What's ahead

If the past is any indication of Amazon.com's future, the company will continue to expand and innovate. But how will its seemingly boundless capacity for technological innovation be affected by CIO Dalzell's departure? How will Dalzell's absence impact the company moving forward?

Wall Street analysts Devitt and Lindsay aren't quite sure, but they don't seem too worried, either. Lindsay notes that Dalzell has been "a major part of the value contribution" at Amazon.com, but that his company hasn't examined how the CIO's departure might affect the technology giant.

"Anytime you lose a talent like that, it's meaningful in one regard or another, but I really don't have a strong opinion on its impact on the business," says Devitt. "I assume they have a very deep bench."

That bench strength makes Forrester's Johnson believe that Amazon.com will carry on just fine without Dalzell. "Not to downplay his contribution, but such smart individual contributors are working there, especially on technology innovation, that I would be surprised if there was any impact," she says. "If you watch Amazon's history of executives coming and going, no move has impacted the company materially. Amazon is not heavily influenced by any single person save Jeff Bezos."

And it looks like Bezos is going to stick around for a while, according to Lindsay. "It's becoming clear that his vision is being realized," he says. "It's taken 10 years, but he's rebuilt top-line growth back up to 38 percent. Investors and stakeholders are very pleased with his performance."