Amazon transitions to a higher cloud, Bezos picks his shadow to lead as CEO

03-02-2021

Andy Jassy - the man named to take over from Jeff Bezos - has been in charge of the web services arm at Amazon since inception. Jassy's appointment is a revelation of things to come. He has been intrumental in shaping the retail giant into a tech company. And this has come at a time when the world is creating and storing most amount of data ever. But he is not a surprise candidate to take over from Bezos. Even since his elevation as CEO of Amazon Web Services in 2016, he has been touted as a possible successor. At one point of time, Jassy was the best-paid executive at Amazon, topping even Bezos in compensation. For a rank and file marketing manager in 1997, this is a validation of what Bezos thinks will drive the future at Amazon. Jassy has also been credited with the business plan for Amazon�s foray into the Music business. Bezos in his letter to his staff said, "Andy is well known inside the company and has been at Amazon almost as long as I have. He will be an outstanding leader, and he has my full confidence." Jassy is a Harvard Business School graduate and Amazon was his first job. His elevation will keep rival cloud services like Microsoft and Oracle on toes. Speaking at the Amazon�s annual cloud event AWS re: Invent, Jassy had shared an 8-point plan to reclaim innovation in cloud services. His presentation went on for close to three hours, if that's an indication of how much of an insider he is to the business of cloud infra services. His focus could now be on bite-sizing the web services, to make them faster and possibly server-less. With Jassy in the drivers' seat, Amazon will hope to pump in more resources for innovation in cloud and data services. Bezos could be looking at catapulting Amazon into a newer orbit with this change of guard. He signed off his letter saying, "Keep inventing, and don�t despair when at first the idea looks crazy. Remember to wander. Let curiosity be your compass. It remains Day 1."