Andy Jassy: How Amazon's next CEO ordered Parler ban after Capitol riots in secret meeting called 'The Chop'
Andy Jassy is currently dominating the headlines of world news as Amazon made the announcement of naming him as Jeff Bezos's successor and the new Amazon CEO. Amazon founder and the world’s richest man Bezos will be stepping down as CEO in the third quarter of 2021 and donning the position of executive chairman. Jassy, who is presently heading the Amazon Web Services (AWS), will take his place.
Jassy, 53, has been working with Amazon for the past 23 years, joining the company in 1997 as a marketing manager. Presently, the doting father of two and husband of fashion designer Elana Caplan has an estimated net worth of $377 million.
Bezos calls him an 'outstanding leader'
Jassy, who is often considered as Bezos’s right-hand man in Amazon, is widely respected and liked by his colleagues and subordinates. At the same time, he holds very high expectations from all his employees. He is also very ‘down to earth’, as one former employee revealed to Insider.
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Since 2003, Jassy has built AWS from the ground up, which is now perceived as the leading firm in cloud computing and generates $40 billion in annual revenue.
He became the uncontested choice for the top post after retail business head Jeff Wilke retired in August last year. Bezos holds Jassy in high esteem and has remarked, “Andy is well known inside the company and has been at Amazon almost as long as I have,” adding that he will make an outstanding leader.
Jassy is now expected to take over the reins of the world’s second-largest company, after Walmart.
How did Jassy ban Parler in 'The Chop'?
While Jassy proudly calls himself an ‘experienced buffalo wings eater’, little is known about his personal and professional life. For instance, Jassy happens to be the man who removed Parler from AWS, following the brutal riots at US Capitol Hill on January 6. The decision was taken in a meeting session termed ‘The Chop’, a recurring meeting of high importance held by Jassy for the best brainstorming and planning symposiums.
Jassy coined the unique name from the book ‘Charterhouse of Parma’, which he had read in college. Originally a conference room, ‘The Chop’ was later being used to refer to these exclusive and highly important meetings conducted by Jassy.
In these meetings, the next big ideas are discussed, analyzed, and planned out in detail. Employees who are included in ‘The Chop’ have to have the highest levels of diligence and preparation to attend. '"If you go to a Chop meeting with Andy, you better be ready," a former employee told Insider. They also added that at these meetings, Jassy unleashes his stricter side and he can easily assess if someone is not ready. “He's a shark who will smell a drop of blood from 100 miles away if you're not ready,” the source remarked.
It is at one such ‘The Chop’ meeting that Jassy took the decision to pull the plug on Parler, the social media app which was using AWS for its hosting. Parler was booted from Amazon’s service, Google Play and the Apple Store, after it was accused of hosting content from certain controversial online organizations preceding the violence on Capitol Hill on January 6. Amazon in a statement had then said it axed Parler because it was not confident in its ability to monitor content on its platform promoting or inciting violence. After the unprecedented Capitol Hill riots by Trump supporters, Parler came under fire for its lax policies in content-moderation and was held responsible for the violence. The app, hosted under AWS, did little to censor violent content or fake information, thereby leading Trump supporters to launch a planned attack. Jassy himself, however, does not involve himself in politics.
As per DailyMail, Jassy’s wife Elana has reportedly donated to the presidential campaigns of Democratic candidates like Bernie Sanders (a staunch critic of Amazon’s employment policies), Hillary Clinton, and even present President Joe Biden.
