History was made on February 2nd as the billionaire Jeff Bezos announced he will be standing down officially as CEO. Yes, the man who founded Amazon on July 16th, 1995, has stepped down as CEO and will become the executive chair starting this summer. Jeff Bezos has stepped down to focus on other outside projects and to have more time for his life. He will focus on some new things in the future, such as Blu Origin (an aerospace company) and trying to do extraordinary things in Space.

Amazon is currently worth more than 1.5 trillion dollars, and one of their most popular items is Alexa, a virtual assistant. Amazon is undoubtedly going to change with its new CEO, Andy Jassy. Brookfield East student Nathaneal Ren (10) explained his reaction to Jeff Bezos’s decision to resign as the CEO.

“It was kind of bittersweet for me because, obviously, we want to see Jeff Bezos continue with what he has done with Amazon, but at the same time, you can see other tech CEOs stepping down and moving on to other things.” Nathaneal also points out that Jeff Bezos stepping down from Amazon after 27 years of being the CEO is astonishing, and he is hoping for Bezos to create new products. “I feel like he can do even more, like impact the world even more than what he did with Amazon, so I am really looking forward to seeing what he does with Blue Origin.”

He also addresses what he thought Jeff Bezos did with Amazon overall from the beginning, saying that Jeff Bezos is solely responsible for all the success Amazon has had. “Well, as we all know, Jeff Bezos founded Amazon and he really bought it from the bomb you know he started just selling books to multinational- to one of the most valuable companies in the world like the behemoth that is today, so he really kind of nurtured amazon and built it from scratch to what it is today.”

When it comes to Bezos’ future, Ren says, “I personally think he’s just going to focus on Blue Origin, kind of like what Elon Musk is doing because I (and a lot of people) think that space is going to be the next frontier, and it’s probably true.”

Looking towards the future, Nathanael “expects them to follow the cold path they are doing at least in the next term.” Ren talked about what things they will at least be doing in the next few months, such as “making Alexa more compatible and the Smart Home devices.” Ren also expects them to work on sophisticated technology such as “AR Glasses and Airpod clones.” Additionally, he mentioned that Bezos still has an executive position in Amazon, “but just shifted the more mundane tasks so he can focus on other stuff like Blue Origin, so what he did […] is fantastic.”

Alexa is one of the most popular AIs globally, and Amazon is expected to be making many improvements to the AI and AR Glasses are smart glasses with computer tech inserted into the glasses.

The new Amazon CEO, Andy Jassy, who founded Amazon WebServices in 2006, said he had been absorbing lessons from Jeff Bezos, so when it was his time to become CEO, he was ready. In fact, Andy Jassy received 19 million dollars over stock awards and owns about 85,000 shares valued at 287.3 million. Moving on, Jeff Bezos announced that he will be transitioning to Blu Origin and some other ideas he has this July. Although Bezos is retiring as CEO, he is planning on focusing on his primary interest, which is Blue Origin and other projects involving space.