Amazon, founded by Jeff Bezos in 1994, became a market-capitalization giant through online retail and cloud computing.
Bezos incorporated the company in Washington state in July 1994, and Amazon began as an online bookseller. It expanded into many product categories, marketplaces, logistics, digital media, devices, and subscription services such as Amazon Prime.
Amazon Web Services, launched in 2006, became a particularly important source of revenue and operating profit. AWS supplies computing power, storage, databases, and other infrastructure to organizations around the world, making Amazon much more than a traditional retailer.
Its market capitalization reflects expectations about both its retail scale and its technology businesses. A common mistake is to compare Amazon only with store-based retailers; its business model also includes advertising, streaming, logistics, and enterprise cloud services.