Way too lit for a Tuesday... Amazon dropped two major bombshells in its 2020 fourth quarter earnings yesterday. First, the numbers: the Zon brought in a record-smashing $125.6B in sales, up from $87.4B in the same quarter of 2019. That's even more than Apple (aka: the most valuable company on Earth) did in sales last quarter. Profit more than doubled from a year earlier to $7.2B (smaller than Apple's — but still massive).
The bigger story... While Amazon's numbers are eye-popping, we're not shocked that Earth's biggest online retailer had a blowout holiday quarter... during a deadly pandemic. The real surprise: Jeff Bezos is stepping down as CEO.
- C.E.Out: This year, AWS CEO Andy Jassy will be taking Bezos' place as Amazon's leader. Bezos will become exec chairman, focusing on “new products and early initiatives" — like his space baby Blue Origin and The Washington Post.
- Part hero: In his 27 years leading Amazon, Bezos revolutionized the way we shop, made convenience a standard, and created jobs for 1M+ people.
- Part villain: Thanks to him, purchasing with the click of a button is a lifestyle. But that has also hurt Main Street, killing brick-and-mortar mom & pop shops who can't compete.
"A yawn is the greatest compliment"... that an inventor can receive. That was Bezos' mic drop blurb post-announcement. From 1-Click ordering, to two-day shipping — 20 years ago, we couldn't have imagined these being a norm for us. Bezos’ point: if you do innovation right, then the extraordinary becomes the ordinary. Investors also yawned at Bezos leaving, with the stock barely budging after-hours. It's a vote of confidence that the empire he built is strong enough to stand without him front-and-center.