Jeff Bezos will step down as the CEO of Amazon later this year

In what should come to a surprise as most people but Jeff Bezos, the CEO and founder of Amazon, has just announced that he will be stepping down from his role as CEO of Amazon in Q3 2021.

Later this year Bezos will transition from his role as CEO to the Executive Chair of the Amazon Board, while the current CEO of Amazon Web Services -- Andy Jassy -- will become CEO of Amazon. Bezos wrote to his employees: "In the Exec Chair role, I intend to focus my energies and attention on new products and early initiatives".

Bezos continued: "Andy is well known inside the company and has been at Amazon almost as long as I have." From the letter, it sounds like Bezos intends to use the time he has outside of running Amazon's day-to-day operations to focus on other initiatives, including the "Day 1 Fund, the Bezos Earth Fund, Blue Origin, The Washington Post, and my other passions".

The still-CEO of Amazon said that his announcement of stepping down as CEO of Amazon "isn't about retiring", so we shouldn't have to worry about that just yet.