Jeff Bezos. Photo courtesy Amazon
Amazon.com Inc. announced Tuesday that Jeff Bezos, who founded the e-commerce company in 1994, will step down as CEO and transition to the role of executive chair in the third quarter of 2021. Amazon Web Services CEO Andy Jassy will succeed Bezos.
“Amazon is what it is because of invention,” Bezos said in a statement. “We pioneered customer reviews, 1-Click, personalized recommendations, Prime’s insanely-fast shipping, Just Walk Out shopping, the Climate Pledge, Kindle, Alexa, marketplace, infrastructure cloud computing, Career Choice and much more.”
As part of Amazon’s massive growth since its inception, the company in late 2018 announced its would bring its second headquarters to the East Coast — and Northern Virginia no less. The Long Island City area of Queens in New York had also been in the running for the headquarters, but Virginia came out on top. The $2.5 billion HQ2 project promises to bring 25,000 jobs to Virginia in the next decade. As of December 2020, Amazon had hired more than 1,600 people for its Arlington location. Bezos also owns a mansion in Washington, D.C.’s tony Kalorama neighborhood, which he paid $23 million for in 2016. (His neighbors there include former President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama.)
