Amazon has become synonymous with American consumerism. Want groceries? Get them delivered with Amazon Prime. Ordering a present for your mother-in-law? Amazon Prime. Want to see Meghan Markle in the TV show “Suits,” before she became the Duchess of Sussex? Try Prime Video. You get the picture.
The company started by Jeff Bezos out of his garage in Washington state on July 5, 1994 has grown into an e-commerce giant worth $2 trillion. But it’s faced its fair share of criticism, regulatory scrutiny, and financial woes. As Amazon turns 20, Quartz takes you through major moments in its history.
Princeton graduate Jeff Bezos started Amazon out of his garage in Washington state on July 5, 1994 under the name “Cadabra” — as in “abracadabra” — but changed it because it sounded too much like “cadaver.” The company launched its website one year later, becoming an online bookstore that delivered to 45 countries.
Amazon listed on the Nasdaq on May 15, offering 3 million shares at an initial $18 per share.
“Although the company has yet to produce net profit, several analysts say…they expect the company to rake in revenue in the multimillion-dollar range within a few years,” the Wall Street Journal reported at the time.
In the summer of 1998, Amazon said that it would sell a larger variety of goods, including clothing and computers. The New York Times reported at the time that Amazon was “the most successful merchant on the Internet” with just over 3 million customers.
Amazon laid off 1,300 employees, including workers in Seattle that had been part of union organizing efforts, raising concerns from the Washington Alliance of Technology Workers union that they had been targeted. Amazon told 450 of the 850 employees laid off in Seattle that, if they wanted severance, they had to sign a clause giving up their rights to sue the company and promise “not to make any derogatory comment in any format whether written, electronic, or oral, to the press or any individual or entity regarding the company,” Wired reported at the time.
Amazon launched its express shipping service, Amazon Prime, for a price of $79 per year, during its 2004 fourth quarter earnings report.
“Amazon Prime is ‘all-you-can-eat’ express shipping,” CEO Jeff Bezos said in a statement at the time (February 2005). “Though expensive for the Company in the short-term, it’s a significant benefit and more convenient for customers.”
The offering didn’t become widely popular until years later, reaching over 100 million subscribers in 2018.
Amazon bought Whole Foods Market for $13.7 billion in June as it looked to gain a stronger foothold in the grocery market, offering $42 in cash for each share. The move marked its largest acquisition to date.
Amazon became the second U.S. company to reach a $1 trillion market cap in September, after shares of the company climbed 1.9% to push its value past the $1 trillion threshold. It briefly joined Apple in the above-$1 trillion club, but fell back down to $990 billion minutes later.
Amazon once again passed the $1 trillion threshold after beating Wall Street’s expectations for its 2019 fourth quarter earnings. The company’s stock rose 9% in early trading on January 31, pushing its valuation to $1.02 trillion. However, Amazon closed the day with a market value of $995.9 billion.
Jeff Bezos announced he would step down as CEO of the company at the end of the year and become its executive chair. In his last letter to Amazon’s shareholders as CEO, Bezos talked about the company’s employees, customers, biology, and death.
Amazon completed its $4 billion investment in artificial intelligence startup, Anthropic. The company initially invested $1.25 billion in the startup in September 2023, and announced an additional $2.75 billion in March.
Its push into AI helped Amazon crossed the $2 trillion market cap threshold for the first time. The company is reportedly working on an AI chatbot, internally called “Metis,” to rival OpenAI’s ChatGPT. It joined Google-parent Alphabet, which reached a $2 trillion valuation in April.
Around the same time, Amazon was fined nearly $6 million for 59,000 violations of California labor laws.