Compiled by/Jun Lin
In March 2003, when Ann Hiatt received a phone call to learn that a helicopter Jeff Bezos was flying crashed in the West Texas desert, her first reaction was: What have I done?
It was still there Amazon At work, she booked a helicopter for Bezos so that he could find a place for Blue Origin, a space exploration company that had not yet formed. Recalling the situation at that time, Siat said: "I not only killed Jeff Bezos, but the whole company may also collapse."
She believes that Amazon cannot survive without Bezos.
Fortunately, Bezos and the other passengers on the plane escaped a disaster, or even escaped unscathed. After the crash, they climbed out of the wreckage to a stream to escape. In order that Amazon's employees and investors do not have to worry about Amazon's future after losing Bezos, the details of the accident were hidden for a week.
Eighteen years later, whether Amazon can survive without Bezos is still an urgent issue.
Now, the founder of Amazon is about to officially step down as CEO of the company. At the same time, as one of the four human passengers in the first manned flight of the Blue Origin rocket, 57 year old Bezos is also preparing to travel in space.
Picture: Jeff Bezos These two major plans were announced at different times, but had little impact on Amazon's stock price or its $1.7 trillion market value. The indifference of the market may prove investors' confidence in Amazon and the huge enterprise machine created by Bezos in the past 27 years.
Today, it is widely believed that Amazon has established a set of smooth procedures for developing new products, managing the way of discussing opinions and making major decisions.
This also reflects the trust of the market in Andy Jassy, Bezos' successor.
Successor was Bezos' "shadow"
As a follower of Bezos for more than 20 years, Jia Xi's most famous achievement is to build Amazon's huge cloud computing business - Amazon Web Services (AWS). This also makes him respected within the company and in the wider business community. AWS is Amazon's profit engine and the focus of the Group of Seven (G7) countries' efforts to extract more taxes from the company.
Prior to the launch of AWS business, Amazon's retail business only involved low profit margins. Wall Street believed that this company would never become a super profitable large enterprise. Now, no one will hold such a view. In 2020, although AWS's revenue only accounted for 12% of the company's total revenue, AWS contributed 60% of the company's annual operating profit.
Jia Xi in the wealthy Scars, New York, USA Dell I grew up in town, went to high school there, and then went to Harvard University. In 1997, after graduating from Harvard Business School, he went directly to Amazon. At that time, Amazon had only a few hundred employees and was preparing to go public, with a share price of about $1.5.
Figure: Amazon's stock price fluctuations over the years Jia Xi said in an interview with the media in 2019: "On the first Friday of May 1997, I just took the final exam of the graduate school. Then, next Monday, I began to work at Amazon. In fact, I didn't know what my job was at that time."
Shortly afterwards, he was appointed "technical adviser" to Bezos. Siat said that this position was actually the "shadow" of Bezos, which was later widely known in the company, but it was not easy. She said: "He is trained to think like Bezos and question Bezos' ideas. His full time job is to become Bezos' intellectual partner, because no other person in the company can do this."
At first, Jia Xi was reluctant to serve as a technical consultant because he was afraid that he could not be credited with his achievements in the future. However, by laying the foundation for AWS, few people will question his contribution and ability to handle large projects - as well as his ability to deal with Bezos himself.
Non executive member of Amazon's board of directors and special glass manufacturer since 2016 Kangning Wendell Wicks, CEO of the company, said that over the years, Bezos and Jasi often had major differences, but Jasi often won in the end.
Wicks said: "At Amazon, we are like this. Even if you have different opinions, the question will become: Can you 'disagree but support'? Jeff has disagreed many times but still supports what Andy wants to do, so it feels normal."
Amazon has many internal problems Bezos may not "retreat to the second tier"
Once the power transfer is completed, Bezos will become the executive chairman of Amazon, away from the sunrise operation of the company, but will still provide advice on the most important decisions.
In this regard, some people think that it may be difficult for Jia Xi to carve out his own path independently of his mentor.
Zevin Asset Management, Amazon investor Sony Sonia Kowal said: "He must prove to the market that he has independent ideas. If Bezos has been watching him closely behind his back, Jia Xi will have no way to change the company's strategy."
In his last letter to shareholders as CEO, Bezos said that Amazon needs a better vision, a vision aimed at employee success, that is, how to create value for employees. He hopes to improve Amazon's employer reputation. This is a challenge for a large enterprise with more than 1.3 million employees today. Some investors said that, considering the risk of continued damage to global scale and reputation, this is a challenge that requires dedication.
It is reported that Bezos has been criticized for his harsh treatment of workers. Amazon warehouse employees are said to work more than 60 hours a week, and Bezos will even use AI equipment to monitor employees and check whether anyone is lazy. In 2014, Bezos was rated as the world's worst boss by the International Trade Union Confederation.
Picture: Amazon warehouse workers in Bangalore, India Koval said: "Bezos (in the shareholder's letter) wants to express how he will lead everyone to build Amazon into 'the best employer on the earth' and 'the safest workplace on the earth'. This doesn't sound like Bezos is going to retire, but it sounds like he is going to redouble his efforts to solve the problems caused by himself."
In addition, although people continue to complain that Amazon's top management team is still dominated by white men, shareholders also voted against the request to provide more detailed information on gender pay differences in the company.
In 2020, men accounted for 55% of the company's employees, but in the senior leadership team, men accounted for 78%. A former senior employee of AWS said that part of the problem was that the behavior encouraged by Amazon's culture would hinder women's development, and they did not think that under Jia Xi's leadership, this situation would be improved.
Photo: Protesters demonstrate in front of the New York residence in Bezos The former senior employee said: "I don't think women will succeed in Amazon. This culture is deeply disturbing. This is a world of killing each other. Everyone is competing. Arrogance and rudeness are considered leadership performance in Amazon, and this performance has spread to the highest level."
In response to this proposal, Amazon said in May that the company "is also committed to increasing gender and ethnic diversity, including the gender and ethnic diversity of our leadership team."
Wicks once said, "We can and will do better. But we need some time. When your company reaches such a scale, you need to be patient for a while, and then the wheel will roll. Once the wheel rolls, you will start to see the results."
Investors are worried that Jia Xi can't control Amazon
Some investors raised different concerns. Tom Slater, co manager of the Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust, said in a recent report to investors: "We are worried that Bezos' resignation as CEO may reduce Amazon's interest in bold innovation."
The report also wrote: "It is no longer the founder and CEO who lead the company forward. We are worried that although the future is still long and fruitful Li Feng Thick, but in Bezos' words, there is no longer 'the first day in Seattle'. "
"Day One" is the core of Amazon's leadership philosophy. Bezos explained to employees at a meeting in March 2017: "The next day is stagnation, followed by carelessness, followed by a terrible and painful recession, followed by death. Therefore, we should always maintain the mentality of the first day." Bezos said that "the first day" thinking can prevent the breeding of complacency.
Picture: Andy Jasi Jennifer Cast is one of Amazon's first 25 employees, and has worked closely with Jia Xi for more than ten years. She believes that Amazon will not fall into the kind of stagnation that Bezos warned during Jasi's tenure.
Caster said: "Jia Xi will never be the kind of person who stands still. If you carefully observe the difference between him and most people in the company, you will find that he is eager to learn and thirsty for knowledge."
Michael Skok, a venture capitalist and Jia Xi's close friend for many years, also said: "I don't think he is another self of Bezos. He is not that kind of person. But he does encourage creative people to exert their creativity, go out of their comfort zone, and do something challenging - break the rules and find innovative ways."
Jia Xi also said: "We must continue to innovate and take risks in an important way, and we will do it.
Amazon needs a new face under the shadow of antitrust
July 5, EST, is the 27th anniversary of Amazon. Jia Xi, 53, will officially replace Bezos as Amazon's CEO on that day. This means that it is no longer unthinkable for Bezos to serve as the CEO of this company.
In fact, some people believe that in the environment of increasingly severe political and regulatory review faced by the company - some people even call for splitting Amazon. Bezos' departure is crucial to Amazon's development.
Several people who have worked with Jia Xi mentioned that Jia Xi is kind but accurate, and he has extraordinary memories of relevant data and technical details. This may help him calmly deal with political concerns, because the hostility towards large technology companies, especially Amazon, has never been higher. How to deal with this hostility is also one of Jia Xi's jobs.
"This is the difference between him and Bezos. He attaches great importance to the facts in the debate. If you need to confront people in detail, his strategy is to analyze the problem in depth," said Scott
In June, U.S. lawmakers submitted a series of bills to Congress targeting large technology companies. These bills may undermine or even disrupt Amazon's influence. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) recently welcomed a new chairman, Lina Khan, Amazon's staunch critic.
The regulator is also investigating Amazon and will review its latest acquisition: the acquisition of MGM, a Hollywood film company, at a price of 8.45 billion dollars. In addition, Amazon also faces several separate investigations from the state attorney general, ranging from pricing to abusing competitor data.
In the EU, Amazon is also the subject of two important investigations, partly to investigate the potential conflict caused by the company's dual identity as both a merchant and a platform owner.
Picture: Bezos testifies remotely before Congress According to several people familiar with the company's political strategy, inside Amazon, people hope that Jia Xi can replace Bezos as Amazon's new public face, The goal is to replace the world's most famous businessman - in some people's eyes, the embodiment of capitalist excess - with a low-key sports fan (Jasi is one of the minority shareholders of the Seattle Sea Monsters of the US National Hockey League). What's more, Jia Xi's shareholding in Amazon is slightly more than $300 million, far less than Bezos' wealth of $175 billion.
Tim Bray, a former senior engineer of Amazon AWS, said: "I think one of the main differences between Bezos and Jasi's management styles is that Andy found himself a new job: testifying before Congress."
Bray said: "Compared with Bezos, Jasi will have to devote more energy to maintaining Amazon's relationship with the whole society and government regulators. Obviously, things have begun to change, and large technology companies are no longer in favor."
The following are Amazon memorabilia:
