Amazon is the company founded in 1994 as an online bookstore that became a major cloud-computing business.
Jeff Bezos founded Amazon in 1994, and the company began operating online in 1995. It initially sold books because a digital catalog could offer far more titles than a typical physical bookstore. Amazon then expanded into many retail categories and developed logistics, devices, digital media, advertising, and subscription services.
Amazon Web Services, or AWS, launched in the mid-2000s and became a major provider of on-demand computing, storage, and database services. AWS helped popularize infrastructure rented over the internet rather than purchased and operated entirely by each customer.
Amazon’s stock-market value reflects investors’ assessment of all these businesses, not just its retail operation. The company’s original name and business are also easy to confuse with Amazon Web Services: AWS is a division of Amazon, not a separate publicly traded company.