Amazon founder Jeff Bezos will step down as CEO on July 5, the tech giant announced on Wednesday morning at its annual shareholder meeting. Bezos will hand the chief executive title off to Andy Jassy, a longtime Amazon executive who runs the company’s multibillion-dollar cloud business.
The July 5 exit wasn’t chosen at random; Bezos said on Wednesday, “We chose that date because it’s sentimental for me — the day Amazon was incorporated in 1994, exactly 27 years ago.”
Bezos announced in February he would be stepping down as chief executive later in the year, but an official transition date hadn’t been set until Wednesday.