all right he uh he's leaving he's
leaving the company as far as day-to-day
operation jeff bezos has announced after
quarterly earnings were announced at the
company
that he is stepping down as amazon's ceo
he
still will have a very active role in
the companies he says but
quoting from jeff bezos right now i see
amazon at its most inventive
ever making it an optimal time for this
transition a transition that will have
him
taking on a role of executive chairman
uh if this should
raise sort of parallels to you the
closest i could see is when
bill gates stepped down up from
day-to-day operation of
microsoft to make way for steve bomber
in
in that role it is uh not totally
unusual but it gets a lot of attention
given
a bezos extreme wealth and of course he
founded this company in a garage selling
books
it's obviously a lot bigger than that
today the rains are now being taken over
by andy jassy
the chief executive of amazon's cloud
business and all of this on the heels of
a
very very strong earnings report where
the company generated more than a
hundred billion dollars
in uh revenue a little more than a week
after apple said it had done
the same thing earnings were double what
they thought they would be the stock
which is already pricey it's kind of
been all over the map
in after hours trading keep in mind in
the past
year it has jumped in excess of 84
so a little bit of give back in after
hours because they're trying to digest
what this could mean with the day-to-day
operation of the company you might
recall as well when bill gates stepped
down a day-to-day operating
chief over at microsoft the stock took a
hit stabilized under steve
bomber has continued to soar post
bomber in the new management and the new
emphasis on cloud computing and the like
but again
this is a big development in the world
of technology because amazon of course
has been one of the
safer investment bets when everyone was
sheltered at home buying things like
crazy from home
amazon benefited appreciably and given
the guidance the company has been giving
after hours here it expects that to
continue
whether we're all sheltered in our homes
or not a larry glaser mayflower advisors
here um larry i i guess the the surprise
isn't that he's doing uh this and taking
advantage of
a company that's considered well-run
anyway but that he's doing it
now what do you make of this
you know neil in normal times blowout
earnings from these tech giants would be
the talk of wall street these are the
darlings of investors
they've driven the major market averages
driven 401 k
plans if you have a pension a retirement
plan chances are you have exposure to
these
very big companies and you've benefited
from it at the same time these are not
normal times you have shifting political
sands
in washington neil these companies
benefited from covid it's not just
alphabet google
and amazon but a whole host of
technology companies really benefited
from the lockdown
at the expense of main street neil and
we could see that maybe it doesn't get a
lot easier maybe it doesn't get better
maybe he's getting out on top
and that's okay i mean everybody's
entitled to step aside but
going forward these shifting political
stands could put a target on these
companies
from a tax and a regulatory perspective
and he knows it and maybe it's going to
be someone else's challenge
to take that on and that's why you're
seeing these executive c-suite changes
at this massive company you know we
always talk about the sheer wealth of
some of these guys up until a few weeks
ago he was by far the richest human
being on the planet
now second to elon musk but all of that
can change in the very
uh always shifting sands of technology
evaluations what's interesting here is
what bezos said about the catalyst for
this if you do it right
this is from his statement a few years
after surprising invention the new thing
has become normal
people yawn that yawn is the greatest
compliment an
inventor can receive when you look at
our financial results what you're
actually seeing are the long run
cumulative results of invention
right now i see amazon at its most
inventive ever
making it an optimal time for this
transition so the big question will be
will investors
agree is it the same thing without him
running it
day after day day by day
does it make a difference that he's
still very associated with the company
still owns by far most of its stock so
that nothing really changes or does it
look neil transitions can be very
difficult here is a visionary
entrepreneur who built this company from
scratch he he saw the future right he
executed in that future he's been two
steps ahead of everyone else as wayne
gretzky used to say you know
see where the puck is going with that
said when we look at other great big
companies united states they have not
executed that transition well
look at general electric under jack
welch it was a disaster after he left
so it is not that easy to step into
those big shoes at the same time
when the expectations are so high look
investors haven't lost sight of the fact
that this company makes a ton of money
and i think that's great
from an entrepreneurial standpoint from
an earnings perspective it means the
expectations are very high
to keep making that money they had a
hundred billion dollar fourth quarter
it's amazing that they were able to
execute on that's why the box has a
little smile on it
right but that box may not be smiling
under new leadership because they've got
to continue to innovate continue to grow
and the law of big numbers makes that
really difficult
they have all of the tools in place but
the stimulus plan policies in washington
are going to shift the focus back to
main street they want to even out the
economy right and it's going to come at
the expense
of big technology firms they're going to
be asked to pay for some of the stimulus
they're going to be asked to
be accountable for regulatory changes so
those are going to make the job more
challenging
it doesn't mean they're going to go away
when rock when teddy roosevelt
broke up standard oil uh rockefeller
made a ton of money so they're
he's still going to be the richest man
in the world he's still going to fly to
space and he's still going to have a big
smile on his face but investors need to
recognize how challenging this can be
all right for the time being the second
richest man in the world but we're
watching very closely larry glaser thank
you very very much for those of you just
tuning in jeff bezos arguably
one of the most successful businessmen
or women that this country has ever seen
uh started his business in a garage
his family thought he was nuts that he
was wasting his time that he left
pedigree investment firms
to go off in this lark selling books in
his garage
many many times i've ever interviewed
him over this period
including in that garage stage and
always scratched my head how can you
make a business of this
he famously one time told me because
this could be a whole lot bigger than
books
the next chapter after this