By Khoi Le, Editor In Training
BUSINESS: Jeff Bezos is resigning his position as Amazon CEO to focus more on his space company Blue Origin
Ever since the start up of Amazon in 1994, the whole world began familiarizing itself with online shopping, changing the way we view the online world and its capabilities. The rise of Amazon did not come easy, creating a trillion dollar company is, in fact, no simple task.
The story of Amazon started when Jeff Bezos saw the internet grow back in 1994, pushing him to leave his position as senior vice president at D.E. Shaw, a hedge fund group, to take advantage of the rapid growth. Jeff Bezos started Amazon in a garage selling books, to which grew into a company that sold books to all 50 states and 45 different countries. Nowadays, people across the world can buy almost anything they want through Amazon, whether that be electronics, clothing, or even a home in a shipping container.
When Bezos does step down as CEO, we will see the intense battle between the two famous space companies, SpaceX and Blue Origin, for NASA’s funding and attention, as they both push each other towards a civilization where space travel is the norm. Currently, SpaceX has had a prominent advantage over Blue Origin, with SpaceX’s reusable Falcon 9 rockets flying over 111 times, including when for the first time since the last space shuttle, SpaceX and NASA launched American astronauts from an American launch pad on an American rocket to the International Space Station (ISS), Blue Origin still remains a strong contender for the new age space race, however, as they strive to surpass SpaceX. With Jeff Bezos having more time when he steps down as CEO of Amazon, SpaceX should see Blue Origin rise and become a true competitor.
Musk and Bezos have had their banters and arguments in the past, which is a normal occurrence when there are two billionaire CEOs who can joke around and compare their toy rockets together. Back in 2019 when Bezos and his company Blue Origin released their first lunar lander, “Blue Moon”, Elon Musk tweeted an altered picture of the lunar lander and replaced the name “Blue Moon” with “Blue Balls”. A classic move coming from the childish and funny CEO that is Elon Musk. Jeff Bezos has also fired back at Elon Musk, most recently back in December of 2020 after SpaceX had test launched their Starship rocket, which ended in an explosion. Bezos posted on Instagram a picture of a low quality picture of the Starship with the comments “Big congrats to the whole SpaceX team. I’m confident they’ll be back at it soon,” which is ironic since the test launch failed. However, the funny and intense battle between the two companies will surely continue after Jeff Bezos makes sure Amazon can run without him.
Jeff Bezos stepping down however is not the end of Amazon, as CEO of Amazon Web Services, Andy Jassy, would take over. The business man has been with Amazon ever since it went public 24 years ago, making him the one of the most experienced members of the company. Even Bezos himself assured us that Jassy would be an “outstanding leader”, leaving us with confidence that Amazon is in great hands and will continue to provide us with our needs. What we can expect from Bezos now is the intense battle between Blue Origin and SpaceX as they both aim to change the way we view space travel.
