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Amazon

Organization

A major technology company that licensed content from The New York Times for $20 million a year to train its AI models, illustrating a potential business model for content creators.


entitydetail.created_at

7/20/2025, 10:25:50 PM

entitydetail.last_updated

8/2/2025, 6:38:33 AM

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7/20/2025, 10:36:33 PM

Summary

Amazon.com, Inc., widely known as Amazon, is a leading American multinational technology company established by Jeff Bezos in Bellevue, Washington, on July 5, 1994. Originating as an online bookstore, it rapidly expanded to become a comprehensive e-commerce platform, earning the moniker "The Everything Store." Amazon is now recognized as one of the Big Five American technology companies, with diverse operations spanning cloud computing (Amazon Web Services), online advertising, digital streaming, and artificial intelligence. The company's extensive portfolio includes subsidiaries like Zoox, Kuiper Systems, Amazon Lab126, Ring, Twitch, IMDb, and Whole Foods Market, which was acquired in 2017 to bolster its physical retail presence. Amazon also produces and distributes content through Prime Video, MGM+, Amazon Music, Audible, Wondery, and Amazon MGM Studios, and manufactures consumer electronics such as Kindle and Echo devices. As of 2023-2024, Amazon holds the position of the world's largest online retailer, cloud computing service provider, and smart speaker provider, and in 2021, it surpassed Walmart as the largest retailer outside China. With over 200 million Amazon Prime subscribers globally, it is also the second-largest private employer and second-largest company by revenue in the U.S. and worldwide. Despite its significant success and innovation, Amazon has faced ongoing criticism regarding its business practices, including worker conditions, anti-union efforts, environmental impact, and anti-competitive behavior. The company has also been impacted by broader economic factors such as tariffs and supply chain disruptions, as noted in discussions about the Trump administration's policies.

Research Data
Extracted Attributes
  • Type

    Multinational technology company

  • Founder

    Jeff Bezos

  • Industry

    E-commerce, cloud computing, online advertising, digital streaming, artificial intelligence

  • Nickname

    The Everything Store

  • Criticisms

    Worker conditions, anti-union efforts, environmental impact, anti-competitive behavior, surveillance partnerships, censorship controversies, exploitative treatment of small businesses and suppliers

  • Common Name

    Amazon

  • Founding Date

    1994-07-05

  • Official Name

    Amazon.com, Inc.

  • Classification

    One of the Big Five American technology companies

  • Initial Business

    Online marketplace for books

  • Founding Location

    Bellevue, Washington, United States

  • Key Products/Services

    Amazon Web Services (AWS), Prime Video, MGM+, Amazon Music, Audible, Wondery, Kindle e-readers, Echo devices, Fire tablets, Fire TVs, Amazon Publishing, Amazon MGM Studios

  • Market Position (2021)

    Largest retailer outside China

  • Market Position (2023)

    World's largest smart speaker provider

  • Market Position (2024)

    Second-largest company by revenue in the U.S. and globally

  • R&D Expenditure (2022)

    US$73 billion

  • Amazon Prime Subscribers

    Over 200 million globally

  • AWS Market Share (2021 Q4)

    33%

  • Website Visitation (Oct 2024)

    12th-most visited website in the world

Timeline
  • Amazon (initially named 'Cadabra') was officially founded by Jeff Bezos in Bellevue, Washington. (Source: Web Search Results)

    1994-07-05

  • Amazon opened as an online bookseller, offering the world's largest collection of books. (Source: Web Search Results)

    1995-07-16

  • The company publicly announced itself. (Source: Web Search Results)

    1995-10

  • Acquired Whole Foods Market for US$13.4 billion, significantly increasing its physical retail presence. (Source: Wikipedia)

    2017-08

  • Surpassed Walmart as the world's largest retailer outside of China. (Source: Wikipedia)

    2021

  • Acquired Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) studio. (Source: Wikipedia)

    2022-03

  • Reported R&D expenditure of US$73 billion, making it the global leader in R&D spending. (Source: Wikipedia)

    2022

  • Recognized as the world's largest online retailer and marketplace, smart speaker provider, and cloud computing service provider (AWS). (Source: Wikipedia)

    2023

  • Identified as the second-largest private employer in the United States and the second-largest company by revenue globally and in the U.S. (Source: Wikipedia)

    2024

Amazon (company)

Amazon.com, Inc., doing business as Amazon, is an American multinational technology company engaged in e-commerce, cloud computing, online advertising, digital streaming, and artificial intelligence. Founded in 1994 by Jeff Bezos in Bellevue, Washington, the company originally started as an online marketplace for books but gradually expanded its offerings to include a wide range of product categories, referred to as "The Everything Store". Today, Amazon is considered one of the Big Five American technology companies, the other four being Alphabet, Apple, Meta, and Microsoft. The company has multiple subsidiaries, including Amazon Web Services, providing cloud computing; Zoox, a self-driving car division; Kuiper Systems, a satellite Internet provider; and Amazon Lab126, a computer hardware R&D provider. Other subsidiaries include Ring, Twitch, IMDb, and Whole Foods Market. Its acquisition of Whole Foods in August 2017 for US$13.4 billion substantially increased its market share and presence as a physical retailer. Amazon also distributes a variety of downloadable and streaming content through its Amazon Prime Video, MGM+, Amazon Music, Twitch, Audible and Wondery units. It publishes books through its publishing arm, Amazon Publishing, produces and distributes film and television content through Amazon MGM Studios, including the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studio it acquired in March 2022, and owns Brilliance Audio and Audible, which produce and distribute audiobooks, respectively. Amazon also produces consumer electronics—most notably, Kindle e-readers, Echo devices, Fire tablets, and Fire TVs. Amazon has a reputation as a disruptor of industries through technological innovation and aggressive reinvestment of profits into capital expenditures. As of 2023, it is the world's largest online retailer and marketplace, smart speaker provider, cloud computing service through AWS, live-streaming service through Twitch, and Internet company as measured by revenue and market share. In 2021, it surpassed Walmart as the world's largest retailer outside of China, driven in large part by its paid subscription plan, Amazon Prime, which has 200 million subscribers worldwide. It is the second-largest private employer in the United States and the second-largest company in the world and in the U.S. by revenue as of 2024 (after Walmart). As of October 2024, Amazon is the 12th-most visited website in the world and 84% of its traffic comes from the United States. Amazon is also the global leader in research and development spending, with R&D expenditure of US$73 billion in 2022. Amazon has been criticized for its business practices, including surveillance partnerships, poor worker conditions, anti-union efforts, environmental harm, anti-competitive behavior, censorship controversies, and exploitative treatment of small businesses and suppliers.

Web Search Results
  • Amazon (company) - Wikipedia

    Amazon.com, Inc.,( business asAmazon,( is an American multinationaltechnology company engaged in e-commerce, cloud computing, online advertising, digital streaming, and artificial intelligence.( Founded in 1994 by Jeff Bezos in Bellevue, Washington,( the company originally started as an online marketplace for books but gradually expanded its offerings to include a wide range of product categories, referred to as "The Everything Store".( Today, Amazon is considered one of the Big Five American [...] Amazon.com is an e-commerce platform that sells many product lines, including media (books, movies, music, and software), apparel, baby products, consumer electronics, beauty products, gourmet food, groceries, health and personal care products, industrial & scientific supplies, kitchen items, jewelry, watches, lawn and garden items, musical instruments, sporting goods, tools, automotive items, toys and games, and farm supplies( and consulting services.( Amazon websites are country-specific (for [...] Amazon Web Services (AWS) is a subsidiary of Amazon that provides on-demandcloud computingplatforms and APIs to individuals, companies, and governments, on a metered pay-as-you-go basis. These cloud computing web services provide distributed computing processing capacity and software tools via AWS server farms. As of 2021 Q4, AWS has 33% market share for cloud infrastructure while the next two competitors Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud have 21%, and 10% respectively, according to Synergy

  • History of Amazon - Wikipedia

    Wikipedia The Free Encyclopedia ## Contents # History of Amazon Amazon "Amazon (company)") is an American multinational technology company which focuses on e-commerce, cloud computing, and digital streaming. It has been referred to as "one of the most influential economic and cultural forces in the world", and is one of the world's most valuable brands. [...] Amazon was founded by Jeff Bezos from his garage in Bellevue, Washington "Washington (state)"), on July 5, 1994. Initially an online marketplace for books, it has expanded into a multitude of product categories: a strategy that has earned it the moniker "the everything store". It has multiple subsidiaries including Amazon Web Services (cloud computing), Zoox "Zoox (company)") (autonomous vehicles), Kuiper Systems (satellite Internet), Amazon Lab126 (computer hardware R&D). Its other [...] On July 16, 1995, Amazon opened as an online bookseller, selling the world's largest collection of books to anyone with World Wide Web access. The first book sold on Amazon.com was Douglas Hofstadter's Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies: Computer Models of the Fundamental Mechanisms of Thought. In the first two months of business, Amazon sold to all 50 states and over 45 countries. Within two months, Amazon's sales were up to $20,000 per week. In October 1995, the company announced itself to

  • The History of Amazon and its Rise to Success - WordPress Websites

    On July 5, 1994, Amazon was officially founded under the name “Cadabra” (as in abracadabra) by young Princeton graduate Jeff Bezos within a garage space in his rental home in Bellevue, Washington. However, after just a few months, Bezos switched the name to Amazon Inc because of Cadabra’s unappealing similarity to the word “cadaver” (A&E Television Networks, 2015). Roughly a year later, the Amazon website was officially published as an online bookseller delivering to all 50 US states and 45 [...] Ranking fifth in the world in terms of market cap with a staggering $1.045 trillion (CompaniesMarketCap, 2023), Amazon has been able to cement itself as a global giant that has altered how we shop and live. Expanding beyond just delivering goods, it is also a media streaming service and manufactures other technologies such as “Alexa”. Amazon has quickly become one of the most recognizable company names throughout the world. It has achieved such success that it has become commonly used as a verb

  • Jeff Bezos - Wikipedia

    streaming, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence. It is the world's largest online sales company, the largest Internet company by revenue, and the largest provider of virtual assistants and cloud infrastructure services through its Amazon Web Services branch.

  • E-commerce, Amazon Web Services, History, & Facts - Britannica

    Although the company is best known among consumers for its retail platform, a majority of its operating profits (as of 2024) come from its cloud computing division, Amazon Web Services (AWS). Amazon is also emerging as a leader in generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) with its Bedrock platform. On the media side, Amazon is in the thick of the so-called “streaming wars,” with its Prime Video entertainment and sports subscription model—including original content—battling for share of [...] Amazon Web Services is a comprehensive cloud computing suite featuring more than 200 services globally. As of the 2020s, it’s also Amazon’s most lucrative business segment and, with artificial intelligence (AI) as a hot topic (more on this below), could continue to grow at a robust pace. [...] Amazon began as an online bookseller, but the company went on to become a major disruptor across sectors and industries. And as with many classic “disruptors” throughout history, affecting wholesale change required that Amazon invent (and sometimes acquire) new technologies and new ways of doing things. Amazon’s innovations—including the Kindle e-reader and Echo line of so-called “smart home” products—have not only improved the customer experience but also have altered how people and companies