'Never imagined I’d be at the company for 27 years': Amazon CEO Andy Jassy

Andy Jassy had joined Amazon in 1997. (Image credit: AFP)

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy has recently revealed that he intended to work with the tech giant only for a few years and never imagined that he would spend 27 years with the company.

"When I think about my time at Amazon, I never imagined I’d be at the company for 27 years," he wrote in his memo announcing a mandatory return to office policy for employees. "My plan (which my wife and I agreed to on a bar napkin in 1997) was to be here a few years and move back to NYC."

Jassy said that part of why he stayed has been the unprecedented growth that the company witnessed. Amazon made $15 million in 1996 and in 2024, it is expected to make more than $600 billion. "But, the biggest reason I’m still here is our culture," he wrote. "Being so customer-focused is an inspiring part of it, but it’s also the people we work with, the way we collaborate and invent when we’re at our best, our long-term perspective, the ownership I’ve always felt at every level I’ve worked (I started as a Level 5), the speed with which we make decisions and move, and the lack of bureaucracy and politics."

This "lack of bureaucracy" is also what the Amazon CEO said he wants to work towards especially with the RTO mandate falling into place from January 2, 2025.

"I’ve created a “Bureaucracy Mailbox” for any examples any of you see where we might have bureaucracy or unnecessary process that’s crept in and we can root out… to be clear, companies need process to run effectively, and process does not equal bureaucracy, but unnecessary and excessive process or rules should be called out and extinguished. I will read these emails and action them accordingly," he wrote.

But Jassy's stand has been slammed by both Amazon employees and other working professionals who fear that other companies would follow the tech giant's footsteps and insist on them returning to work from the office five days a week.

"Please do note that this is (in a lot of cases) significantly more strict and out of its mind than many teams operated under pre-Covid. This is not 'going back' to how it was before. It's just going backwards," an Amazon employee told Business Insider.

Another employee referred to one of the tech giant's famous leadership principles and said, "Whatever happened to 'Striving to be Earth's Best Employer?"

Meanwhile, Amazon's move has also been slammed on social media with many calling it a "stealth layoff" or a "silent layoff" by many on social media because it is likely to push Amazon employees who want to prioritise a better work-life balance into finding new jobs.