Along with their results, Amazon had some big news for us last night. Jeff Bezos is stepping down as CEO and will be replaced by Andy Jassy who was previously the head of Amazon Web Services. Under his reign AWS has become the star of the Amazon show.
Andy grew up in New York and has been at Amazon since 1997. In 2003 he co-founded AWS from our very own Mother City. Remember that a South African named Chris Pinkham led the AWS development from Cape Town where Andy spent some time.
As is often the case, Jeff is not going to spend his time on the beach. He will be Executive Chairman which means he is still Andy's boss and will lead the strategic decisions of the company. His passion is innovation from within Amazon and that is where he will put his focus. Andy will most likely keep the existing operations in check throughout the business.