Amazon

Jeff Bezos incorporated Amazon (originally Cadabra, Inc.) in Bellevue, Washington, starting as an online bookstore from his garage. The company launched its website on July 16, 1995.

Amazon went public on Nasdaq at $18 per share, raising $54 million. The IPO gave the company capital to expand beyond books into what became the world's largest e-commerce platform.

Amazon launched its third-party marketplace in November 2000, allowing independent sellers to list and sell products alongside Amazon's own inventory on Amazon.com. The marketplace transformed Amazon from a direct retailer into an e-commerce platform, dramatically expanding product selection without inventory risk. Marketplace eventually grew to account for over 60% of Amazon's total unit sales and became the foundation of Amazon's retail flywheel.

Amazon introduced Prime, a subscription service offering unlimited two-day shipping for $79/year. It became a cornerstone of Amazon's ecosystem, later adding video streaming, music, and other benefits to over 200 million members worldwide.

Amazon launched AWS with Simple Storage Service (S3) and Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), pioneering cloud infrastructure as a service. AWS grew into Amazon's most profitable division and the dominant cloud computing platform globally.

Amazon released the Kindle, a dedicated e-book reader with wireless connectivity. It transformed the publishing industry and became the foundation for Amazon's digital content ecosystem.

Amazon acquired online shoe and clothing retailer Zappos.com for approximately $1.2 billion in stock on November 2, 2009. The acquisition was Amazon's largest at the time and brought Zappos' renowned customer service culture under Amazon's umbrella. Zappos continued to operate independently, preserving its distinct brand identity and company culture.

Amazon launched the Kindle Fire, its first tablet computer, on November 15, 2011. The 7-inch Android-based tablet featured Amazon's customized operating system deeply integrated with Amazon's content ecosystem including books, movies, music, and apps. Priced at $199, it became a major competitor to Apple's iPad and established Amazon's Fire tablet line.

Amazon launched the Echo smart speaker powered by the Alexa virtual assistant, bringing voice-controlled AI into millions of homes. Alexa could play music, set alarms, control smart home devices, and answer questions using natural language. The Echo and Alexa established Amazon as a leader in the smart home and voice assistant market, creating an entire ecosystem of third-party skills and devices.

Amazon acquired Whole Foods Market for $13.7 billion, marking its largest acquisition at the time and a major entry into brick-and-mortar grocery retail. The deal instantly gave Amazon hundreds of physical stores across the US.

Amazon became the second publicly traded company after Apple to reach a $1 trillion market capitalization, driven by its dominant e-commerce business and the explosive growth of Amazon Web Services (AWS). The milestone underscored Amazon's transformation from an online bookstore into a technology conglomerate spanning cloud computing, digital streaming, and artificial intelligence.

Jeff Bezos stepped down as CEO after 27 years, becoming Executive Chairman. Andy Jassy, who built AWS from a startup into a cloud giant, succeeded him as CEO, marking the first leadership change in Amazon's history.

Amazon launched Astro, its first home robot, and significantly expanded its AI investments. By 2024, Amazon had invested billions in AI infrastructure and launched Amazon Q, its generative AI assistant for businesses.

Amazon closed its acquisition of MGM, its second-largest acquisition ever, adding a library of more than 4,000 films and 17,000 hours of television to Prime Video. The deal, first announced in May 2021, cleared the FTC's review window without challenge and marked Amazon's deepest push into Hollywood studio content as it competed with Netflix and Disney.

AWS makes Amazon Bedrock generally available, providing enterprises a unified API to access foundation models from Amazon, AI21 Labs, Anthropic, Cohere, Meta, Stability AI, and others. The launch establishes AWS as a major platform for enterprise generative AI, competing directly with Microsoft Azure OpenAI and Google Cloud Vertex AI.

Amazon reported accelerating AWS growth driven by AI workloads, with Trainium 2 custom AI chips gaining traction against Nvidia GPUs. The company announced a $200 billion 2026 capital expenditure plan, the largest in corporate history, primarily for AI infrastructure. AWS revenue growth accelerated to 24% year-over-year, driven by enterprise AI adoption.

At the What's Next with AWS 2026 event, Amazon launched Amazon Leo, an AI-powered assistant for work with a desktop app and expanded integrations. Leo was designed to integrate with AWS to enable enterprises to move data for storage, analytics, and AI. Amazon also expanded its partnership with OpenAI, bringing GPT-5.5 and Codex to Amazon Bedrock.

Amazon reported Q2 2026 earnings with net sales up 20% year-over-year, operating income of USD 27.5 billion (up 43%), and AWS net sales growing 37% to USD 42.2 billion for the quarter -- a USD 169 billion annualized run rate. AWS growth was the fastest in 18 quarters since Q4 2021, driven by AI workloads and chip demand. Amazon raised its annual capital spending forecast, signaling continued AI infrastructure investment.

Amazon's market capitalization exceeded USD 3 trillion for the first time, driven by accelerating AWS growth (37% in Q2 2026, fastest in 18 quarters) and surging AI demand. The milestone came amid a broader tech rally as Amazon and Microsoft gained a combined USD 1.04 trillion in market cap over two days following strong earnings reports.

Amazon Web Services and Nvidia announced a major expansion of their strategic collaboration to deploy 2 million additional Nvidia GPUs across AWS global infrastructure during 2027 and 2028. The deployment will span Nvidia Blackwell Ultra, Rubin, and Rubin Ultra platforms. The deal also brings Nvidia Vera CPUs to AWS, includes construction of AI factories for the U.S. government featuring 100,000 GPUs on secure AWS infrastructure, and expands co-engineering across networking, open models, data processing, and robotics.

A Boeing 767-300F operating as Amazon Prime Air Flight 7598 overran a runway at Miami International Airport on landing, striking vehicles and erupting in flames; five people were killed and five injured. The crash was the first fatal accident in the history of Amazon's in-house air cargo operation, which has moved hundreds of millions of packages, and grounded Prime Air flights while the FAA opened an investigation.

Amazon signed a long-term agreement with Generac to supply backup power generators for its data centers, with initial deliveries totaling USD 2.4 billion across 2027 and 2028, disclosed in a regulatory filing. Amazon also received warrants to purchase up to USD 340 million of Generac stock, vesting in tranches tied to as much as USD 8 billion in qualifying payments, and Generac shares surged more than 40 percent on the news. The deal is one of Amazon's largest concrete commitments yet to solving the power constraint on its AI data center buildout.

Amazon raised the minimum starting wage for full-time US core operations employees from USD 18 to USD 20 an hour, with average pay reaching nearly USD 24 an hour, investing more than USD 1.5 billion. The company also launched a 10 percent uncapped grocery discount including Whole Foods, and Day 1 Financial, a lifetime banking benefit through First Tech Federal Credit Union. The move came after years of stagnant base pay amid union pressure and automation fears at America's second-largest private employer.