Here are three important things to know about the ecommerce giant’s new leader.
He first worked in a marketing role and then was placed on a “SWAT team” project to explore other potential product categories for Amazon than just books. Jassy started entering the music business as part of the project.
Jassy also spent time in a position back then called Bezos’ ‘shadow’ in the early 2000s, a role similar to that of a company chief of staff designed to train promising young executives, said Ann Hiatt, a former director. business partner for Bezos during Amazon’s early days (where she sat at one of Bezos ‘now legendary “door desks.”) Now a consultant in technical leadership, Hiatt said she worked closely with Jassy during his time as Bezos’. shadow”.
If you’d asked me yesterday what I thought would be the timeline of Jeff stepping down as CEO, I wouldn’t have guessed now. But if you’d said, ‘Okay, he’s stepping down, who will he choose? “The first, immediate name that came out of my mouth would be Andy Jassy,” said Hiatt.
“I watched him blossom into this wonderful, complementary manager to Jeff, where he learned to anticipate the questions Jeff would ask, the things he would hate, the things he would enjoy, his leadership style,” said Hiatt. Of course, while Andy has his own fantastic version of executive, he was trained with those instincts, to prioritize the things Jeff would do and make decisions the same way Jeff would when he’s not in the room. to great heights in his role as CEO of AWS. ”
Jassy was there when Amazon decided to launch AWS and operate it as a separate company serving Amazon.com the same way as any other customer.
“From the very beginning of AWS, we made the decision that if we wanted to serve many of Amazon’s consumer competitors … we needed to make AWS our own separable company with a different leadership team and where Amazon’s consumer businesses were a major customer but just one of many significant third-party customers, “Jassy told CNN of the decision in an interview for a 2019 CNN documentary about Amazon’s history.” We treat Amazon’s consumer business as an external customer. ”
At the time, many were skeptical of the decision as the computing business was a long way from Amazon’s core online retail business. But Jassy has since overseen the growth of AWS into the backbone of much of the Internet – something he managed to do despite not having much tech background.
“He brings a fair amount of humility; people didn’t know who he was until recently,” said Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a professor at the Yale School of Management. “He’s absolutely very humble, he’s not a self-promoter, which is quite unusual to be at this level in the tech space.”
How much does he earn?
In 2019, his total compensation was $ 348,809. But a year earlier, his salary totaled more than $ 19.7 million, thanks to a stock award of nearly $ 19.5 million that became unconditional that year. Jeff Bezos’ base salary, on the other hand, was $ 81,840, and the total compensation in 2019 was nearly $ 1.7 million, although Bezos owns a larger portion of the company’s stock (nearly 15% of the total, according to the 2020 proxy statement) .
It is unclear whether Jassy’s pay will change after becoming CEO.
The succession plan
At the time, Jassy said he didn’t expect that from Bezos will leave his position in the near future.
“I’m lucky that Jeff isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, and none of us want him to. He’s just such an unusual leader and so much a part of the culture that I think he’ll be here for a long time to come . ”
While hesitant about his plans, saying to Harlow, “It’s hard to imagine Jeff running the company” – analysts say Bezos has been planning the transition for years.
Yale’s Sonnenfeld, who wrote a book about CEO transitions called “The Hero’s Farewell,” recalled a conversation with Bezos at a tech conference about seven years ago in which the Amazon chief said he had the transition process from Bill Gates to Steve Ballmer studied.
“This has been his plan,” Sonnenfeld said of Bezos. “He wanted to pass this thing on as a healthy company, and now is the ideal time to do it.”