What is the key to success, according to Jeff Bezos?
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(CNN Business) -
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos will officially step down as CEO on July 5, he announced during the company's annual shareholders meeting on Wednesday.
Bezos will hand the reins over to Andy Jassy, who currently runs Amazon Web Services, after nearly three decades leading the internet giant that made him one of the richest people in the world.
Bezos will become the chairman of Amazon's board of directors.
The company first announced the leadership change as part of its February earnings report, saying that Jassy would take over during the third fiscal quarter.
Amazon had not previously shared the precise date of the transition.
The timing is "sentimental," Bezos said: July 5 is the date Amazon joined in 1994.
"I am very excited to move into the role of president [executive], where I will focus my energies and attention on new products and early initiatives," Bezos said Wednesday.
In February, he said he hoped to have more time to work at his companies outside the company, such as the Bezos Earth Fund and Blue Origin.
Bezos said he hopes that Jassy, who has been with the company for 24 years and rose through its ranks to lead its most profitable division, will be "an outstanding leader."
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"You have the highest standards and I guarantee you that Andy will never allow the universe to make us typical," Bezos said.
"He has the energy to keep alive in us what has made us special."
When Jassy leaves the top job at AWS to manage Amazon, he will be replaced by Tableau CEO Adam Selipsky, the company said in March.
Jassy will take over an increasingly complex and vetted business, as evidenced by early Wednesday morning news that Amazon is buying MGM for $ 8.45 billion and some of the issues raised at the shareholders meeting soon after.
Among the shareholder proposals presented during the meeting, all of which were rejected, was one that would have allowed an hourly compliance associate to serve on the company's board of directors. While unsuccessful, the motion underscored the criticism Amazon has faced for its treatment of warehouse workers recently, especially after a landmark union campaign at one of its warehouses in April, which failed as the company rejected it.
During the shareholders meeting, Bezos was asked about the enormous size of Amazon's business.
The question arose after Washington filed an antitrust lawsuit against the company on Tuesday, claiming it has abused its market dominance in e-commerce to harm competition.
(In a statement at the time, Amazon rejected the lawsuit, saying the DC attorney general "got it exactly backwards").
"I'd say we face intense competition from well-established companies everywhere we do business, in every industry," Bezos said.
"[Retail is] a very healthy industry and it is far from a win-win situation."
Bezos also listed some of Amazon's newest bets that Jassy will have to manage, including its telehealth offering, Amazon Care, and its satellite internet effort, Project Kuiper.
"None of these ideas are guaranteed to work," Bezos said.
"They are all gigantic investments and they are all risks… Our entire history as a company is about taking risks, many of which have failed and many of which will fail, but we will continue to take big risks."
Amazon Jeff Bezos