An Amazon stock split has long been on shareholders’ wish list, promising to make the company’s shares more affordable for individual investors. But it took Amazon more than two decades to get around to it, when its board approved a 20-for-1 stock split last week, subject to shareholder approval.
It’s just one of the long-awaited decisions that Amazon has made in recent months. Taken as a whole, the moves give the impression that new Amazon CEO Andy Jassy and team are working methodically through a list of difficult items that may have fallen by the wayside toward the end of founder Jeff Bezos’ tenure as CEO.
- Amazon more than doubled its maximum base pay to $350,000 for corporate and tech employees, aiming to help recruit top talent and retain existing employees.
- The company boosted the price of an Amazon Prime membership, increasing the annual fee from $119/year to $139/year to help cover rising costs.
- Amazon announced the closure of 68 retail stores, under the Amazon Books, 4-star and Pop Up chains, as part of a plan to focus on its core grocery and convenience stores and a new line of fashion outlets.
- The company reached settlements in labor and employment disputes involving warehouse and corporate employees (although its broader stance against unions remains the same and is coming to a head with new unionization efforts in multiple locations).
- In the lead-up to Jassy taking the reins last summer, Amazon instituted two new leadership principles that seek to make the company more accountable to employees and “the world at large.”
While these may be examples of Jassy coming in with fresh eyes and a new approach, these changes also reflect a longstanding Amazon ethos of challenging and questioning long-held positions, said John Rossman, a former Amazon business leader and author of multiple books about the company.
One of his books, Think Like Amazon, includes a chapter on the importance of never saying never, and not letting entrenched positions create a trap. The tumultuous nature of the past two years have underscored the importance this.
“You have to be willing to challenge the things that you’ve held true, because those may be the things that hold you back from the future.”
John Rossman
“You have to be willing to challenge the things that you’ve held true, because those may be the things that hold you back from the future,” Rossman said in an interview. “And Amazon has a history of rethinking past positions.”
He cited, as an example, Amazon’s past decision to move into bricks-and-mortar retail after years as a pure e-commerce company, which Amazon then revisited and adjusted again most recently by narrowing its retail footprint.
What could be next on Jassy’s to-do list? One of the positions long held by Amazon is that the company should keep Amazon Web Services in the corporate fold, resisting the urge to spin off the fast-growing cloud unit even if it could create more value for shareholders as a separate company.
Jassy, who repeatedly rebuffed this idea during his prior tenure as AWS CEO, reiterated in a September interview with CNBC’s Jon Fortt that spinning off AWS was “a long shot.” AWS single-handedly lifted Amazon to a profit in the company’s most recent quarterly earnings, further demonstrating its value as part of the company.
Then again, as Jassy himself has said, never say never.
What do you think? What else should be on Amazon’s to-do list? Comment on this related LinkedIn post. Thanks to everyone who offered their input on that post.
