Jeff Bezos Is Stepping Down, Here's What You Need to Know

Jeff Bezos started his company in his garage in the 1990s. Today he is the world’s richest man. As all great things must come to an end, Jeff Bezos has announced he is stepping down from CEO of Amazon on July 5, 2021. But where is he going and who will be Amazon’s second CEO after its founder hands over the keys 27 years later?

Amazon’s Origins

In 1994, Jeff Bezos started a bookstore in his garage called Cadabra. After multiple concerns, including the company name sounding like “cadaver”, the small business was renamed. Other contenders included Awake, Browse, and Bookmall. Perhaps most interesting was Relentless. Type Relentless.com into your browser and it will still bring you to Amazon.

Amazon was officially incorporated on July 5, 1995 by Bezos. Bezos says Amazon was perfect due to his goal of creating the largest bookstore and Amazon being the largest river. This was later proven to be one of his greatest decisions to date. Amazon went public in 1997 and sold for $18 a share.

Amazon Prime was launched in 2005, followed by AWS (Amazon Web Services), the company’s cloud servicess platform, in 2006. These two gamer changers transformed Amazon into what it is today, a big tech legend.

Currently, Amazon Prime has 200 million subscribers. Jeff Bezos will continue as an executive chairman of Amazon, and will still own 10.6% of the company.

He has very good things to say about the new CEO. Per deadline.com, Bezos stated of Andy Jassy:

“Andy is brilliant and has the highest of high standards,” the founder wrote in a letter to shareholders. “I guarantee you that Andy won’t let the universe make us typical. He will muster the energy needed to keep alive in us what makes us special. That won’t be easy, but it is critical. I also predict it will be satisfying and oftentimes fun.”

The Amazon Brand

In 1995, Amazon’s first logo was a large ‘A’ with a watery texture and the Amazon river flowing through it.

In 1997 the blue logo was changed to black and white, and the mention of “Earth’s biggest bookstore” was removed. Amazon had its first major logo change in 1998, dropping the river theme entirely. This logo simply stated “Amazon.com” with a large golden ‘O’ in its name. Later in 1998 we saw a more modern version of the Amazon logo with all lowercase “amazon.com” with the name emboldened and a golden curved underline. In 2000, the golden underline was changed to a curved arrow that stretched from the ‘a’ to the ‘z’ and included the then-motto “and you’re done.”

The modern logo we see today originated in 2012 and simply contains the company’s name in all lowercase with the famous “a to z” golden curved arrow. This logo was created by the original logo designer, Turner Duckworth.

What’s Next for Bezos?

In typical Jeff Bezos style, he will continue living a life of extravagance. He is currently focusing on his goals of commercial space flights. His space-based company, Blue Origin, will send a bidder, Bezos, his brother Mark, and a very special guest will be blasting off on its first flight July 20, 2021. The first seat Bezos sold for his commercial space flight was the highest of 7600 bidders at an astonishing $28 million. The ship sending his guests up into space is called the New Shephard, and his company motto is “Gradatim Ferociter,” meaning “step by step, ferociously.”

Bezos’ special guest on the voyage will be Ms. Wally Funk. He explains they will go up into space in zero gravity for four minutes and will land back down in the desert. An emotional video on Jeff Bezos’ Instagram is the caption:

“No one has waited longer.

In 1961, Wally Funk was at the top of her class as part of the “Mercury 13” Woman in Space Program. Despite completing their training, the program was cancelled, and none of the thirteen flew.

It’s time. Welcome to the crew, Wally. We’re excited to have you fly with us on July 20th as our honored guest. #GradatimFerociter”

New Amazon CEO, Andy Jassy

Andy Jassy, 53, will take the title of Amazon CEO on July 5, 2021, the company’s 27th anniversary. Here’s what we know: Andy Jassy went to Harvard Business School and is responsible for many important aspects of Amazon, like expanding from book sales to include other types of media and creating the company’s cloud storage platform. Jassy has worked for Amazon for 24 years, so he’s familiar with the reasons the company is successful (and what its weaknesses have been). He’s the current CEO of AWS.

He is said to have stated regarding his first day at Amazon,

“I started at Amazon the next Monday, I didn’t know what my job was going to be. I didn’t know what my title was going to be, but it was very important to them that I show up that Monday.”

Andy has two children, and is married to Elena Caplan, Amazon’s marketing manager. Upon his takeover, he is being given 61,000 shares of stock in Amazon, about $214 million.

At the time of taking over the company, the revenue is about $400 billion. Amazon is currently seeing a 30% growth every year. Amazon has 1.27 million employees at this time.

However, things are not as perfect from within the warehouse walls. Jassy walks into a wealth of problems amassed by the company over the years including (but not at all limited to) shipping delays, poor payment offers to shipping partners, low wages for workers, and less-than-desirable working conditions in its warehouses.

In fact, a recent study done by the OSC showed Amazon warehouses have 80% higher rates of serious injuries compared to other warehouse jobs. These conditions are troubling for any company, let alone one who pushes faster and faster delivery times, such as Amazon’s One-Day Delivery service.

Final Thoughts

Bezos' new goals are ambitious, but nothing has ever stopped him just because it was difficult. Best of luck to him and his future endeavors in space.

How much will change with Jassy? I would like to see pay increases that match the hazardous conditions Amazon employees are subjected to, and a safety manager in each warehouse who ensures employees take breaks and get adequate training on personal safety. Jassy is not new to this business and is not ignorant to the issues the company faces, but it is his first time having the power to change them.

Sources:

https://www.forbes.com/profile/jeff-bezos/?sh=374c26571b23

https://finance.yahoo.com/video/jeff-bezos-steps-down-amazon-110000036.html

https://www.blueorigin.com/

https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-primed-andy-jassy-to-be-ceo-can-he-keep-what-jeff-bezos-built-11625218225

https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazons-jeff-bezos-is-handing-andy-jassy-a-unique-set-of-challenges-11625233065?mod=hp_lead_pos7

https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-jeff-bezos-chose-company-name-2018-5#:~:text=Originally%2C%20it%20was%20an%20online,(as%20in%2C%20magic).

https://inkbotdesign.com/history-amazon-logo/

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/02/amazon-grants-61000-shares-of-stock-to-incoming-ceo-andy-jassy.html

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/jul/03/who-is-andy-jassy-new-amazon-ceo-jeff-bezos

https://deadline.com/2021/07/amazon-ceo-andy-jassy-214-million-stock-jeff-bezos-1234785918/

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/01/study-amazon-workers-injured-at-higher-rates-than-rival-companies.html

https://thesoc.org/amazon-primed-for-pain/