After years of running one of Amazon.com Inc.’s highest-profile and fastest-growing operations, Amazon Web Services Inc. Chief Executive Andy Jassy was appointed today to become CEO of Amazon overall later this year.

Jassy will succeed founder and CEO Jeff Bezos, who will become executive chair in the third quarter. Bezos said in an email to employees that he plans to “focus my energies and attention on new products and early initiatives.”

“Andy is well known inside the company and has been at Amazon almost as long as I have,” Bezos wrote in the email. “He will be an outstanding leader, and he has my full confidence.”

Jassy has had the confidence of Bezos and many others at Amazon for some time, which is why he has been seen as Bezos’ heir apparent. Jassy built what was literally a “simple storage service” when it debuted publicly in 2006 into arguably the most powerful force in enterprise computing, supplanting and disrupting countless former technology leaders. In the process, AWS’ cloud computing foundation, offering near-instant and cheaper infrastructure for thousands of startups, helped usher in successive waves of new giants from Netflix Inc. to Uber Technologies Inc. to Snowflake Inc.

Not least, AWS provided a foundation for Amazon itself, until the last few years stealthily contributing billions of dollars in profit to offset Amazon’s relentless investments in e-commerce and online services such as Prime Video. AWS has accounted for much of Amazon’s overall profit in recent years, and the quarterly results announced today continued that trend even as other newer operations such as advertising have started to show more profits. AWS reported 28% revenue growth and accounts for more than half of Amazon’s operating income.

Jassy becomes the third cloud executive in a major technology company to take the reins of the overall company. Microsoft Corp. CEO Satya Nadella also made his mark as head of Microsoft’s cloud unit, helping turn it into a real competitor to AWS. And IBM Corp. appointed Arvind Krishna, who formerly headed cloud divisions, as CEO last year.

“With Jeff Bezos’ departure, the fabric of Amazon’s business likely will not change drastically as the company culture is deeply embedded,” Daniel Elman, an analyst with Nucleus Research, told SiliconANGLE in an email. “Plus, Bezos will still be involved in the business and he is young enough that he may even return for a second act at Amazon down the line.”

Elman added that Amazon will be in “great hands” under Jassy. “He has led AWS to industry-leading success competing against the likes of Google, Microsoft, Oracle and others, so leading a behemoth in its space won’t come as a huge shock,” he said.

The transition comes as Amazon topped $100 billion in quarterly revenue for the first time. Bezos said in prepared remarks that invention underlies Amazon’s success.

“We do crazy things together and then make them normal,” he said. “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.”

That was a windup for Bezos to explain the transition to a new leader. “When you look at our financial results, what you’re actually seeing are the long-run cumulative results of invention,” he added. “Right now I see Amazon at its most inventive ever, making it an optimal time for this transition.”

Jassy, 53, joined Amazon back in 1997 as a marketing manager and helped found AWS in 2003. In April 2016, he  was promoted from senior vice president to CEO of the cloud unit, essentially crowning AWS as a major piece of Amazon’s future.

“It’s only appropriate that now AWS’ leader is taking over the mothership as if to acknowledge that the cloud now leads the overall direction of the company,” Ambuj Kumar, co-founder and CEO of AWS partner Fortanix, told SiliconANGLE in an email. “In a way, Andy has been groomed for this role for a long time.”

An avid sports and especially New York Giants football fan — he has a home “sports bar” he calls Helmet Head — Jassy also recently became part-owner of the Seattle Kraken, a new National Hockey League franchise that’s expected to start playing next year. He’s also a big music fan, bringing to AWS’ annual conference artists such as Brandi Carlile and using song lyrics to punctuate his keynote points.

More publicly pugnacious than Bezos, Jassy isn’t shy about calling out competitors. Several years ago, he started harping on Oracle Corp., which was making a run at AWS in cloud database services.

He even called out former President Donald Trump, whose objection to AWS’ odds-on favorite status for a federal defense contract worth up to $10 billion may have steered it toward Microsoft. “I think there was a significant amount of political interference,” he told SiliconANGLE in late 2019. “And when you have a sitting president of the country who is very open about his disdain for a company and the leader of that company, it makes it really hard for government agencies like the DOD to be able to make objective decisions without fear of reprisal. I think that’s really risky for our country and for our democracy.”

Jassy also has shown a surprising — for customarily soft-spoken executives at Amazon — penchant for expressing his political beliefs, sometimes making pointed tweets about the death of Breonna Taylor and the Supreme Court’s blocking of Trump’s bid to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

As for Bezos, he said in the employee email that “as much as I still tap dance into the office, I’m excited about this transition” as a way for him to focus on key initiatives. “Being the CEO of Amazon is a deep responsibility, and it’s consuming,” he wrote. “When you have a responsibility like that, it’s hard to put attention on anything else. As Exec Chair I will stay engaged in important Amazon initiatives but also have the time and energy I need to focus on the Day 1 Fund, the Bezos Earth Fund, Blue Origin, The Washington Post, and my other passions.”

Bottom line, he added, “I’ve never had more energy, and this isn’t about retiring. I’m super passionate about the impact I think these organizations can have.”

For that reason, there probably won’t be an immediate shift in Amazon strategy and tactics under Jassy. But in an interview with SiliconANGLE Media CEO John Furrier before AWS’ virtual re:Invent conference in December, Jassy provided some hints about his own leadership going forward, including the potential for significant changes.

For one, he said, “As a leader, you got to be great at getting at the truth of where you have problems with your customers and in the market. Leaders also need the courage to lead the team to make a big change.”

In addition, he said, it’s often when long-timers at a company leave that “those companies actually start to reinvent themselves. It’s not that you can’t reinvent if you have people who’ve been there a long time. It’s just harder for people who have been doing things the same way for a long period of time to change and to want to change. They’re proud of what they built and they’re not sure they want to learn new things.”

Jassy also talked with Furrier in December on theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s video studio, in an exclusive interview during re:Invent:

Photo: Robert Hof/SiliconANGLE