Being in control of the world’s biggest online retailer takes tremendous skills and knowledge of the company’s operations. Andrew R. Jassy is among the few employees at Amazon.com Inc.  (AMZN) – Get Free Report who have stayed since the company’s formative years, and he is now its chief executive.

Having joined in 1997 armed with an MBA, Jassy was well suited to grow with the company, from strictly selling books to consumers online to expanding into commercial services such as cloud computing, which accounted for 16% of Amazon’s total revenue in 2022.

But who is Jassy, and how did he become one of the wealthiest executives in the U.S.?

Related: Jeff Bezos’s net worth: How Amazon’s founder spends his billions

Who is Andrew Jassy?

Andrew “Andy” Jassy was born in 1968. He is president and chief executive officer of Amazon, taking over those roles from founder Jeff Bezos, who stepped down from managing day-to-day affairs in 2021 to pursue his personal ventures.

It pays to be among the early employees of Amazon and then rise to the top job. Andrew Jassy’s holdings in Amazon stock make him a billionaire twice over. 

Kevin Winter/Getty Images

Jassy was among the early employees of Amazon, having joined in 1997 in marketing, and he has taken on many roles since then, leading all the way to the C-suite. As one of the longest-serving employees who has worked closely with Bezos, he has helped to maintain continuity in the operations of Amazon.

Jassy founded Amazon Web Services (AWS), which oversees the company’s cloud computing services, from its inception, and he served as its CEO from April 2016 until July 2021. He is a graduate of Harvard University, both at the undergraduate level and at its business school. Before taking over as CEO, Jassy, for a time, shadowed Bezos to understand what it took to manage Amazon.

What is Andrew Jassy’s net worth?

Jassy’s net worth is primarily tied to the shares in Amazon he owns. Other than Jeff Bezos and his ex-wife, and family members, Jassy is among the company’s largest individual shareholders. As of a November 2023 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Jassy owned 12.5 million common shares in Amazon, which he accumulated as part of compensation throughout his career at the company, and these account for 0.12% of the company’s outstanding stock.

In late December, Jassy’s common shares in Amazon were valued at $1.9 billion, making him one of the wealthiest CEOs in America. By comparison, Jamie Dimon — who is CEO of JPMorgan Chase & Co.  (JPM) – Get Free Report, the largest bank in the U.S. — was awarded shares through incentive-pay packages, and his stake is large enough to make him a billionaire.

Jassy also has 1.2 million restricted stock units (RSUs), given to him as part of his executive compensation. According to Amazon’s 2023 report, his 2021 RSU award vests over 10 years from grant, from 2023 through 2031, with more than 80% of the shares scheduled to vest from 2026 through 2031.

A real-time capture of Amazon CEO Andrew Jassy’s wealth based only on his stake in Amazon can be found here.

What is Andrew Jassy’s salary as Amazon’s CEO?

Jassy had a salary of $317,500 in 2022, his first full year as CEO, and that amount is up from $175,000 in 2021. While he was awarded no stock, total compensation amounted to $1.298 million.

The absence of a stock award could be related to the company’s bottom-line performance. In 2022, Amazon posted a loss of $2.7 billion on revenue of $514 billion. The loss was tied to $12.7 billion in expenses from its investment in electric vehicle manufacturer Rivian Automotive Inc.  (RIVN) – Get Free Report, which supplies battery-powered trucks for Amazon’s delivery service.

How has Amazon’s stock performed since Jassy took over as president and CEO?

Jassy took over as president and CEO of Amazon on July 5, 2021, and from then until the end of 2023, Amazon’s stock lost 13%, compared to the S&P 500 Index’s 9.9% gain.

A $10,000 investment in Amazon stock from the time Jassy became CEO would have been worth $8,700 by the end of 2023.

Is Andrew Jassy a billionaire?

Jassy has enough stock in Amazon to make him a billionaire twice over. His stock holdings make him one of the wealthiest CEOs in the U.S. due to his tenure as one of the earliest employees at Amazon who has been awarded stock throughout his more than 25-year career at the company.

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