So they greenlighted this very, very aggressive plan to grow quickly to meet that demand. Their quick shipping of two days extended to more than a month on some items. And Amazon was a destination for a lot of this. And I don't know if you remember this, but people hoarding toilet paper back then and hand sanitizer, and there were shortages on the shelves because everyone was just taking whatever they can get. At the time, Jeff Bezos was still CEO, and the company has this credo of 'customer obsession,' and basically that means doing whatever it takes for the customer. Zoe Thomas: How did Amazon end up in this situation, kind of overestimating how much capacity it was going to need on the eCommerce side?ĭana Mattioli: So back during the darkest days of the pandemic, before a vaccine was even on anyone's mind, Amazon became flooded with all these orders. And part of the plan has been to sublease all of the space that they bought, to delay building these very expensive warehouses that they don't need right now, and to stop hiring in the warehouses, because they don't need quite as many people fulfilling these orders if there's fewer than they were expecting. So quickly, they started just slashing their forecasts on that build out. Zoe Thomas: And so how has Jassy been dealing with that change? What's he been doing to help Amazon through this shifting period?ĭana Mattioli: Once he took over, it quickly became apparent that their plans for this massive build out of more warehousing and sortation centers and logistics network was way too big. And all of this infrastructure that Amazon built to deal with this unprecedented demand became too much, just given the change in shopping habits. Customers had become more comfortable shopping in person again.

But behind the scenes, things had started to change. So that's sort of the Amazon he walked into taking over. They were above their estimates, and Amazon actually posted record earnings. And when earnings were coming in, companies like Amazon were just killing it. And if you remember, that was a time when people were still relying on eCommerce. Zoe Thomas: So Dana, what situation did Jassy inherit when he first took over?ĭana Mattioli: Andy started on July 5th, 2021. And joining me to discuss what Jassy's first year as CEO has been like, and what it tells us about the eCommerce giant's future is WSJ Amazon reporter, Dana Mattioli. I'm Zoe Thomas for the Wall Street Journal. One that's forced him to undo some decisions made by his mentor and the company's founder, Jeff Bezos. But since his promotion it's been a bumpy ride. He spent more than two decades there, and had been running the cloud computing division, Amazon web services, the company's cash cow. For Amazon insiders, he was a familiar face. Zoe Thomas: July marks one year since Andy Jassy took over as CEO of Amazon. This version may not be in its final form and may be updated. This transcript was prepared by a transcription service.

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