Amazon operates the e-commerce marketplace Amazon and the cloud service AWS.
Jeff Bezos founded Amazon in 1994 as an online bookseller. The company expanded into a broad marketplace offering millions of products, while also building logistics, subscription, advertising, devices, entertainment, and cloud-computing businesses.
Amazon Web Services, or AWS, launched in 2006 and became one of the company’s most important operations. It provides computing, storage, databases, and other infrastructure to businesses and public institutions around the world.
Amazon’s market capitalization reflects the combined expectations for retail, cloud computing, advertising, and other activities. A common mistake is to treat Amazon only as a retailer; AWS and advertising are major parts of its corporate story and influence how investors value the company.