Jeff Bezos’ tenure as Amazon CEO officially comes to a close

After nearly three decades at the helm, Jeff Bezos is officially stepping down as Amazon’s CEO on Monday.

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Amazon Web Services head Andy Jassy was tagged earlier in the year to be the company’s next CEO, as Bezos now transitions to executive chair of Amazon’s board. Jassy has been with Amazon since 1997, leading its cloud services division throughout his entire tenure. He joined the Seattle Kraken ownership group as part of the NHL team’s inception.

Bezos expressed “full confidence” in Jassy as his successor in February when he announced his decision, stating that he expects he “will be an outstanding leader” in the years to come.

A letter addressed to the company’s employees from Bezos further detailed his reasoning, saying that he intends to focus his attention “on new products and early initiatives.” He also still owns the Washington Post and Blue Origin.

Bezos is expected to put more of his focus into both the Post and Blue Origin in the years to come, starting with a flight aboard the latter company’s New Shepard sub-orbital rocket with his brother on July 20.

Bezos, 57, founded Amazon in Bellevue in 1994, having guided the company from its early days as a digital bookstore to its present-day status as an online retail, grocery, and multimedia giant.

In his parting letter to shareholders in April, Bezos addressed recent controversy surrounding working conditions at Amazon warehouses, saying that he believes “we need to do a better job for our employees,” and that the company should have “a better vision” for their success.

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The full public statement from Bezos announcing his decision to step down as CEO reads as follows:

Amazon is what it is because of invention. We do crazy things together and then make them normal. We pioneered customer reviews, 1-Click, personalized recommendations, Prime’s insanely-fast shipping, Just Walk Out shopping, the Climate Pledge, Kindle, Alexa, marketplace, infrastructure cloud computing, Career Choice, and much more. If you do it right, a few years after a 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.

According to the Associated Press, Bezos has amassed a personal fortune of $167 billion.

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