Amazon has announced today that founder and CEO Jeff Bezos is
planning to step down as CEO, and Amazon Web Services CEO Andy Jassy —
who oversaw Amazon’s crypto product offerings — will replace him.
In
his letter to employees, Bezos said that he would be transitioning to
the role of executive chair of the Amazon board, where he would “focus
my energies and attention on new products and early initiatives.” The
transition is scheduled for later in the year.
Bezos also noted that Jassy “will be an outstanding leader, and has my full confidence.”
The
crypto world’s attention now turns to Jassy’s history when it comes to
embracing blockchain tech, as it could be an indication of long-term
crypto strategy of the world’s third most valuable company by market
capitalization.
Jassy offered a mixed review of blockchain tech and its applicability to Amazon business in 2017.
In a statement at the Amazon re:Invent conference, he expressed doubt
that blockchain could be used for more than a “distributed ledger,” but
also said he and his team were personally interested. However, company
policy dictated that “build technology [just] because we think it is
cool.”
He did leave the door open for future exploration, however,
saying “We are very intrigued by what customers are ultimately going to
do there.”
In 2018, Jassy did move forward with a “quasi-blockchain” offering, as he oversaw the launch of two blockchain products:
Amazon Quantum Ledger Database (QLDB) and Amazon Managed Blockchain. As
Cointelegraph reported, the products maintained centralized databases,
but included cryptographic qualities.
Aside from these forays, Amazon has largely only made crypto headlines as a scapegoat: in November of 2020, Coinbase blamed a AWS outage for one of it’s frequent service interruptions. But as a new CEO steps in, the crypto community is eager to see what, if any, changes Jassy will bring.
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