Who is Andy Jassy and where will Jeff Bezos go next?

This appeared in The Millennial Source

The move to name Jassy as CEO indicates the importance Amazon places on its AWS branch and where the company’s priorities will likely lie in the coming years.

In an announcement on Tuesday, February 2, Amazon.com, Inc. announced that Andy Jassy will be replacing founder Jeff Bezos as Amazon’s chief executive officer. This will be the first CEO transition in the company’s history as Bezos moves into the role of executive chairman.

Who is Andy Jassy?

Andy Jassy grew up in Scarsdale, New York. He graduated Harvard College with honors and, after receiving his bachelor’s degree, went to work at MBI Inc, a jewelry and coin maker. He then returned to Harvard to get his M.B.A.

After graduating from Harvard Business School in May 1997, Jassy immediately went to work for Amazon.

“I took my last final exam at HBS, the first Friday of May in 1997, and I started Amazon next Monday,” Jassy said in a Harvard Business School podcast last year. “I didn’t know what my job was going to be, or what my title was going to be.”

Just weeks before he came aboard, Amazon had gone public in an initial public offering at US$18 per share. Of course, at the time Amazon was not the…