Who is Andy Jassy and why is he the “perfect replacement” for Jeff Bezos as CEO of Amazon?

A new era began for Amazon on July 5, after Jeff Bezos, the famous North American tycoon, definitively left his position as CEO of the technology giant. The baton was received by Andy Jassy, the former director of Amazon Web Services (AWS).

Recently Bezos, founder of the company, delivered Amazon just 27 years after its founding, on July 5, 1994, when it started as a bookstore; something that, today, is only seen as a very small subsurface amid the enormity and complexity of this company.

"Amazon is what it is thanks to the invention," explained Jeff Bezos, through a statement delivered to his employees in February 2021. In the letter, the "genius" of computing explains the importance of Amazon for today's world and the way in which during the last 27 years, he and his employees and partners have turned "crazy" things into "normal."

“We do crazy things together and then we make them normal. We pioneered customer reviews, 1-click, personalized recommendations, blazing-fast Prime shipping, Just Walk Out purchases, Climate Pledge, Kindle, Alexa, marketplace, cloud computing infrastructure, Career Choice, and much more […] In this Right now, I see Amazon at its most inventive, so it's an optimal time for this transition," he said.

Jeff Bezos' right-hand man

Of course, this is a challenge that cannot be taken lightly, and it seems that Bezos found the right man for the position. Although he is a low profile to the public opinion, everyone in the tech world knows and recognizes the importance of Andy Jassy at Amazon, especially in the planning, creation, and emergence of AWS, the division that controls storage and services. I compute in the cloud that companies like McDonald's and Netflix currently use.

In addition, Jassy is not only one of the most recognized executives within Amazon, at his core, but he is also Amazon himself. "Andy is well known within the company and has been with Amazon almost as long as I have […] He will be an outstanding leader and he has my complete confidence," Bezos said in his letter to employees.

For his part, in an interview with the Harvard Business School (HBS), held on September 1, 2020, to the question: What did you learn the most from Jeff as his mentor? Jassy replied, “Well, he's such an unusual thinker and I don't know if I've ever seen someone with the combination of abilities that he has. He is very inventive. It is an unusual mix of both who have great technical competence, but also great empathy with the client. Usually, you don't find those two in one person. "

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AWS on the throne of Amazon

Now, experts have assured that beyond the confidence that Bezos and his incredible journey in Amazon may or may not have, the new CEO is a clear example of what the board of directors wants for this company. According to Forbes, AWS accounted for Amazon 67% of total earnings in the first quarter of 2021 and has surpassed other "monsters" such as Google or Microsoft, when it is considered a division of more than 100 billion dollars in the cloud business industry.

“AWS and Jassy, they are the guardians. Jassy is one of the most powerful leaders, not only in the cloud and technology sector but also in the business world, ”said Dan Ives, an analyst at Wedbush Securities, in conversation with Business Insider.

"The customer is not always right"

Currently, one of the issues that most worries Amazon executives is the struggle they have had with their employees for at least a decade, due to constant union threats that occur almost daily.

In recent years, complaints about labor exploitation have been the daily bread in Amazon. According to an investigation cited by the specialized portal Hypertextual, in recent months there have been hundreds of accusations ranging from 60-hour workweeks to pressure on workers to urinate in bottles in order not to waste time. way to meet the company's objectives.

Of course, this is a reality that cannot be ignored, and that Bezos was clear before his retirement, assuring shareholders that one of the objectives that Amazon should have in the short term is to become "the best employer in the world ”; and it seems that Jassy is very connected to this goal.

In his first email as CEO of Amazon, the former CEO of AWS stated that one of his goals at the helm of the company will be to “ stay focused on improving the lives of customers every day, and doing so while also caring for teammates. ”.

"Workers' rights have become a huge image problem for Amazon, (so Jassy) had to say something about it," said Brian Dumaine, Amazon researcher and author of "Bezonomics," in an interview with Bussiness. Insider.

For his part, the CEO of Fortune 500 assured, in conversation with the same media, that this is a successful strategy on the part of Jassy, since he accepts that "he will not always do things well" and that "it will always be necessary to do changes".

This and other challenges, such as lawsuits for alleged plagiarism of its customers' products or investigations for allegedly violating antitrust laws, are obstacles that Amazon will have to overcome in the coming years, and it seems that both Jeff Bezos and his board of directors have full confidence in Andy Jassy to achieve it.