Amazon, founded in 1994 as an online bookseller, grew into one of the world’s largest companies by market capitalization.
Jeff Bezos founded Amazon in Bellevue, Washington, initially operating the business as an internet bookstore. The company’s broad selection, online ordering, and delivery model helped it expand beyond books into many categories of retail.
Amazon later developed major businesses in cloud computing, digital advertising, streaming, devices, and logistics. Amazon Web Services became especially important because it sells computing and storage infrastructure to businesses, governments, and developers.
Market capitalization measures investors’ expectations about future earnings and growth, not simply the amount of merchandise a company sells. Amazon’s share price has also undergone stock splits, which change the per-share price but do not by themselves change total market value.