Meet the man stepping up at Amazon: Andy Jassy’s been at the company since 1997 and has already piled up a £276m fortune
The shake-up at the top of Amazon received a lukewarm response on Wall Street last night.
Shares dipped in early trading after founder Jeff Bezos announced plans to stand down as chief executive and hand over to Andy Jassy.
The stock later recovered but the nervous welcome underlined the scale of the task facing Jassy when he takes the helm in later this year.
Andy Jassy, currently head of Amazon’s cloud computing division AWS, is set to take over as chief executive of the internet shopping titan in the second half of this year
However, the company stressed that Bezos is ‘not leaving’ and will remain involved in his new position as executive chairman.
The 57-year-old gave his successor the nod of approval in an email to staff, saying: ‘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.’
Amazon shares were up 0.55 per cent, although they had faltered earlier in the day.
Jassy, 53, has long been seen as a potential replacement for Bezos.
The Amazon veteran joined the company in 1997, straight after finishing at Harvard Business School.
‘I took my last final exam at Harvard Business School, the first Friday of May in 1997 an I started Amazon next Monday,’ he has previously said.
Sports fan: Andy Jassy (pictured with his son) has a custom-built sports bar in his basement for watching football he calls ‘Helmethead’
In 2003, he went on to start the AWS division – now a hugely profitable venture that provides data services to companies around the world.
Jassy is also seen as being close to Bezos, having once served as his ‘shadow’ adviser – a chief-of-staff-like role that saw him join his boss in every meeting.
He is one of the company’s highest-paid executives and boasts a fortune of £276million.
A well-respected figure in the tech industry, he was reportedly approached about taking the top job at Microsoft at one stage before Satya Nadella was appointed in 2014.
Co-workers describe Jassy as an unassuming and friendly boss whose easy-going demeanour is belied by high professional expectations.
He is known for holding tough meetings called ‘The Chop’ where staff are grilled on details – and chopped down to size if they come unprepared.
The Jassy family’s £2.3m, five-bedroom home – a stately manor built in 1906 – in Seattle’s exclusive Capitol Hill district
‘He’s a shark who will smell a drop of blood from 100 miles away if you’re not ready,’ one person told news website Business Insider.
The father-of-two, who is married to fashion designer Elana Rochelle Caplan, grew up near New York.
His time at Amazon has proved lucrative, allowing Jassy and his family to buy a £5million home in Santa Monica, California, as well as their main £2.3million, five-bedroom home – a stately manor built in 1906 – in Seattle’s exclusive Capitol Hill district.
He is also a sports fanatic and became part of the franchise that owns his local Seattle Kraken ice hockey team in 2018.
Jassy has a custom-built sports bar in his basement he calls ‘Helmethead’ – also described as an ‘elaborate man cave’.
Speaking to company investors, Brian Olsavsky, chief financial officer at Amazon, said: ‘Those of us who know Andy are excited to see him take on this greater responsibility.’
He added: ‘He is a visionary leader, a great operator, and he understands what makes Amazon a special, innovative company.’