In the summer of 2021, Miami Palmetto Senior High alumnus Jeff Bezos plans to step down from his role of Amazon CEO.  Known as the most famous graduate of the school, he went on to build one of the largest and most successful companies in the world. 

Before Bezos created Amazon, he was the valedictorian, National Merit Scholar and Silver Knight winner for science at Palmetto.

Bezos, the second richest men on the planet at 57 years old, made the surprise announcement of his plan to step down on the same day that Amazon reported fourth quarter sales that topped $100 billion.

Andy Jassy, the current head of the cloud computing division of Amazon, plans on taking over for Bezos. Working for Amazon since 1997, Jassy has long been viewed as Bezos’ heir due to his big success in the cloud computing business, according to USA today. Along with his cloud computing business, Jassy also oversaw the growth of AWS into a cash cow, a huge deal for the entirety of Amazon.

Because heading Amazon takes up almost all of Bezos’s time, he greets this change positively as he feels it may lead him to a more free schedule and the ability to do exciting, new projects. As executive chair of Amazon, Bezos intends to focus on new products and early initiatives.