07/06/2021

Amazon Enters New Era as Jassy Assumes Control

He's a bit of an unknown outside Silicon Valley

Compared to the often larger-than-life Jeff Bezos, new Amazon chief Andy Jassy is a bit of an unknown quantity outside of Silicon Valley. The former head of Amazon Web Services, elevated to CEO Monday, is taking over at a time when Amazon is riding high, as people have flocked to its online shopping and streaming offerings during the pandemic. (In February, the company reported its first-ever quarter with more than $100 billion in revenue.) But headaches for the company abound.

The obvious challenge facing Jassy is antitrust scrutiny from lawmakers on the Hill, from the FTC and now from the White House, with its planned competition executive order. Critics point to the company’s massive size and its sprawling business interests — from retail to cloud computing to movies to logistics — as evidence that Washington needs to break up the biggest tech companies.

Amazon has also come under fire for its treatment of its workers, and the Teamsters recently voted to create an Amazon division with the goal of unionizing them. Progressives are also pushing the Protecting the Right to Organize Act, a bill that would make organizing easier, which has passed the House but remains stalled in the Senate. And the company is keeping tabs on a slew of bills aimed at curbing online sales of counterfeit goods by forcing marketplaces to exercise more oversight over their sellers’ listings.

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