what comes next for the world's richest
man
jeff bezos founded amazon in a
washington garage in 1994
and built it into a behemoth that has
offended the business of buying and
selling goods
the 57 year old has become one of the
most respected and feared business
leaders in the world
and the richest with the net worth of
almost 200 billion dollars
in an email to employees bezos wrote
that being the ceo of amazon is a deep
responsibility
and it's consuming
by stepping back he'll find time to
focus on his other projects
such as the washington post which he
bought in 2013
for 250 million dollars
or his rocket company blue origin
bezos has invested heavily in this
business but is lagging behind rival
tech boss elon musk spacex
meanwhile his successor andy jassy is
set to inherit a business that is
increasingly under attack
for how it wields its platform to
undercut or even drive competitors out
of business
for how it treats its sprawling network
of 1.3 million employees who have
complained of brutally long shifts
poor pay and unsafe conditions in
warehouses
as amazon's influence and profit grow
so due to the demand's terrain and its
power
it now falls on jassy to answer those
calls
let's get more now from chelsea delaney
from dw business good to see you again
chelsea
tell us why is jeff bezos stepping down
when his company
is doing wonderfully well to some degree
this is the best time for jeff bezos to
to step down the businesses
is very strong especially through the
pandemic we've seen amazon's sales its
profits really booming so
uh the foundation of amazon is really on
on solid footing right now
so it does make sense for him to to say
okay now is the time for me to to hand
over the reins but we already have in
the past couple of years
seeing jeff bezos really seed over the
day-to-day control
of amazon the the running of the
operations to some of his deputies
including uh andy jassy so we have seen
this
uh really developing over the past
couple of years but it also has to do
with just the evolution of these big
tech giants we've seen apple we've seen
microsoft all of these other big tech
giants have also
seen their founders step down so it's
something that happens has to happen at
some point
with these companies jeff bezos says
that he really wants to to take the time
now to focus on
uh his passion projects he's for example
uh really invested in
in the washington post he has a rocket
startup sort of like elon musk
so he wants time to to focus on those
projects
but he says he's still going to be
really staying
involved in the bigger questions that as
at amazon
as the executive chairman you mentioned
andy jassy who's going to be taking over
as ceo what do we know about him
well he's been at amazon a long time
basically since the beginning he joined
in 97 and what he's really known for is
building this cloud business at amazon
which has actually become the most
profitable part of amazon
so it is really big uh and that's
something they want to continue growing
people say that he's a lot like jeff
bezos they're sort of cut from the same
cloth they're very focused on customers
they're they're very detail-oriented so
in some
to some degree people do expect a sort
of continuation of
jeff bezos's management style now
regulators in the eu and the us are
hell-bent on on reigning in big
tech including amazon uh
it won't be that easy for jesse willit
no he's definitely gonna be facing a lot
of
challenges uh and actually we've already
seen at least one congressman
in the u.s say you know congratulations
andy jesse i have a lot of questions for
you so sort of
the criticism the scrutiny that jeff
bezos was facing about
amazon's practices the way that it uses
its power to undercut other retailers as
well as the questions about how it
treats its workers which we've seen
really
rise up during the pandemic things a lot
of questions over
uh the conditions and warehouses uh
labor activists have been really eyeing
amazon as well so all of that scrutiny
is definitely going to continue for andy
jassy and
he likely will have to be testifying in
front of congress at some point again
soon so
uh he's taking over a business that is
growing but it's certainly one of the
most challenging times in amazon's
history and
there is there are a lot of threats to
even break amazon up so it's going to be
a difficult
road for him very exciting story indeed
chelsea delaney from dw business thank
you very much