Amazon’s incoming CEO Andy Jassy to present a ‘humbler target’ for Amazon: Expert

Brad Stone, Author of ‘Amazon Unbound: Jeff Bezos and the Invention of a Global Empire’ & Senior Executive Editor at Bloomberg, joins Yahoo Finance to break down Amazon’s culture as Prime Day kicks off.

Video transcript

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ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: Welcome back. It is Amazon Prime Day, which has really morphed into a two-day sale that brings huge profits for the e-commerce giant. And it's also the company's last Prime Day with Jeff Bezos at the helm as CEO. Here to talk about what's next for the world's richest person and for the company he built is Brad Stone, author of the newly released "Amazon Unbound, Jeff Bezos and the Invention of a Global Empire." Brad is also senior executive editor at Bloomberg.

Good to have you here, Brad. Thanks for being with us. I know this is your second book on Bezos and Amazon. Your first was back in 2013. So I'd like to just start with your perspective, having written both those books. What do you think the biggest change has been, both for Bezos and for Amazon, over the past seven years?

BRAD STONE: It really is just a different company. He's a different executive. He's a different person on the world stage. It's almost impossible to just identify one change. I guess if I had to, I'd say it's a much more global company right now. We see the bets that Amazon is making in countries like India and Brazil and Mexico. You know, today is the first day of Prime Day. This is now an international holiday. The first Prime Day was back in 2015. It starts in Asia. It kind of rolls across the globe, as people wake up. And

The company is so much larger. When I finished "The Everything Store," my first book about Amazon that came out in 2013, this was an $80 billion company. And as you guys know well, it is now a $1.6 or maybe even a $1.7 trillion company right now. And Bezos, about to give up the CEO spot, is a global figure and the wealthiest person in the world. So a radical change.

KRISTIN MYERS: Now, Brad, curious to know how you think and perhaps how even Amazon itself, with a lot of the executives there, are really thinking about navigating Amazon in the future without Jeff Bezos at the helm of the company.

BRAD STONE: Right, and they're losing a lot without him in the CEO spot. But I'm going to make an argument that maybe they're gaining something. First of all, what they're losing is obviously the architect of the culture, the innovator in chief. I tell the story in the book of the creation of Alexa, the Amazon Go stores, those cashierless grocery stores, the initiatives in India and Prime Video and Hollywood. And Bezos is at the center of all those stories. You unravel, you peel back the layers of the onion. And they tend to start with his ideas and sponsorships of these initiatives inside the company.

But as you guys have talked about, Amazon is moving into this era of so much greater scrutiny. We've got these new bills in the House subcommittee now on antitrust, an Amazon critic being appointed the chairwoman of the FTC, antitrust scrutiny in Europe. And Jeff Bezos, he presents as-- and of course, he has to, as the wealthiest person in the world-- you know, this figure who kind of represents income inequality and so much division in American society. And so I think, you know, he will remain at the company as executive chairman. But you have Andy Jassy, who I think will just present a humbler target for Amazon, as it attempts to navigate this new era of heightened scrutiny.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: You know, you talk about those antitrust issues the company is now facing. You do have a Congress that has made no bones about it. They're looking at possibly breaking up big tech and Amazon among them. Having covered the company the way you have, do you think that that's a real reality for the company? And if so, what might a breakup at Amazon look like?

BRAD STONE: Yeah, I think an enforced breakup by the federal government faces some very long odds. You look back at Microsoft in the 1990s when it had dominant market share of the operating systems market and had clearly engaged in illegal behavior to extend its dominance in the web browsers, and people remember that. And that case dragged on forever. And Microsoft won an appeal. And today, it's even a larger company than Amazon.

And Amazon isn't-- the argument for a monopoly isn't as clear cut. It is competing in these very large markets of retail and cloud computing. And it doesn't have the same market dominance that even Microsoft once did. So I think the argument for breakup, even though some Amazon opponents are suggesting it, is difficult. I do think there are plenty of ways that Amazon's behavior, the way in which, for example, it privileges its own products and its marketplace, I think some of that behavior can and will be addressed. But I don't see a breakup, other than perhaps a voluntary one down the line, if Amazon executives decide to unlock some shareholder value by, for example, spinning off AWS.

KRISTIN MYERS: So you were just talking about Jeff Bezos, really, as the innovator in chief at the company. Curious to know what you think might be the next big thing, really, that's coming out of Amazon, where they're going to be focusing all of their time and attention. I know Jeff Bezos right now is focused a lot on space exploration. But for Amazon itself, what do you think is going to be the next big product that we might be able to expect from the company?

BRAD STONE: Right, well, you mentioned for Bezos, he's strapping himself to the top of his New Shepard rocket in a couple of weeks. So, obviously, you know, even though he's giving up the CEO chair, all eyes will continue to be on him and what he's doing at Blue Origin, at "The Washington Post." And as he said, you know, he'll continue to sponsor new products at Amazon. I think, look, I mean, today is Prime Day. And you look at the kind of discounts that Amazon is offering. And it's all about Amazon devices, Echos. It's Amazon basic products, Ring surveillance doorbells.

I think that's the future for Amazon, you know, diving deeper into devices. We know that they've been working on a robotics project for a long time there that they have yet to unveil, a home robot. Bezos has been sponsoring a project inside Amazon called Project Kuiper, which is designed to release a constellation of satellites and offer internet access in competition with SpaceX, which, of course, has Starlink.

And then you look at some of Amazon's initiatives in healthcare, online pharmacy, some of the telehealth and walk-in clinics that they're developing and some of the devices that are meant to kind of link back to Amazon's healthcare offerings. And so I think that's a major Avenue of expansion. Look, as a $1.7 trillion company, you need large markets to be able to continue to grow and expand. And I think that's where Bezos is really going to continue to focus his efforts at Amazon, finding those big next opportunities for growth.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: All right, Brad Stone, and the book is called "Amazon Unbound." Thanks for being with us.