(AP) — In 1995, few could imagine that the modest online bookstore built by Jeff Bezos would turn into a $1.7 trillion behemoth that sells everything from diapers to sofas, produces movies, owns a grocery chain and provides cloud computing services to businesses all over the globe.
Amazon has become all of that and more, and now it will be up to Andy Jassy to lead the company forward as CEO.
On Tuesday, Amazon announced that Bezos would step aside this summer and assume the role of executive chairman so he can focus on new products and early initiatives being developed at Amazon.
Although Bezos is expected to still play a big role at the company, it is Jassy who will inherit the many challenges born from Amazon’s meteoric rise. Here are some of them:
GROWING SCRUTINY
Regulators around the world are examining Amazon’s business practices, specifically the way it looks at information from businesses that sell goods on its site and uses it to create its own Amazon-branded products. Bezos said at a hearing before Congress last summer that even though Amazon had a policy preventing employees from accessing seller data, he couldn’t guarantee that the policy wasn’t being violated.
Tech giants for decades have enjoyed light-touch regulation and star status in Washington, but calls for greater scrutiny have been growing. The U.S. government has already slapped two Big Tech companies — Google and Facebook — with antitrust lawsuits.
Amazon has been subject to federal and state antitrust investigations. That’s in addition to European Union regulators filing antitrust charges in November, accusing Amazon of using its access to data from third-party sellers to gain an unfair advantage over them.
A report by the House Judiciary Committee in October called for a possible breakup of Amazon and others, making it harder for them to acquire other businesses and imposing new rules to safeguard competition.
WORKER UNREST
The pandemic has exposed how Amazon treats its workers who pack and ship boxes inside vast warehouses. Many have protested a lack of masks and protective equipment while others say the company isn’t forthcoming about how many people are getting sick.
Amazon has made changes since it started getting complaints, but its labor issues go well beyond the pandemic.
