What to expect from Jeff Bezos' departure as Amazon CEO

CNBC's Jon Fortt reports on incoming Amazon CEO Andy Jassy, and what could be Jeff Bezos' new role in the company going forward. Subscribe to CNBC PRO for access to investor and analyst insights on Amazon and more: https://cnb.cx/3dIH56N

When Jeff Bezos announced his plans to step aside as CEO of Amazon, it didn’t just bring an end to his two-and-a-half decade run as the head of the $1.6 trillion retail behemoth he started from scratch. It also capped one of the world’s most innovative and influential legacies in the areas of business and technology.

Bezos founded Amazon as an online bookstore in 1994, launching the company out of the garage of his rented home in the Seattle suburbs. In the decades since, Amazon has become one of the most powerful, revered and scrutinized companies in the world, with its influence growing far beyond e-commerce to touch almost every major industry, from cloud computing and health care to grocery, banking and advertising.

The Amazon founder’s determination to shake up industry after industry, while focusing relentlessly on the company’s core customers, has earned Bezos a spot among America’s foremost entrepreneurs like Andrew Carnegie, Henry Ford, John D. Rockefeller, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs.

Even though Bezos is giving up the title of CEO, he’s not moving far away from Amazon in his new role as executive chairman. Plus, Jeff Bezos’ philosophy for Amazon — that it’s “always Day One” — continues to guide the company.

There are many milestones in Jeff Bezos’ career at Amazon and his ascent to becoming a household name. These are some of the key moments.

The Amazon Way

Every year, Bezos attaches his original 1997 letter to shareholders to his latest annual letter. These letters have become essential reading for many business leaders, giving a glimpse into the Amazon founder’s mindset and the guiding principles that underline the business: Never stop experimenting, learning and, even failing, in order to remain relevant.

“I’ve been reminding people that it’s Day 1 for a couple of decades,” Bezos wrote in his 2016 letter to shareholders. “I work in an Amazon building named Day 1, and when I moved buildings, I took the name with me. I spend time thinking about this topic.

″‘Day 2 is stasis. Followed by irrelevance. Followed by excruciating, painful decline. Followed by death. And that is why it is always Day 1,’” Bezos said.

Many of the ideas laid out in Bezos’ original 1997 letter have made their way into Amazon’s list of leadership principles, or the 14 values that employees apply to new projects, problem solving and other decision making.

Two-day delivery

In 2005, Bezos launched Amazon Prime, a loyalty program that was a first of its kind. For $79 a year, customers gained access to free “all-you-can-eat” two-day shipping on more than a million items.

Amazon Prime launched when most retailers offered to ship items in four to six days. Prime quickly changed the standard — not just for customers, but for the entire retail industry. It forced any retailer looking to make a meaningful impression online to at least consider offering free and fast delivery.

Consumers have come to expect two-day shipping from retailers both big and small. And Bezos has given them reason to keep subscribing to Prime by adding access to video and music streaming, Whole Foods discounts and a bevvy of other perks.

Amazon Prime, which now counts more than 150 million subscribers worldwide, grew so big that Amazon even created a fake holiday off of the program, called Prime Day. It completely altered the retail calendar by pushing other companies to offer deals during the normally slow summer shopping period.

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