Photo = EPA
On the 2nd (local time), Amazon, the world’s largest e-commerce company, announced its fourth quarter last year. Market attention was focused on Amazon’s financial statements last year. However, there was something else that caught the attention of all investors after Amazon released its record-high performance. It was an email from Amazon’s CEO Jeff Bezos (CEO, photo) to employees. This is because Bezos, who founded Amazon in 1994, will resign from the CEO after 27 years. There was a reaction of’surprise retirement’ that surpassed’surprise performance’ everywhere.
○ Step back on the day you performed your best
In an e-mail, Bezos said, “We will retire from Amazon’s CEO in the third quarter of this year and move to executive chair, and Andy Jassy, CEO of Amazon Web Services (AWS), will be Amazon’s successor CEO.” “I think it’s the best time to change the CEO because Amazon is the most innovative situation right now,” Bezos explained.
Amazon performed its best in the fourth quarter of last year. This is because the e-commerce market has grown rapidly due to the novel coronavirus infection (Corona 19), and the shopping season at the end of the year overlapped. Sales increased by 44% from the same period last year to $125.6 billion (about 140 trillion won). This is the first time that Amazon’s quarterly sales exceeded $100 billion. Operating profit in the fourth quarter increased by 77% to $6.9 billion (about 7.7 trillion won). Last year’s annual sales were 3861 billion dollars (about 431 trillion won) and operating profit was 22.9 billion dollars (about 25 trillion won), the highest ever.
“The root of Amazon’s success is invention,” Bezos recalled. “We’ve done crazy things together to make fast delivery, cloud computing, and so on.” “After years of remarkable innovation, new things become commonplace, and people yawn at this time are the best compliments an innovator can hear.”
Bezos’ life was a continuation of change and innovation. He majored in electrical engineering and computer science at Princeton University and then began working on Wall Street. Later, he quit the hedge fund D-Show to run an online distribution business and started Amazon in 1994 in a garage in Seattle.
Amazon started out as an e-book business and emerged as an absolute powerhouse in online shopping with fast free shipping. It has grown into a big tech company by diversifying its business with Alexa, an artificial intelligence (AI) assistant capable of voice support, and cloud services.
○Do you really go on exploration in space?
Bezos quit Amazon’s CEO in the third quarter and takes over as chairman of the board. Amazon hasn’t given specific details on his role, but given the name of executive executive, Bezos will continue to be involved in Amazon’s key decisions.
Bezos is expected to focus on other new businesses and charities. He said in an email, “(This announcement) does not mean retirement,” he said. “In addition to new products, we will focus our time and energy on Amazon Day One Fund, Bezos As Fund, Blue Origin and Washington Post.”
Dayone Fund was established in 2018 to help homeless people and support education for low-income people. The Bezos As Fund is a $10 billion fund created last year by Bezos to respond to climate change. The Washington Post is a leading US media that Amazon acquired in 2013.
In the market, Bezos is expected to play a big role in the space business. Bezos founded Blue Origin, a space exploration company in 2000, and started developing rockets before CEO Elon Musk Tesla. In 2018, it announced that it would put a total of 3236 satellites into orbit, and last year succeeded in developing an antenna for customer terminals, which is the core hardware for space exploration. Following the vision of a successful lunar landing by 2024, it plans to launch its first manned spacecraft in April.
However, there are still many analyzes that Bezos is being beaten by Musk in the space exploration race. For this reason, it is predicted that Bezos will focus on space exploration in the future and strengthen its position as the world’s largest innovator. CNBC, the US economic media, said, “The space business mentioned by Bezos, digital media, and other fields are expected to be active.”
Reporter Jeong In-seol [email protected]