Amazon, founded by Jeff Bezos in 1994, became the second U.S. company to reach a $1 trillion market value.
Bezos established Amazon as an online bookstore in Bellevue, Washington, in July 1994. The website opened in 1995, and the company later expanded into broad online retail, logistics, digital content, devices, and cloud computing through Amazon Web Services.
Amazon passed a $1 trillion market capitalization in September 2018, shortly after Apple reached the same milestone. The achievement reflected investors’ expectations for continued growth across retail and cloud computing. Amazon’s market value is not the same as its annual sales: revenue measures business activity over a period, while market capitalization measures the value investors place on its shares.