Amazon Web Services CEO Adam Selipsky is stepping down, the tech giant announced on Tuesday, around three years after he made a return to the tech giant to replace Andy Jassy as CEO of the company’s cloud computing division.
Selipsky will be replaced by Matt Garman, who has spent around 18 years with the company and most recently served as the senior vice president of sales and marketing for AWS.
In a blog post, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said that when he recruited Selipsky back to AWS after a stint as Tableau’s CEO, “we agreed that if he accepted the role, he’d likely do it for a few years, and that one of the things he’d focus on during that time was helping prepare the next generation of leadership.” Before Tableau, Selipsky spent more than 11 years at Amazon during his first tenure.
“We were fortunate that Adam agreed to step in and lead AWS, and has deftly led the business, while also developing his leadership team,” Jassy added. “Adam is now going to move onto his next challenge (after taking a well-deserved respite), and Matt Garman will become CEO of AWS, effective June 3rd.”
The leadership change comes shortly after Amazon announced in its most recent earnings report that its revenue growth was accelerating in its cloud computing division and was on track to surpass $100 billion by the end of 2024. Company leaders also said that generative AI products and services were on track to bring in multiple billions in revenue this year.
At the same time, AWS has faced numerous challenges under Selipsky’s leadership, with multiple rounds of layoffs, a period of revenue growth deceleration, and the optics among some industry observers that the company has been chasing competitors from behind during the generative AI boom.
To that end, Amazon has invested $4 billion into the AI foundational model company Anthropic, with AWS becoming the “primary cloud provider for mission critical workloads.” As part of the tie-up, Anthropic has agreed to train and deploy future models using AWS AI chips.
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