MUMBAI:  The founder and CEO of the multi-national technology company Amazon Jeffrey Preston Bezos or Jeff as he is popularly known as has decided to hang up his boots and focus on interests beyond ecommerce which includes his space enterprise and other ventures, including a climate initiative.

Jeff Bezos in a letter to employees at Amazon on Wednesday, Jeff announced that starting this third quarter he will cease be the CEO of Amazon and Andrew or Andy Jassy who has worked with Bezos for a long time will take over the Executive Chair of the Amazon Board. Jassy is the founder and present CEO of Amazon Web Services (AWS).

“Andy is well known inside the company and has been at Amazon almost as long as I have,” Bezos said who started Amazon 27 years ago as an internet book seller. His a note to employees further said, “As executive chair, I will stay engaged in important Amazon initiatives but also have the time and energy I need to focus on the Day 1 Fund, the Bezos Earth Fund, Blue Origin, The Washington Post and my other passions.” He also added: “I have never had more energy, and this is not about retiring.”

Mr Jassy joined Amazon in 1997 and has an MBA from Harvard Business School, and founded AWS in 2002 and grew it into a cloud platform used by millions.

Since the start of the Coronavirus outbreak, consumers worldwide have turned increasingly to online retailers, like Amazon, for delivery of home staples and medical supplies. This has led to many brick-and-mortar shops shutting down. Amazon, the world’s largest online retailer, has instead recruited over 400,000 more workers and posted consecutive record profits in the past few quarters.

Jassy will, in the meanwhile, need to guide Amazon through anti-trust concerns once he takes the reins. Last October, after a 16-month investigation into competitive practices at big tech companies including Amazon, the US’ House Judiciary Sub-Committee on Antitrust concluded that Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google enjoy monopoly power. Amazon is also facing anti-trust complaints in the EU.

Bezos was named the "richest man in modern history" after his net worth increased to $150 billion in July 2018 and is the first centi-billionaire on the Forbes wealth index. In August 2020, according to Forbes, he became the first person in history to have a net worth exceeding $200 billion, and as of January 2021, was reported to be the second-richest person in the world, after Elon Musk.