If someone as powerful and important to a company as Jeff Bezos is and was to Amazon decides to step aside, he’s going to be darn sure his hand-picked successor is competent at the very least, and a future star if things go well.
The man taking over the big office at Amazon corporate headquarters in Seattle is Bezos’ right-hand man, 53-year old Andy Jassy, who will take over in the third quarter of 2021 and try to keep growing a company worth $1.6 trillion.
Jassy is a Harvard graudate, who has been at Amazon his entire professional career. He most recently ran one of the most important areas of Amazon, Amazon Web Services (AWS). Jassy has run it very well, as the division accounted for 60% of Amazon’s revenue in 2020, and helped earn Jassy a personal fortune worth an estimated $377 million. It was Jassy’s division that oversaw the Parler app on AWS, and Jassy personally decided to scrap it from their platform.
Most reports Tuesday made it seem like Jassy is almost universally respected at Amazon, and liked by most too. “He is authentic, genuine, empathetic,” said Taimur Rashid, AWS former managing director of business development.
‘That’s the key thing I love about Andy,” she told Insider.
The words used to describe him are “unassuming,” “down to earth,” and “friendly.” I’m not sure if those words have ever been written about Bezos, but both styles can certainly be affective.
While he’s well liked and seen as a nice guy around the office, Jassy is not someone to be trifled with. He is famous at Amazon for running brainstorming and strategy meetings known as “The Chop.”
“If you go to a Chop meeting with Andy, you better be ready,’” a former senior-level employee told Insider. “He has a tremendous amount of trust in his team, but you have to be at the highest levels of diligence and preparation for any meeting with him.
“He’s a shark who will smell a drop of blood from 100 miles away if you’re not ready.”
A “nice, unassuming shark,” who Bezos is 100% behind. “He will be an outstanding leader, and he has my full confidence.”
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