Creative Coast for Savannah Morning News – Business leadership: Wearing different hats is exhausting

This is a column by The Creative Coast Executive Director Jennifer Bonnett. She is a regular contributor to the Savannah Morning News.

Jeff Bezos, chief executive officer of online behemoth Amazon, announced Tuesday that he would be stepping down as CEO later this year. My social media channels are blowing up and a lot of people seem shocked. I am not. 

The man has got to be exhausted. He has shepherded this company from its founding as an online bookstore in 1994, through its initial public offering in 1997, through the Dot Com Crash in 2001, the “Great Recession” in 2008 and 2009, and now a global pandemic. On the way, he transformed it into the largest e-commerce platform in the world and then to the largest cloud and software-as-a-service company on the planet.

The man deserves a break, but not that he’s taking one. He’s stepping over to an executive chair of the board role and focusing on the Bezos Earth Fund, The Washington Post, Amazon Day One Fund and his Blue Origin space company. 

To read the full column, please visit https://www.savannahnow.com/story/business/2021/02/04/jeff-bezos-decision-step-down-amazon-ceo-another-example-demands-business-leaders/4373960001/