Amazon (company)

• 1. The Garage And The Book

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  Jeff Bezos stood in the converted garage of his home in Bellevue, Washington, on the 5th of July 1994. He had just relocated from New York City to start an online bookstore. The company originally bore the name Cadabra before changing to Amazon in November 1994. Bezos chose this location for its abundance of technical talent and smaller population for sales tax purposes. The website launched for public sales on the 16th of July 1995. It initially sourced books directly from wholesalers and publishers. Bezos retained the URL www.relentless.com which he purchased when considering a name for the company. That domain now redirects to the Amazon homepage. The business began as a simple marketplace for books but gradually expanded its offerings to include a wide range of product categories.

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• 2. Cloud Computing And Enterprise Services

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  Amazon Web Services launched in 2002 with a focus on providing APIs for web developers. These tools allowed programmers to build web applications on top of Amazon's ecommerce platform. In 2006 the service introduced Simple Storage Service or S3. This feature enabled companies to rent data storage from Amazon. Elastic Compute Cloud arrived in 2008 allowing businesses to rent computing power. AWS later shifted toward providing enterprise services. By 2021 it held 33% market share for cloud infrastructure. Microsoft Azure followed at 21% while Google Cloud held 10%. The subsidiary provides distributed computing processing capacity via server farms. Companies can access these resources on a metered pay-as-you-go basis.

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• 3. Physical Stores And Consumer Electronics

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  The first physical Amazon Books store opened in November 2015 within University Village in Seattle. This location measured 5,500 square feet and matched prices found on the website. Media speculation suggested plans to roll out 300 to 400 bookstores around the country. All locations closed in 2022 along with other retail sites under the Amazon 4-Star brand. Amazon also produces consumer electronics including Kindle e-readers and Echo devices. Fire tablets and Fire TVs round out their hardware lineup. A household robot named Astro launched in September 2021. It uses Alexa smart home technology to check on pets or people remotely. The device sends notifications if it detects something unusual. In January 2026 Amazon announced it would close all of its Amazon Go and Amazon Fresh stores to shift focus to online same-day delivery.

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• 4. Acquisitions And Subsidiary Portfolio

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  Amazon purchased Whole Foods Market in August 2017 for $13.7 billion. This deal substantially increased its market share as a physical retailer. Twitch arrived in August 2014 for $970 million. The site became known as the ESPN of esports by senior editors. Ring joined the portfolio in 2018 for US$1 billion. Jamie Siminoff founded this home automation company in 2013. Audible was acquired for about $300 million in March 2008. It is now the world's largest producer of downloadable audiobooks. Zoox operates self-driving vehicles in the US and expects to start charging passengers in Las Vegas in early 2026. Kuiper Systems plans to deploy 3,236 Low Earth orbit satellites. These assets diversified business segments beyond pure e-commerce.

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• 5. Labor Practices And Unionization Efforts

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  Workers led by the International Brotherhood of Teamsters went on strike on the 19th of December 2024. Strikes occurred in at least four US states with other facilities invited to join. Some Amazon workers in the US France and Italy protested decisions to run normal shifts during the COVID-19 pandemic. A group of US Senators wrote an open letter to Bezos expressing concerns about workplace safety. In January 2025 Amazon filed an objection to Saks Global's bankruptcy financing plan. The tech company invested $475 million into Saks' acquisition of Neiman Marcus. On the 28th of October 2025 the company announced plans to reduce its corporate workforce by 14,000 positions. This marked the largest round of job cuts since 2022. Employees were offered severance packages and support for internal job placement.

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• 6. Controversies And Ethical Criticisms

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  Amazon supplied law enforcement with facial recognition surveillance tools. The company formed cloud computing partnerships with the CIA. Project Nimbus provided Israel and its military with artificial intelligence services. Shareholders and employees criticized this contract for potential human rights abuses. Ring halted a practice of providing law enforcement footage without a warrant in 2024. Privacy-focused organizations like the Electronic Frontier Foundation praised this change. Sky accused Amazon of not doing enough to prevent piracy via jailbroken Fire Sticks in February 2025. An employee posted messages criticizing Project Nimbus on Slack in October 2025. Amazon suspended that worker who also wrote a letter to Andy Jassy. The company faced backlash for running a one-day deal promoting its Price Check app in December 2011.

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