Andy Jassy: the marketing manager who built Amazon Web Services

From Harvard to a young online retailer

Jassy studied at Harvard University, earning an AB, and then completed an MBA at Harvard Business School. After his MBA, in 1997, he moved to Seattle and joined Amazon, which was then still a young online retailer.

Fortune magazine noted that his background was in marketing and business development rather than engineering. In his early years he earned good reviews for leading Amazon's music sales, and Amazon says he held leadership roles in both business-to-business and business-to-consumer areas before AWS existed.

“Amazon S3 is based on the idea that quality Internet-based storage should be taken for granted”

— Andy Jassy, via Amazon Press Center

Shadowing the CEO

In 2002 he was chosen as one of Jeff Bezos's technical assistants, staff who prepare for senior roles by shadowing Amazon's chief executive for a year or more. Fortune reports that it was during this period that the idea for AWS took shape in his mind.

The idea was that Amazon had already learned how to run large, reliable computing systems for its own website. Other businesses could rent that computing power over the internet instead of building their own data centres. Jassy worked on a pitch memo to persuade Bezos and the board; under Amazon's tradition the memo could be no longer than six pages. Amazon's chief information officer at the time, Rick Dalzell, backed the idea.

Launching AWS

On 14 March 2006 Amazon announced Amazon S3, a simple storage service for developers. The launch announcement quotes Jassy, then vice president of Amazon Web Services, explaining that the goal was to free developers from worrying about where to store data, so they could focus on building with it. S3 charged per gigabyte stored and transferred, with no minimum fee, and was deliberately built with a small set of features.

Jassy focused early sales on startups and small firms that could not afford their own data centres. Fortune describes how companies such as Dropbox and Airbnb grew on AWS, and how in 2009 Netflix became the first large public company to run entirely on its infrastructure.

He led AWS from its start and served as its CEO from April 2016 until July 2021.

Dalzell later recalled arguing that Amazon would be investing in data centres for itself anyway, so building a service for others on top was a reasonable bet. By 2015, Fortune reported, AWS served more than a million customers, from tiny family businesses to the largest companies, and held almost three times the market share of its nearest competitor. The magazine also noted that competition had pushed prices down sharply, with customers paying about half as much for the same services as at the start of 2013, which meant AWS kept adding features to stay ahead.

Amazon's chief executive

In 2021 Bezos wrote to employees that he would become executive chair and that Jassy would become CEO, noting that Jassy had been at Amazon almost as long as he had. Jassy became president and CEO of Amazon in July 2021. Amazon also lists him as a member of the US National Academy of Engineering.

Outside Amazon, the company's investor relations page notes that he serves on the Board of Trustees for Rainier Scholars and chairs the board of Rainier Prep, and that he serves on the Trust of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

The skills and habits that made the difference

The first was learning the business from many angles. Jassy worked in marketing, music and other parts of Amazon before AWS, so he understood both customers and operations.

The second was writing ideas down clearly. AWS began as a short written memo that had to convince the company's leaders. Being able to explain a technical idea in plain words was as important as the idea itself.

The third was starting simple and serving customers. S3 launched with a minimal feature set, and AWS grew by helping developers and small companies who needed exactly that.