Amazon

History of Amazon

Last updated August 8, 2026

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Founded
July 5, 1994
Founder
Jeff Bezos
Headquarters
Seattle, Washington, U.S.
IPO
May 15, 1997 (NASDAQ: AMZN)
Industry
E-commerce, cloud computing, consumer electronics
CEO
Andy Jassy (since 2021)

Amazon.com, Inc. is an American technology and retail company founded in 1994 by Jeff Bezos. What began as an online bookstore run out of a rented garage in Bellevue, Washington, grew into one of the most valuable companies in the world, with businesses spanning e-commerce, cloud computing, digital streaming, consumer devices, and logistics.

Over three decades Amazon repeatedly reinvented itself: it survived the dot-com crash, pioneered the Prime membership model, launched the cloud-computing industry through Amazon Web Services, and popularized voice computing with Alexa. By the mid-2020s it employed more than 1.5 million people and generated hundreds of billions of dollars in annual revenue.

Founding (1994-1997)

Jeff Bezos, a former Wall Street executive at the hedge fund D. E. Shaw, incorporated the company on July 5, 1994, initially under the name Cadabra, Inc. He soon renamed it Amazon, after the world's largest river, both to signal his ambition for scale and to place it early in alphabetical listings.

Amazon opened to the public in July 1995 as an online bookseller, chosen because books were a universally standardized product with a huge catalog that no physical store could stock in full. Operating out of Bezos's garage, the company shipped orders across the United States and to dozens of countries within its first weeks. Books offered a low-risk way to build the underlying technology, logistics, and customer base that Bezos always intended to extend far beyond them.

IPO and the Dot-Com Era (1997-2001)

Amazon held its initial public offering on May 15, 1997, listing on the NASDAQ under the ticker AMZN at $18 per share and raising roughly $54 million. The company pursued a deliberate strategy of prioritizing growth and market share over short-term profit, plowing revenue back into expansion.

It broadened beyond books into music and video in 1998, then into electronics, toys, and many other categories, positioning itself as the "everything store." When the dot-com bubble burst in 2000 and 2001, Amazon's stock fell sharply and many observers doubted its survival. The company weathered the downturn and reported its first quarterly profit in early 2001 (for the fourth quarter of 2000), validating the long-term model.

Prime, Marketplace, and AWS (2002-2010)

The 2000s brought the pivots that defined modern Amazon:

  • Amazon Marketplace let third-party sellers list products alongside Amazon's own inventory, dramatically expanding selection.
  • Amazon Prime launched in February 2005, offering unlimited two-day shipping for an annual fee (initially $79 in the U.S.). It became the anchor of customer loyalty and later bundled streaming and other perks.
  • Amazon Web Services (AWS) launched its core infrastructure services, including S3 storage and the EC2 compute service, in 2006. AWS effectively created the modern cloud-computing industry and grew into Amazon's most profitable division.
  • The Kindle e-reader debuted in 2007, reshaping the book industry and cementing Amazon's push into hardware and digital media.

Amazon also began a long run of acquisitions, buying the shoe retailer Zappos in 2009 for about $850 million (in stock).

Devices, Streaming, and Physical Retail (2011-2017)

Amazon deepened its investments in hardware, media, and fulfillment. It acquired the warehouse-robotics firm Kiva Systems in 2012 for about $775 million, accelerating automation across its fulfillment network, and bought the live-streaming platform Twitch in 2014 for roughly $970 million.

In November 2014 Amazon introduced the Echo smart speaker and its voice assistant Alexa, helping to popularize voice-controlled computing in the home. Amazon Studios expanded Prime Video into original film and television production during this period.

In 2017 Amazon made its largest bet on physical retail by acquiring the grocery chain Whole Foods Market for about $13.7 billion, giving it hundreds of brick-and-mortar stores and a foothold in the grocery business.

Leadership Transition (2018-2022)

Amazon's scale continued to climb through the late 2010s, and demand surged during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021 as customers shifted heavily to online shopping.

On July 5, 2021, exactly 27 years after the company was founded, Jeff Bezos stepped down as chief executive and became executive chairman. He was succeeded as CEO by Andy Jassy, who had joined Amazon in 1997 and built AWS from its inception. Bezos turned his attention to ventures including his space company Blue Origin and philanthropy.

In 2021 Amazon agreed to acquire the film and television studio MGM for about $8.45 billion, a deal that closed in March 2022, adding a deep library of intellectual property to Prime Video.

Recent Years (2023-2025)

Under Andy Jassy, Amazon focused on efficiency after its pandemic-era expansion, carrying out significant layoffs beginning in late 2022 and streamlining some businesses while investing heavily in generative artificial intelligence and continued automation of its warehouses.

AWS remained the company's profit engine and a central platform for AI workloads. For the 2024 fiscal year, Amazon reported net sales of roughly $638 billion and net income of about $59 billion, with AWS contributing more than $100 billion in annual revenue. By this period the company employed over 1.5 million people worldwide and ranked among the most valuable public companies on Earth, with a market capitalization measured in the trillions of dollars. From an online bookstore, Amazon had become a defining force in retail, cloud computing, entertainment, and logistics.

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