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Jeff Bezos will step down as Amazon CEO in one week on July 5, a 'sentimental' date he picked because it was when the company was incorporated in 1994

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Jeff Bezos in 1997. Paul Souders/Getty Images
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Jeff Bezos officially steps down from his job as CEO of Amazon in one week, on July 5.

"We chose that date because it's sentimental for me, the day Amazon was incorporated in 1994, exactly 27 years ago," Bezos said in his last shareholder meeting as Amazon's CEO.

Bezos announced in February that he would leave his CEO post in the third quarter.

Taking over is Andy Jassy, the head of Amazon's cloud-computing division, Amazon Web Services. Jassy has been at the company for 24 years.

Read more: Andy Jassy will be the next CEO of Amazon. Insiders dish on what it's like to work for Jeff Bezos' successor, who built AWS into a $40 billion business.

Jassy "is going to be an outstanding leader, and he has my full confidence," Bezos said.

"He has the highest of high standards, and I guarantee that Andy will never let the universe make us typical," Bezos added. "He has the energy needed to keep alive in us what has made us special."

Bezos is not leaving Amazon altogether — he'll become the executive chair of the company.

"I'm very excited to move into the chair role, where I will focus my energies and attention on new products and early initiatives," Bezos said.

Amazon said in February that Bezos' involvement in the company's operations as the executive chair would consist of "one-way door" decisions. Amazon's chief financial officer, Brian Olsavsky, characterized these as big decisions such as acquisitions and overarching business strategies.

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Dominick Reuter
Dominick Reuter
Dominick Reuter is a senior retail reporter for Business Insider, primarily covering Walmart, Target, and Costco. His stories tend to focus on issues and trends that affect employees and customers.Prior to joining BI in 2019, Dominick worked for more than a decade as an independent photojournalist covering a wide range of stories for global wire services and newspapers, including Reuters, the Wall Street Journal, and Agence France-Presse.Dominick studied photojournalism at Boston University and later earned a Masters in business and economics journalism from Columbia University.If you're an employee or customer with a story to share, please contact me via email or text/call/Signal at 646-768-4750.