Amazon Corporation History

Direct Answer

Amazon was incorporated by Jeff Bezos in July 1994 in Bellevue, Washington, and launched Amazon.com on July 16, 1995, initially as an online bookstore. The company went public on May 15, 1997, at $18 per share. Over the following three decades, Amazon expanded from retail into cloud computing with AWS, consumer hardware with Kindle and Echo, digital media, grocery retail through the Whole Foods acquisition, and generative AI through investments in Anthropic and the Amazon Bedrock platform. Jeff Bezos stepped down as CEO on July 5, 2021; Andy Jassy, who built AWS, succeeded him.

Key milestones

CEO timeline

Four eras of Amazon history

Books to everything store (1994 to 2004)

Jeff Bezos resigned from hedge fund D.E. Shaw in 1994 and incorporated Amazon in Bellevue, Washington, writing the business plan during a cross-country drive. The company launched Amazon.com on July 16, 1995, selling books online. The name was chosen partly because it starts with "A," placing it near the top of alphabetical directory listings, and partly because it evokes the world's largest river, suggesting scale. Amazon went public on May 15, 1997, on NASDAQ at $18 per share, raising approximately $54 million. Bezos was named Time Person of the Year in 1999. The company expanded rapidly through the late 1990s, adding music, DVDs, electronics, toys, and tools. Amazon Marketplace launched in 1999, allowing third-party sellers to list products alongside Amazon's own inventory. AWS precursor services appeared in 2002, making Amazon's infrastructure available to external developers. This era established the customer-obsession flywheel: low prices, broad selection, and fast delivery feeding each other as scale grew.

Platform and Prime era (2005 to 2012)

Amazon Prime launched in February 2005 at $79 per year with unlimited two-day shipping. The program became the anchor of Amazon's consumer flywheel, locking customers into the Amazon ecosystem through a recurring membership. AWS was officially launched in March 2006 with Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service), creating the modern cloud computing market. EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud) followed later in 2006, allowing businesses to rent computing capacity by the hour rather than building and operating their own data centers. The Kindle e-reader launched in August 2007, selling out within hours and establishing Amazon as a serious digital reading platform. Amazon Studios launched in 2010, beginning Amazon's move into original video content. Prime Video streaming became part of the Prime membership bundle, adding entertainment value to the subscription. The 2009 acquisition of Zappos added footwear and apparel depth. This era transformed Amazon from an online retailer into a platform company with multiple business lines generating revenue from both consumers and enterprises.

Ecosystem expansion (2013 to 2020)

Alexa and the Echo smart speaker launched in 2015, creating a new category of voice-controlled home devices and establishing Amazon as a competitor in consumer hardware. The same year Amazon surpassed Walmart in market capitalization, marking a shift in how investors valued retail. The Fire Phone launched in June 2014 and was discontinued by October 2014, representing a costly and visible failure in the smartphone market. The Whole Foods Market acquisition, announced June 16, 2017, and closed August 28, 2017, for $13.7 billion, moved Amazon into physical grocery retail and gave the company 460 stores, distribution infrastructure, and the Whole Foods brand. Amazon became the second U.S. company to reach $1 trillion market capitalization in 2018, after Apple. The HQ2 process selected Arlington, Virginia, and Long Island City, New York; the New York site was withdrawn in February 2019 following local political opposition. COVID-19 in 2020 accelerated Amazon's retail and AWS businesses simultaneously, with the company hiring hundreds of thousands of workers to meet demand surges.

Post-Bezos and AI era (2021 to present)

Andy Jassy became CEO on July 5, 2021, when Jeff Bezos transitioned to Executive Chairman. Jassy had built AWS from its earliest days and led it to become Amazon's most profitable segment. Under Jassy, Amazon focused on operational efficiency in the retail business following the cost structure that expanded rapidly during the COVID years. The MGM Studios acquisition closed in February 2022 for approximately $8.5 billion, adding a major film and television library to Prime Video. Amazon completed a 20-for-1 stock split on March 17, 2022. Amazon Bedrock launched in 2023, offering generative AI foundation models as a service through AWS, positioning Amazon as a major infrastructure provider for the AI industry. Amazon committed up to $4 billion in investment in Anthropic through 2024, establishing a strategic relationship in foundation model development. Alexa received AI capability upgrades. AWS continued to grow as the dominant cloud platform, with generative AI workloads emerging as a new demand category alongside traditional cloud infrastructure.

Frequently Asked Questions

Amazon (AMZN) dossier

This page is part of the Swoopr Dow 30 company dossier series for Amazon (AMZN).

• Amazon overview and company profile
• Amazon Corporation History (this page)

References

• Amazon Investor Relations
• SEC EDGAR: Amazon.com Inc. Form 10-K Filings (CIK 0001018724)