3 charts for you today exploring:
Jeff Bezos is stepping into a more holistic role as executive chairman, meaning that Amazon is set to have a new CEO for the first time in its almost 27-year history. That person is Andy Jassy, who first joined Amazon in 1997.
In the context of Amazon's business Jassy's credentials couldn't be stronger. Back in 2006 he led the team that set up Amazon Web Services (AWS), and he has been involved in running the division under various titles ever since — most recently as CEO.
Although most consumers know Amazon for its global e-commerce prowess, it is actually AWS that is still the profit center at the company. Amazon's most recent numbers revealed 2020 revenue of $386bn. AWS made up only 12% of that revenue number, but its sky high profit margins mean it makes up almost 60% of Amazon's total operating profit.
Stacks on stacks
AWS is so profitable because Amazon has been able to stack products on top of products on top of products. The website currently lists more than 175 different services from database storage, machine learning tools, blockchain networks, server hosting and application integration - to name but a few. That huge array of products wins them business from small companies, big companies, and governments.
Under Jassy's leadership AWS has grown into a market leader, with almost one-third of the cloud computing market. With that track record Jassy was always going to be a contender for the top job at Amazon and then last summer Jeff Wilke, who had been running Amazon's consumer business, decided to retire early - leaving Jassy as sole heir apparent.
Bezos the philanthropist?
Bezos, whose net worth is usually hovering around $200bn depending on Amazon's share price that day, reportedly wants to focus on other endeavours outside of Amazon, although he is still likely to be heavily involved in the most strategic decisions Amazon makes.
That's likely to mean time spent on his climate change fund, his space exploration company Blue Origin and his media interests — most notably The Washington Post.
Although not without substantive critics, Bezos now has a real opportunity to reinvent his legacy — not just as a towering businessman and capital allocator, but perhaps as a philanthropist. His ex-wife Mackenzie Scott has already signed The Giving Pledge, set up originally by the Gates family and Warren Buffett, promising to give away a majority of her own personal wealth. Bezos could follow suit.
Interestingly, he has already mimicked Gates' in his approach to stepping down — moving first into a role as executive chairman. If he also chooses to focus his efforts now on philanthropy and charity, with his energy and focus (and $200bn in his back pocket), his impact could be immense.
Next Sunday is Super Bowl LV, where the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Kansas City Chiefs will battle it out to decide the league champion for the 2020 NFL season. A lot of the usual Super Bowl traditions — big gatherings with lots of friends and family — may not be as easy but one thing remains constant; there will be ads, and they will cost a lot to run.
Peak Super Bowl ads?
This year a 30-second slot is set to cost $5.5 million. For $183,000 per second, you'd expect to be reaching a lot of people with your ad, and you are. Last year almost 100 million people tuned in to watch the Super Bowl live. That's a huge audience but it's actually down from the peak of 2014 when more than 114 million people tuned in.
For some context, Digiday have put together what you could buy for $5.5m in digital media spend. They estimate you could get 275m+ ad impressions on YouTube, 6.1m clicks from Google or 22 weeks of TikTok hashtag challenges with a top influencer. We'll chuck in that you could also sponsor this newsletter exclusively for a really long time (clearly the best option).
The decline in viewership, on linear TV at least, suggests that peak Super Bowl ads might well be behind us.
1) Netflix, and other streaming services, have dominated the nominations for the upcoming 78th Golden Globes. Netflix notched 42 nominations, ahead of Amazon & Hulu which both received 10.
2) SpaceX has revealed that it already has more than 10,000 users for its satellite-beamed internet service.
3) The New York Times has reported that they added 2.3 million digital-only subscriptions last year, taking the company to 7.5m+ subscriptions in total.
4) More than 1 million people have now filed for unemployment every week in the US, for 46 weeks in a row. Great chart from Axios on just how unprecedented that actually is.
5) If it's a slow Friday afternoon, check out the 18 minutes of pure unadulterated chaos on this Zoom call from a small English town called Handforth, where local town councillors can't agree... on anything.
