Jeff Bezos to step down as Amazon CEO on July 5

Jeff Bezos will step down from his long-standing role as CEO of Amazon on July 5, he said at the company’s annual shareholder meeting on Wednesday.

The company first announced Bezos’ plan to leave his role at the helm of the company back in February at the same time it announced record net sales of 125.6 billion dollars in the fourth quarter - a year-on-year increase of 44 percent.

The July 5 date is significant to the business as it marks 27 years exactly since Amazon was incorporated in 1994.

Bezos, who founded the company out of his garage in Seattle, is handing the reins over to Andy Jassy, an Amazon veteran who has been at the retailer since 1997 and who founded and was CEO of the company’s cloud platform, Amazon Web Services (AWS).

Bezos will remain at the company as executive chair.