Who is Andy Jassy? A Harvard graduate who joined Amazon in 1997 & is now stepping into Bezos's shoes
Outside of Amazon, Jassy is an avid sports fan.
By Reuters | Updated:
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Jassy, who joined Amazon after graduating from Harvard Business School, worked as a technical assistant for Bezos in the early 2000s and was instrumental in leading the company's push outside of book sales.
Amazon.com's new chief executive, Andy Jassy, who joined the company in 1997 and has overseen its fast-growing cloud computing business, says the key to long-term success is reinvention.
"You want to be reinventing when you are healthy, you want to be reinventing all the time," Jassy, 53, said in December at a company forum. "You have got to be manancial and relentless and tenacious about getting to the truth.... You have to know what's working and what's not working."
He cited Netflix's decision to cannibalize its own DVD rental business in favor of streaming.
The focus on the future is fitting given Jassy's career is defined by his leading Amazon into a wholly new market: cloud computing. Amazon Web Services rents space and software programming for customers to run their technical operations on the company's servers. The arm now fuels Amazon's profits and dominates the cloud market just as the company leads the world of e-commerce. Jassy's rise to the top job looked clear after longtime executive and consumer chief Jeff Wilke announced his retirement after more than two decades with the company. Wilke was Amazon's second most high-ranking official along with Jassy. Jassy, who joined Amazon after graduating from Harvard Business School, worked as a technical assistant for Bezos in the early 2000s and was instrumental in leading the company's push outside of book sales.
Jassy's rise to the top job looked clear after longtime executive and consumer chief Jeff Wilke announced his retirement after more than two decades with the company. Wilke was Amazon's second most high-ranking official along with Jassy.
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His attitude of embracing change also made him a favorite.
At the same speech in December, Jassy noted just 83 of the Fortune 500 companies from 1970 are still on the list -- and only half are on the list from 2000.
"It's really hard to build a business that sustains for a long period of time," Jassy said, adding, to stay on the list, he said, "you are going to have to reinvent yourself" and often more than once.
He said the pandemic has boosted the shift to the cloud.
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"When you look back on the history of the cloud it will turn out the pandemic accelerated cloud adoption by several years," Jassy said.
One of his big challenges has been navigating the loss of a $10 billion Pentagon cloud contract to Microsoft and Jassy did not mince words when going after former President Donald Trump for unfairly influencing the process.
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Outside of Amazon, Jassy is an avid sports fan. Jassy is part-owner of the new Seattle National Hockey League franchise, the Kraken, which will join the league in the 2021-2022 season.
Nadella's 3-Rule Method, Bezos's 2-Pizza Team Norm: How Top Bosses Make Meetings More Productive
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Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has a three-rule method to make meetings more productive. The rules are: Listen more, talk less and be decisive when the time comes. Here is a look at other business leaders and their rules of engagement.
(In pic: Satya Nadella, Jeff Bezos)
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has a three-rule method to make meetings more productive. The rules are: Listen more, talk less and be decisive when the time comes. Here is a look at other business leade..
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Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has a fun way to determine how big his teams that have meetings should be. “We try to create teams that are no larger than can be fed by two pizzas,” said Bezos. “We call that the two-pizza team rule.” Other meeting rules at Amazon include no PowerPoints (yes to well-written long memos) and starting meetings by reading the memos in silence.
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has a fun way to determine how big his teams that have meetings should be. “We try to create teams that are no larger than can be fed by two pizzas,” said Bezos. “We call that t..
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One rule mentioned by longtime Jobs collaborator Ken Segall in his book Insanely Simple was that Jobs kept meetings as lean as possible. Anyone who didn’t have a great reason to be at the meeting was excused. Jobs was similarly tough with himself and declined to join a group of tech leaders at a meeting requested by President Barack Obama citing too much crowd. Jobs held an accountability mindset and hence had a person who was the directly responsible individual, or DRI in Applespeak, for every meeting or agenda.
One rule mentioned by longtime Jobs collaborator Ken Segall in his book Insanely Simple was that Jobs kept meetings as lean as possible. Anyone who didn’t have a great reason to be at the meeting was..
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The COO of Facebook reportedly brings a spiral-bound notebook with her to every meeting. It has a list of everything on the agenda. Sandberg crosses off each task one by one and it has been reported that “if every item is done 10 minutes into an hourlong meeting, the meeting is over”. Sandberg also reported using a notebook to make personalised notes on her colleagues to help be a better mentor. In an interview, David Fisher, a colleague of Sandberg, said, “A key part of what Sheryl does in her life is helping people advance, to be seen, and to be heard.”
The COO of Facebook reportedly brings a spiral-bound notebook with her to every meeting. It has a list of everything on the agenda. Sandberg crosses off each task one by one and it has been reported ..
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The CEO of Nike doodles in meetings to stay focused and to brainstorm creatively. Parker reportedly brings a Moleskine notebook to every meeting. The left pages of the book contain business brainstorming while the right pages contain designs, which is Parker’s way to balance the company’s design and business needs. He said, “Most of us are out of balance, and that’s OK, but you need to keep your eye on the overall equilibrium to be successful.”
The CEO of Nike doodles in meetings to stay focused and to brainstorm creatively. Parker reportedly brings a Moleskine notebook to every meeting. The left pages of the book contain business brainstor..
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In 2011, Larry Page re-took the reins of Google as the CEO and reportedly sent out a company-wide email about how to make meetings more effective. In addition to keeping meetings as small as possible, Page said that every meeting should have a decision maker. Page also urged the company to not wait for meetings to make decisions, and if a meeting was essential to move forward, it must take place immediately.
In 2011, Larry Page re-took the reins of Google as the CEO and reportedly sent out a company-wide email about how to make meetings more effective. In addition to keeping meetings as small as possible..
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