Jeff Bezos has stepped down as chief executive officer of Amazon - 27 years since he started the e-commerce company in a garage in West Bellevue, Washington.
Andy Jassy, former Amazon Web Services chief, will replace him as CEO. Bezos, 53, will remain connected to Amazon as executive chair.
Amazon is the United States' second-biggest employer. The 53-year old Jassy, who began his first day as Amazon CEO Monday, spent 24 years by Bezos' side.
"It's very important to have a company be larger than the charismatic or celebrity CEO," Barbara Kahn, a professor of marketing at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, said, according to NBC News.
As executive chair, Bezos plans to focus on new products and initiatives. He is Amazon's biggest shareholder with a stake worth more than $180 billion, according to The Associated Press.
Bezos' other ventures include his space company Blue Origin, The Washington Post and philanthropy.
Bezos is one of just eight centibillionaires in the world, with a personal fortune of close to $200 billion.
Amazon evolved from an online bookseller to a $1.75-trillion international retail, logistics and internet company.
In comparison, oil company Saudi Arabian Oil Co. and iPhone maker Apple Inc. have a valuation of around $1.8 trillion.
"Jeff Bezos has been a transformational leader...in book selling, the retail market, cloud computing and home delivery," Agence France-Presse quoted Darrell West as saying. West is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution's Center for Technology Innovation.
Bezos is vacating the chief executive position at a time of great success for Amazon. In February, the company topped the $100 billion mark in quarterly sales for the first time.
"Jeff's really not going anywhere...it's more of a restructuring of who's doing what," Brian Olsavsky, Amazon's chief financial officer, told reporters in February.
