jeff bezos Archives

Amazon, the US multinational technology company, is one of the biggest companies in the world. Major news broke out from the company based in Seattle that CEO Jeff Bezos will be taking over the new role in the organisation. Jess Bezos will become Amazon’s executive chairman, hence, vacating his 30-year old position of the CEO. Andy Jassy, the chief of Amazon Web Services (AWS), will be the new CEO from the later part of this year. Who is Andy Jassy and how is he the “chosen one” to handle this humongous empire? Let’s find out.

Personal Life

Andy Jassy was born on 13th January 1968. He did his graduation and MBA both from the esteemed Harvard University. His first role after his MBA was that of a project manager for a collectables company. 1997 was a changing year for young Andy. He and a few of his Harvard colleagues joined Amazon. He lives at Capitol Hill neighbourhood of Seattle. A few months back in October, Andy Jassy reportedly bought a $6.7 million house in California.

Unlike many other businessmen, Andy Jassy is quite vocal on his Twitter account. In 2019, the prestigious military’s JEDI contract for cloud computing services was awarded to Microsoft and not to Amazon. (JEDI – The Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure contract). Amazon, being one of the biggest cloud computing companies in the world, failed to get the contract which was worth $10 billion. Andy Jassy felt that Amazon was robbed of the contract due to Donald Trump’s political influence on the higher authorities. Not only this, he has voiced his opinion against LGBTQ discrimination as well. He came out and pointed out the need for police accountability in support of Breonna Taylor’s death, which was a very controversial case in the US.

https://twitter.com/ajassy/status/1309176233117257728

From AWS Chief to the CEO of Amazon

At Amazon, Andy Jassy started as a marketing manager. Soon he and Jeff Bezos moved together to build a cloud computing unit of Amazon. In 2006, Andy founded Amazon’s cloud service platform Amazon Web Service (AWS). It was bound to compete with Microsoft Corp’s Azure and Alphabet Inc’s Google Cloud. Over the years, he has watched Jeff Bezos leading this giant company. On his way to the top, he would have learned from the best mentor available.

Amazon Web Services is not a mainstream domain for Amazon. Jeff started Amazon as an online book store and transformed it into one of the biggest retail company. Cloud computing has been in huge demand during the Covid-19 pandemic. It offers a replacement to traditional capital infrastructure expenses by bringing a low-cost infrastructure platform in the cloud.

Under Andy’s guidance, AWS has become tech-leader and a prominent name in cloud services. AWS added a whopping $12.7 billion in sales in their fourth quarter of 2021 (October – December). With another brilliant performance in the quarter, AWS became a $50 billion business unit. With all the efforts from Andy and his team, Amazon Web Services has now turned into the most profitable of Amazon’s divisions. In 2020, almost 65% of Amazon’s profits have come from this cloud computing domain. According to reports, Amazon Web Services now hold more than one-third of the entire cloud infrastructure market. This market share is more than what Google and Microsoft have under their umbrella.

Conclusion

“It’s really hard to build a business that sustains for a long period of time. To do it, you’re going to reinvent yourself, and often you’re going to have to reinvent yourself many times over.” – Andy Jassy

Andy has seen Amazon’s journey of becoming an e-commerce giant. From the retail segment to the hardware maker and then into a major entertainment industry player, Andy has been a part of everything. Meanwhile, he led AWS to success where it is today. With technology being the biggest thing in present and in the future, AWS can take control of Amazon’s driving seat.

He is a man who believes in innovation and technology. Both are important from the perspective of business in years to come. It will be interesting to see how he matches or better the success of the billionaire Jeff Bezos. Will also be interesting how he handles business with India, including the ongoing ‘war’ with Reliance.

1. Global Stocks Extend Rally as Tech Leads Gains

The rally in global stock markets extended into a third day as companies from Amazon.com to Vodafone Group posted strong results and the retail-trading frenzy subsided. Tech was firmly back in favour in the U.S., with Nasdaq 100 contracts climbing as earnings from Alphabet and Amazon impressed investors, while futures on the Russell 2000 Index of small-cap stocks dipped. Treasury yields rose after Senate Democrats put President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion stimulus plan on a fast track to passage. The Stoxx 600 Index climbed 0.6%, with most sectors in the green as corporate results rolled in. Italian stocks and bonds surged after Mario Draghi, the former European Central Bank president, was tapped to be the country’s next prime minister.

Futures on the S&P 500 Index climbed 0.4% as of 8:23 a.m. New York time.

The Stoxx Europe 600 Index gained 0.5%.

The MSCI Asia Pacific Index advanced 0.9%.

The MSCI Emerging Market Index increased 0.5%.

2. Jeff Bezos to Step Down as CEO: Opens a New Age for Amazon

Bezos said he will resign as chief executive officer of Amazon.com and become executive chairman later this year. He will hand day-to-day control to Andy Jassy, his longtime head of Amazon Web Services, a swiftly growing division that has almost single-handedly changed the way companies buy the technology that powers their businesses. With that comes at least a partial end to one of the most epic runs in modern business history. Over the last 25 years, the Amazon founder, now 57, led the company through perhaps the most fertile period of any American business ever. Over the last decade, he has piloted Amazon to a $1.7 trillion market capitalization, where it currently occupies the same rarified trillion-dollar air as Microsoft and Apple.

3. Ant Reaches Agreement With China Regulators on Overhaul

Ant Group and Chinese regulators have agreed on a restructuring plan that will turn Jack Ma’s fintech giant into a financial holding company, making it subject to capital requirements similar to those for banks. The plan calls for putting all of Ant’s businesses into the holding company, including its technology offerings in areas like blockchain and food delivery. One of Ant’s early proposals to regulators had envisioned putting only financial operations into the new structure. An official announcement on the overhaul could come before the start of China’s Lunar New Year holiday next week.

4. Tesla Puts China Supercharger Plant Into Production

Tesla Inc. will start making superchargers in a newly built plant in Shanghai, the American electric automobile maker said in a statement on Wednesday. The move marks Tesla’s latest effort to grow its business in the world’s most populated country. The 42-million-yuan ($6.5 million) plant will make up to 10,000 supercharger poles annually, the statement said. China has built more than 410 charging stations for Tesla in 2020, the statement said.

5. Yellen Summons Regulators to Discuss Financial Market Volatility

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has summoned U.S. financial regulators to discuss recent volatility in financial markets, in her first public effort to address the tumult involving GameStop shares and broker-dealer Robinhood. Yellen called a meeting with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Reserve Board, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. “Secretary Yellen believes the integrity of markets is important and has asked for a discussion of recent volatility in financial markets and whether recent activities are consistent with investor protection and fair and efficient markets,” the department said.

6. Reddit Stocks Lose $167 Billion as Crowd Preaches Defiance

The 50 stocks that Robinhood originally put on its restricted list had added $276 billion in value from the end of 2020 to the height of the recent mania. But now, $167 billion has been wiped out in just a matter of days, and there’s little sign the pain is easing. GameStop plummeted 60% Tuesday to $90 a share, bringing its two-day loss to 72%. If anything, the last few days have served as a reminder that in spite of a popular mantra that they do, stocks don’t always go up.

7. U.S. Plans Record Debt Sale; No Changes Before New Stimulus

The U.S. Treasury held steady its planned issuance of longer-dated securities at a quarterly debt auction next week as the department awaits the result of the Biden administration’s push for a fresh coronavirus relief package. The Treasury already boosted its so-called quarterly refunding in each of the last three quarters, and its stockpile of cash remains near an all-time high. With the outcome of President Joe Biden’s push for a $1.9 trillion stimulus bill uncertain, the department held off on tweaking its issuance of longer-dated securities. The Treasury will sell $126 billion in long-term debt next week.

8. U.K. Offers to Help Save Eurostar, Says France Must Take Lead

The U.K. said it’s ready to pitch in with state funding to help rescue Eurostar International if France takes the lead on bailing out the Channel Tunnel rail business that’s been savaged by pandemic travel restrictions. British Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said options including the Bank of England’s coronavirus loans and the U.K.’s export finance regime could be available to help London-based Eurostar, which operates a passenger train link with the continent. But he insisted that the primary responsibility for the bailout remains with France, which controls the company via state railway SNCF. The coronavirus crisis has wiped out 95% of Eurostar’s passenger traffic and SNCF has warned that there is a real risk to the business’s survival without government aid.

9. Kuwait Taps Into Wealth Fund as Cash Dries Up

Kuwait’s government has transferred the last of its performing assets to the country’s sovereign wealth fund in exchange for cash to plug a monthly budget deficit of $3.3 billion, leaving one of the world’s richest nations with few options to pay its bills. Fitch on Wednesday cut Kuwait’s outlook to negative from stable, citing “the imminent depletion of liquid assets” in the absence of parliamentary authorization for the government to borrow.” The rating was affirmed at AA. The assets include stakes in Kuwait Finance House and telecoms company Zain. State-owned Kuwait Petroleum Corp. was also transferred from the government’s treasury to the $600 billion Future Generations Fund, meant to safeguard the Gulf Arab nation’s wealth for a time after oil.

10. UAE Job Market Improves as Vaccine Rollout Boosts Confidence

Business activity in the Arab world’s two largest economies improved at the start of 2021, with the United Arab Emirates seeing growth in its job market for the first time in over a year. Non-oil private sector activity in Saudi Arabia soared during January as new work levels increased and operating conditions improved marginally in neighbouring UAE, helped by an expansion in new orders and output. Purchasing Managers’ Index surveys last month for the two Gulf nations were above the threshold of 50 that separates growth from contraction. The rapid roll-out of Covid-19 vaccines in the UAE should help to restore confidence in markets over the first half of 2021, although firms were still relatively downbeat about future growth in January.