Now, after a little over a year, Shmulik said Amazon has addressed most investor concerns by making dramatic improvements across the company.
“They made active decisions to focus on profitability and free cash flow expansion,” Shmulik told Business Insider. “A lot of that just comes down to solid execution.”
Shmulik’s assessment showed how Jassy’s effort to win over Wall Street is working. In his first 3 years as CEO, Jassy responded to Wall Street’s demands by slashing cuts and making more measured investments into growth areas like AI and Prime Video, while putting a new stamp on Amazon’s culture, as BI previously reported.
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After dropping to a 5-year low in late 2022, Amazon’s stock has more than doubled, and the company surpassed a $2 trillion market cap for the first time last month.
Amazon’s spokesperson declined to comment.
Jassy was put in a difficult position when he replaced founder Jeff Bezos as Amazon’s CEO in July 2021, Shmulik noted. In the first year, the pandemic-driven boom came to an end, tech stocks plummeted, and Amazon was left with a bloated organization. Soon, Jassy orchestrated a massive cost-cutting campaign that included over 27,000 job cuts.
Shmulik said another notable Jassy-led decision is the new Prime Video ad-free tier program. Amazon rolled out ads this year to its Prime Video streaming service, but members who pay an additional $3 a month can remove them. This is a distinctly different approach than competing streaming services that offer ad-supported tiers at a lower price. Shmulik said it speaks to Amazon’s commitment to driving free cash flow.
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“Jassy was handed a deck of cards that had a lot of cleanup required,” Shmulik said. “He’s delivered.”
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