Amazon was founded in 1994 as an online bookstore and became a major cloud-computing leader through AWS.
Jeff Bezos founded Amazon as an internet retailer originally called Cadabra, and the company began selling books online in 1995. It later expanded into electronics, household goods, groceries, entertainment, devices, and logistics, becoming one of the largest retailers and technology companies in the world.
Amazon Web Services launched in 2006 and offered rented computing infrastructure, storage, and other tools over the internet. AWS became a major business in its own right and helped change how companies build and operate software. Its growth contributed strongly to Amazon’s market capitalization.
Amazon’s retail business and AWS are sometimes treated as unrelated companies, but both belong to the same corporation. The company’s market value reflects expectations about all of its businesses, not only online shopping.