Associated Press
- Andy Jassy joined Amazon in 1997 and became CEO in 2021 when Jeff Bezos stepped down.
- Before becoming CEO, Jassy founded Amazon Web Services and grew it to a $40 billion business.
- He's overseen a tough macroeconomic period as CEO with Amazon stock plunging 51% in 2022.
Andy Jassy became Amazon's second CEO in 2021 when the company's founder Jeff Bezos stepped down.
Jassy joined Amazon in 1997, the year the company went public, according to his corporate bio. He held different leadership positions at the company before founding AWS, the company's cloud computing platform, in 2006.
Jassy served as CEO of AWS from 2016 to 2021 and grew the segment to a $40 billion business.
Last year, Jassy led the company through one of the "harder macroeconomic years in recent memory," he wrote in his 2022 letter to shareholders after Amazon's stock plunged 51%.
Jassy also oversaw the second-largest round of Amazon layoffs in the company's history, eliminating 27,000 jobs. Still, Jassy wrote that he was "optimistic and energized by what lies ahead for Amazon."
In his first two years as Amazon CEO, Jassy has added or replaced several executives in the company's top leadership team.
He now has 16 direct reports, including Rohit Prasad, the leader of Amazon's new AI group. Jassy also serves on the Amazon Board of Directors.
CEO's start
Jassy has been CEO of Amazon since 2021, when Bezos announced that he was transitioning to the executive chair of the Amazon Board.
In a letter to employees then, Bezos 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."
Net worth
In 2021, Jassy's total compensation was $212 million including stock and a base salary of $175,000. His total pay dropped to $1.3 million in 2022, including a base salary of $317,500, according to an SEC filing.
The drop was linked to Amazon's declining stock price. Jassy owned about 2 million shares of Amazon as of early 2023.
Career, background
Jassy grew up in Scarsdale, New York. He attended Harvard University and has an MBA from Harvard Business School, according to LinkedIn.
He worked for the collectibles company MBI as a project manager before joining Amazon as a marketing manager in 1997. He held several roles within Amazon in both the business-to-business and business-to-consumer areas.
In 2003, Jassy and Bezos developed the idea for AWS, which was launched three years later.
Jassy serves on the Trust of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, on the Board of Trustees for Rainier Scholars, and as Chair of Rainier Prep's Board of Directors. He's also a minority owner of the NHL team Seattle Kraken.
Stance on remote work
Amazon's employees and leadership team have clashed over remote work policies since Jassy became CEO. Managers are now allowed to effectively fire employees who fail to comply with Amazon's return-to-office mandate after months of internal turmoil.
In July, Amazon started forcing staff to relocate near central "hub" offices or take a "voluntary resignation," infuriating some workers who had already been asked to return to the office at least three days per week.
Jassy gave an internal interview in August where he addressed RTO, after which an internal Slack channel about remote work quickly filled up with dozens of critical employee reactions, according to screenshots obtained by Insider.
Most people were disappointed by Jassy's failure to provide clear data on in-office work's benefits. Amazon is notorious for making key data-based decisions, but some employees felt the RTO decision was being made arbitrarily.
"There was no data when we were deciding to pursue AWS, which was quite different from the rest of our businesses at that time, that we were going to be successful. In fact, most people thought it was nuts internally and externally," Jassy said during the meeting, internally called a "Fishbowl."
"Those were judgment decisions by our leadership team," Jassy continued. "And that is what's happened here. As a leadership team, we've decided that we will be better for customers and for our business being in the office."
Leadership style
At the time of his promotion to CEO, he was considered an "authentic, genuine, empathetic" boss, company insiders said.
"He doesn't suffer foolishness," Scott Chancellor, a former AWS said.
Current and former AWS employees also told Insider that Jassy has operated with almost complete autonomy at Amazon prior to becoming CEO.
"Jeff has allowed Andy to do his job without anybody looking over his shoulder," one former senior-level employee said. "It's 100% Andy's show. Jeff does not tell Andy what to do. … They're almost side-by-side on the org chart."
Avery Hartmans contributed to an earlier version of this report.
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