to offer hosting service to other websites and businesses. At that time, many of the largest tech companies relied on third-party data centers, or had already begun actively building their own.
It took Amazon another six years of exploring and experimenting before the company launched its first cloud product in 2006. The company’s early investments paid off, as competitors did not realise the business opportunity or launch comparable cloud products for years to come.
Today, AWS powers a huge bulk of applications, services and websites which both employees and consumers use every day. It has unparalleled resources and developer tools which make building and tapping into its massive resources as easy as using a standard API. This is the reason most companies do not bother with building their own data centers, and choose AWS or one of its competitors like Microsoft’s Azure or Google’s Cloud Platform.
Jassy was a part of the decision to operate AWS as a separate company that served Amazon.com the same way as any external customer. In an interview for a documentary on Amazon’s history on CNN, he said,
‘From the very start, we made a decision that if we wanted to be able to serve a lot of Amazon’s consumer competitors, we had to make AWS its own separable business with a different leadership team. Amazon’s consumer businesses are just one of many important external customers and we treat them as such’.
At the time, many people were skeptical of this decision, given that the cloud computing business was parallel to Amazon’s core online retail activity. However, Jassy in his position as CEO, has since grown AWS into the backbone of much of the Internet, despite not having much of a tech background. AWS businesses accounts for about 63% of the Amazon’s profit in 2020, and has put it on track to make more than $50 billion in revenue this year.
Amazon now controls about one-third of the entire cloud computing market share, more than Microsoft and Google (it’s closest competitors) combined. Without AWS’s sustained massive growth, Amazon may not have had the resources to invest as much back into retail, logistics, video streaming, hardware, AI, and its other business divisions over the years.
HIS QUIRKS AND PERSONAE
Jassy’s management style and character is somewhat similar to Bezos’ as both men favour an infamous email style and meeting decorum. Jassy is known for his exhaustive attention to detail and hands-on approach, a penchant for back-to-back meetings, and his support for issues of social justice. He has been known to audibly and publicly speak up for matters of social injustices, including the killing of Brenna Taylor, the Black Lives Matter movement and the defence of LGBTQ rights.
Jassy now has an even bigger responsibility to shoulder as CEO of Amazon, leading the parent company as it builds on a year of massive growth caused by the pandemic. According to him, the best way to sustain a business like Amazon is constant re-invention. Now Jassy will have to re-invent himself, at a time when Amazon is still the leader in so many industries while exploring new territory, as well as match up to stiffer competition in cloud computing, e-commerce and AI.
Out-going CEO Jeff Bezos has said that he would remain engaged in Amazon’s initiatives as Executive Chairman. In a letter to employees a few weeks ago, Bezos says Jassy will be an outstanding leader and has his full confidence. He has said he it does not feel like retirement to him, adding that he has never had so much energy. He will now be focusing more time and energy on his various passions like the Washington Post, Blue Project, and the Bezos Earth Fund. Amazon has not yet announced a replacement for Jassy as CEO of AWS.
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