Amazon was founded by Jeff Bezos in 1994 and later became one of the world’s most valuable companies.
Bezos established the business as an online bookseller, and it began operating from his garage in Bellevue, Washington. The company’s first name was Cadabra, but it was renamed Amazon before launching publicly in 1995.
Amazon expanded from books into general merchandise, logistics, digital media, consumer devices, and cloud computing. Amazon Web Services became especially important because it provides infrastructure and software services to companies and governments around the world.
Its market capitalization reflects expectations about several businesses rather than retail sales alone. Amazon’s share price has also been affected by stock splits, which change the number of shares and price per share but do not, by themselves, change the company’s total market value.