The world’s richest man Jeff Bezos officially resigned today: My goal is the stars and the sea

On: February 03, 2021

The two richest people on earth are focusing more on the stars and the sea.

Musk is like this. Now, 57-year-old Bezos is the same.

In order to "squeeze" more time, Jeff Bezos, the founder, and CEO of Amazon announced today that he will no longer serve as Amazon CEO.

But this is not to say that he is going to “retire” completely from Amazon. He will continue to participate in important decisions as to the executive chairman of the Amazon board of directors, and he will still hold 10% of Amazon’s shares.

And Bezos reports that the key reasons for giving way to CEO are:

I hope to pay more attention to the Bezos Earth Fund, the aerospace company Blue Origin, the Washington Post, and the Amazon Day 1 Fund.

As for the successor, Bezos also has an appointment-

Andy Jassy, ​​now 53 years old.

This is his close comrade-in-arms for many years, a good brother, a 24-year veteran of Amazon, and the founder and CEO of Amazon's cloud computing business AWS.

Andy Jassy is also a well-known violent and ruthless character. During the cloud computing war, Microsoft and Oracle were all his friends.

But even so, the ability is well-known. So as soon as the news came out, Amazon's two big friends in cloud computing, Microsoft and Google, sent congratulatory messages.

Microsoft CEO Nadella said that Germany is a wise choice.

Pichai, CEO of Alphabet, Google's parent company, said: Congratulations to both of you on your new journey.

Of course, this is also a congratulatory message between successors. Before Amazon Bezos, Microsoft and Google have also completed the handover of the founders giving way and retreating behind the scenes.

How does Bezos explain his abdication?

In accordance with the style of Bezos and Amazon, and possibly in order to prevent outsiders from guessing, Bezos personally wrote an open letter.

Believe it is not long, the core said three points:

First, abdicate and select a successor.

Second, self-report the achievements and demerits in Amazon over the past 27 years.

Third, explain what to do after the abdication.

First of all, straight to the point, I want to abdicate, and the successor is Andy:

I am very excited to announce that in this third quarter, I will be transferred to the executive chairman of Amazon's board of directors, and Andy Jassy will become CEO.

Andy is well known within the company, and his time at Amazon is almost as long as mine. He will be an outstanding leader, and I have full confidence in him.

Secondly, by abdicating the throne, I will tell my own merits, demerits and pride. The original text is as follows:

This journey (Amazon) started about 27 years ago. At the time, "Amazon" was just an idea, without a name. At that time, the question I was asked the most was "What is the Internet". Fortunately, we don't have to explain this problem anymore.

Today, we have 1.3 million talented and dedicated employees who serve hundreds of millions of customers and companies and are recognized as one of the most successful companies in the world.

How did you do that? invention.

The invention is the root of our success. We did a lot of crazy things together, and then turned them into a normal state.

We are the first to introduce customer reviews, one-click, personalized recommendations, Prime ultra-fast delivery, easy shopping (Just Walk Out), climate promise, Kindle, Alexa, Marketplace, infrastructure cloud computing, career choices, and more.

If you do it right, this invention will become the norm in a few years. People will take it for granted, and this is precisely the greatest praise an inventor can get.

I don't know any other company whose invention record is as good as Amazon. I believe that we are now the most creative time.

With the expansion of Amazon's scale, we decided to use Amazon's scale and scope to lead important social issues.

Take, for example, two things with greater impact: the $15 minimum wage and climate commitments. In both cases, we ensured a leading position (in the industry), and then asked others to act with us. Other big companies are also moving closer to us. I hope you are also proud of this.

I think my work is meaningful and interesting. I can work with the brightest, most talented, and most creative teammates. In good times, you have always been very humble. In times of difficulty, you have always supported me strongly and brought laughter to each other. Working in this team is a very happy thing.

Finally, Bezos briefly explained the abdication thinking and the focus of follow-up:

Although I will continue to stay in the office, this transition also excites me. Millions of customers need our services, and more than one million employees need us to make ends meet. As the CEO of Amazon, this is a heavy responsibility as well as a difficult task. When you have such responsibilities, it is difficult to focus on other things.

As the executive chairman of Amazon, I will continue to participate in its important projects, but I also have time and energy to pay attention to Day 1 Fund, Bezos Earth Fund, Blue Origin, The Washington Post, and my other hobbies.

I have never been so energetic. It is not a question of retirement. I am passionate about the impact these organizations can have.

Amazon's positioning for the future couldn't be better. We are doing our best, just as the world needs us. What we are brewing will continue to surprise people. We provide services for individuals and businesses, we have created two complete industries and a new class of equipment.

From machine learning to logistics, we are leaders in all fields. If the idea of ​​Amazons requires a new institutional skill, we have enough flexibility and patience to learn.

Keep inventing and don't despair when the original idea seems crazy. Let curiosity be your compass. It's still Day 1.

It should be noted that Bezos chose to abdicate at this point in time, and there may also be business and revenue considerations.

Today is Amazon’s fourth-quarter earnings day, and Amazon’s quarterly revenue has exceeded the $100 billion mark for the first time.

And the first hero is the successor Andy, under his leadership AWS revenue in the fourth quarter increased by 28%.

As of October 2020, about 52% of Amazon's operating income comes from AWS, Amazon's first main business, and it is no longer an e-commerce company.

So before, Amazon’s handover, there were speculations about the person in charge of e-commerce. After all, e-commerce is the core business.

But now, Bezos gave the answer with an official announcement.

What is special about Bezos's appointed successor?

Who is the successor Andy Jassi?

After Bezos gave way to the official announcement, many media gave such headlines.

Andy Jassy

Andy Jassy, ​​Andy Jassy, ​​a Jew of Hungarian descent born in 1968, is 53 years old, only 4 years younger than Bezos.    

Undergraduate at Harvard University, worked as a project manager for a period of time after graduation, and later returned to Harvard to get an MBA degree, and joined Amazon in 1997 as a marketing manager.

After that, he stayed at Amazon for 24 years. As Bezos said, Andy "has been at Amazon almost as long as him" and is one of Bezos' most trusted deputies.

But Andy's core achievement is Amazon's cloud computing business AWS.

In 2003, Andy founded AWS at Amazon. At the beginning of its establishment, the team had only 57 people. At that time, AWS was a trivial "side business" for Amazon.

Later, Andy wrote the original document that became the AWS business plan and was promoted from AWS's senior vice president to CEO in 2006.

In the development process of AWS, Andy fights every inch of his land, not like a good-tempered professional manager.

Reuters commented on Andy: "Famous for knowing technical details", and because Oracle and Microsoft have an advantage in sales, they often criticize the two for failing.

However, under Andy's leadership, Amazon's cloud business has signed many major customers, including Verizon (Verizon), McDonald's and Honeywell.

Today, AWS has developed into an important business that accounts for 52% of Amazon's operating revenue.

Therefore, there are also comments that Amazon is no longer a company whose main business is e-commerce. The appointment of Andy to succeed Bezos also highlights the importance of cloud services to Amazon's future.

In fact, earlier, as to who can succeed Bezos at Amazon, it was not without speculation.

In addition to Andy, Jeff Wilke, the CEO of global consumer business, is also a hot candidate.

A long time ago, Bezos set up CEOs for these two businesses, and they report directly.

However, unexpectedly, in August last year, 52-year-old Jeff Weir was confirmed to retire early this year.

That is, now, two candidates, one official proclaimed the position and one left in the name of retirement.

It sounds a bit like the story of Nadella and Lu Qi when Microsoft took over.

Bezos's Amazonian heritage and a "two-sided" life

With the abdication of Bezos, his legacy to Amazon has also begun to be counted.

Since Bezos founded Amazon, 27 years have passed, and an unknown Internet startup has become a global giant.

On July 16, 1994, at the age of 31, Bezos quit his job as a hedge fund vice president and started his own business.

The original Amazon started from an online bookstore, Cadabra, and later changed its name to Amazon due to the advantages of the "A" prefix.

Since 1997, Amazon has been listed under the code AMZN and has become the largest integrated online retailer in the United States.

However, as Bezos said in the open letter, for more than 20 years, Amazon has not been pure e-commerce, but has extended its reach to cloud services, unmanned stores, and other “black technologies”.

Bezos himself has gradually shifted his focus to "realizing childhood dreams"-focusing on the stars and the sea.

And this is what he will focus on after stepping down as Amazon CEO.

The core is related to the Blue Origin company he founded.

Bezos talked about the mission of Blue Origin-to improve the safety of space travel and reduce its cost.

Previously, the company was developing suborbital and orbital spacecraft, and in 2012 successfully tested a manned spacecraft escape system that is different from the Apollo spacecraft and the Shenzhou spacecraft.

Currently, Blue Origin is developing rocket boosters and recovery ship models and is expected to spend more than 2.5 billion US dollars on the New Glen Rocket Project. It plans to launch this rocket this year.

Although he did not say that "this planet is not worthy of me to die", as Musk wants to be a "Martian", Bezos may also wish to spend the rest of his life in space.

In addition to "Blue Origin", in April 2019, Amazon also announced the funding and deployment of a large-scale broadband satellite Internet project called "Kuiper Systems", similar to Musk's "Starlink" ( Starlinks).

But for Bezos’s Amazon legacy, when he abdicated, the most talked-about was not the e-book "pronoun" Kindle, the voice assistant Alexa, the unmanned store Amazon Go...

It's Bezos' philosophy, value proposition, and culture.

It can be summarized as the ten most influential items:

First, focusing on the "unchanged" is more essential than focusing on the "changing". Bezos writes an open letter to investors every year, and the first letter has emphasized the unchanging core.

Second, do not pay attention to short-term stock prices. If you are happy because you are up 30% in a month, you will also lose because you have fallen 30% in a month. The long-term value is more important than the short-term stock price. Bezos does not make decisions based on stock price fluctuations. No matter how much the stock price rises or falls, it does not affect your judgment. Under this philosophy, Amazon has the courage to build its own logistics and create cloud computing and other businesses that seemed "not doing business properly".

Third, Bezos and Amazon are well-known pioneers of the "Day 1" culture and have always maintained the spirit of entrepreneurship on the first day. Later, Didi and ByteDance both learned this culture and integrated it into their own organizational culture.

Fourth, Bezos insists on sleeping 8 hours a day, and will not arrange meetings before 10 o'clock, and arrange "high IQ" meetings before lunch, and make all the decisions that should be made before 5 pm every day. (But it does not mean that Amazon does not have 996)

Fifth, the "obsession" of users. Bezos’ email address jeff@amazon.com is open to the public. He will personally check the complaint emails sent by users, and then forward them to the relevant executives. The message is only a question mark "?".

Sixth, Bezos puts an empty chair in the meeting room for each meeting, prompting executives to make decisions while thinking about their impact on users.

Seventh, attach importance to basic research and development. While advocating patents, obsolete technologies should be eliminated. Bezos owns dozens of Amazon patents. At the same time, Amazon is committed to eliminating outdated technologies, and the proportion of abandoning patent applications is also higher than other companies.

Eighth, oppose meeting PPT. Before the meeting, Bezos asked the host to write a document memorandum of no more than 6 pages, and the number of people in the meeting should not exceed "two pizzas" (referring to the number of people who can feed two pizzas). Before the meeting, everyone will read the memo silently. This makes the meeting more efficient.

Ninth, failure and innovation are inseparable. Bezos believes that failure is equally divided into good and bad. If a new product or service is invented and the result is not available, it is a good failure; but if a new operation center is built and the results are not executed well, it is bad. failure.

Tenth, frugality is promoted. Focusing the company's focus on customer service and innovation, and even driving innovation with thrift, opening up new paths does not require luxury conditions.

Of course, Bezos has also had mixed reputations and controversies in recent years.

The biggest lace news is the derailed divorce case.

Since 2019, Bezos has been constantly informed about cheating and divorce, "almost a frequent visitor to the tabloids."

MacKenzie, who graduated with Bezos from Princeton University, is his wife who started a business together. When Bezos resigned and started his business in 1994, MacKenzie also became one of Amazon's earliest employees.

In the end, because Bezos derailed, the two parted ways.

In addition, there is negative news such as crushing and beating workers, shortening wages and rest periods.

For example, according to Reuters, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Amazon chose to recruit more than 400,000 employees to deliver daily necessities and medical supplies, rather than closing physical stores. This resulted in close to 20,000 Amazon employees infected with the new crown virus.

...

In short, Bezos, who stepped down as Amazon's CEO at 57, did not end his curtain call.

He is an entrepreneurial innovator, the richest man who started an e-commerce company, once had a wife, a madman, and a personality who treated employees as brothers...

However, all the above-mentioned positive comments did not continue to the second line.

This is Jeff Bezos.

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