Andy Jassy

Jassy is the son of Margery and Everett L. Jassy of Scarsdale, New York.[8] He is Jewish with Hungarian ancestry.[9][10] His father was a senior partner in the corporate law firm Dewey Ballantine in New York, and chairman of the firm's management committee.[8] Jassy grew up in Scarsdale, and attended Scarsdale High School.[11][8]

Jassy graduated with honors from Harvard College, where he was advertising manager of The Harvard Crimson, before earning an MBA from Harvard Business School.[12][13]

Jassy worked for 5 years after graduation before doing his MBA. He worked as a project manager for a collectibles company, MBI, and then he and an MBI colleague started a company and closed it down.[14][15]

He joined Amazon in 1997, with several other Harvard MBA colleagues.[15] His early roles included marketing manager.[12] In 2003, he and Jeff Bezos came up with the idea to create the cloud computing platform that would become known as Amazon Web Services (AWS), which launched in 2006.[16] Jassy headed AWS and its team of 57 people.[1] In April 2016, Jassy was promoted from senior vice president to CEO of AWS.[17][13]

In 2016, Jassy earned $36.6 million.[18] In 2020, for his work as CEO of AWS, Jassy earned a base compensation of $175,000, plus a restricted stock unit award of 4,023 shares (a value of $12,104,844.93 as of July 26, 2020[19]) of Amazon with vesting beginning in 2023. He also received a restricted stock unit award in April 2018 for 10,000 shares (a value of $30,089,100 as of July 26, 2020[19]), which vest 37.5% in 2021, 12.5% in 2022, 37.5% in 2023, and 12.5% in 2024.[20]

In April 2017, Jassy criticized rival Oracle's database business, claiming that "it has been a lonely place for customers" due to their high prices and vendor lock-in.[21]

On February 2, 2021, it was announced that Jassy will succeed Jeff Bezos as the CEO of Amazon sometime in the third quarter of 2021, with Bezos transitioning to executive chairman.[22]

In 1997, Jassy married Elana Rochelle Caplan, a fashion designer for Eddie Bauer and graduate of the Philadelphia College of Textiles and Science, at the Loews Santa Monica Beach Hotel.[8][23] Their wedding was officiated by New York Rabbi James Brandt, a cousin of Elana.[24] Both their fathers were senior partners in law firm Dewey Ballantine.[25] They have two children.

They live in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Seattle, in a 10,000-square-foot house bought in 2009 for $3.1 million.[26][27] In October 2020, it was reported that Jassy had bought a $6.7 million 5,500-square-foot house in Santa Monica, California.[28][29][27]