Amazon

Template:CountryInfoAmazon is an American multinational technology company which focuses on e-commerce, cloud computing, digital streaming, and artificial intelligence. He has been referred to as "one of the most influential economic and cultural forces in the world", and the world's most valuable brand.

Amazon has that iconic smile that is his symbol which he puts on every box, bag and package. 📦

The smile can also be interpreted as an arrow, pointing from the letter “a” to the letter “z” in the word “Amazon”, signifying that Amazon has every product known to man, from A to Z.

Amazon has been criticized on various grounds, including but not limited to customer data collection practices, a toxic work culture, censorship, tax avoidance, and anti-competitive practices.

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History

1994–2009

Amazon, originally named Cadabra, was founded on July 5, 1994, by Jeff Bezos, who chose the Seattle area for its abundance of technical talent, as Microsoft was in the area.

Amazon went public in May 1997. He began selling music and videos in 1998, and began international operations by acquiring online sellers of books in the United Kingdom and Germany. In the subsequent year, he initiated the sale of a diverse range of products, including music, video games, consumer electronics, home improvement items, software, games, and toys.

In 2002, he launched Amazon Web Services (AWS), which initially focused on providing APIs for web developers to build web applications on top of Amazon's ecommerce platform. In 2004, AWS was expanded to provide website popularity statistics and web crawler data from the Alexa Web Information Service. AWS later shifted toward providing enterprise services with Simple Storage Service (S3) in 2006, and Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) in 2008, allowing companies to rent data storage and computing power from Amazon. In 2006, Amazon also launched the Fulfillment by Amazon program, which allowed individuals and small companies (called "third-party sellers") to sell products through Amazon's warehouses and fulfillment infrastructure.

2009-Present

In 2017, Amazon acquired the Whole Foods Market supermarket chain. As the leading e-retailer in the United States, Amazon reported net sales of approximately $178 billion in 2017 and boasts over 300 million active customer accounts globally.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Amazon experienced significant growth, hiring more than 100,000 staff in the United States and Canada. However, some Amazon workers in the US, France, and Italy protested the company's decision to maintain regular shifts due to the risk of COVID-19 spreading in warehouses. In Spain, Amazon faced legal complaints regarding its policies, and a group of US Senators expressed concerns about workplace safety in an open letter to Jeff Bezos.

On February 2, 2021, Bezos announced he would step down as CEO to become the executive chair of Amazon's board. This transition occurred on July 5, 2021, with former AWS CEO Andy Jassy taking over as CEO. In January 2023, Amazon announced the layoff of over 18,000 employees, mainly in consumer retail and human resources, as part of cost-cutting measures.

On November 8, 2023, Jeff Bezos unveiled a plan to sell approximately 50 million shares of Amazon over the following year, with a deadline of January 31, 2025. The initial phase included the sale of 12 million shares, generating about $2 billion.