Who was the founder and chairman of Amazon.com?

Jeffrey P. Bezos was the founder and chairman of Amazon.com. He launched the company in 1994 after identifying online retail as a major opportunity while working in finance in New York.

Amazon began as an online bookstore, chosen partly because books offered an enormous catalog that no physical store could stock completely. Bezos moved to the Seattle area, where the fledgling company operated from a modest home office and quickly expanded beyond books.

Bezos served as Amazon’s chief executive for more than two decades and remained chairman of the board from the company’s founding. In 2021, he stepped down as CEO and became executive chairman, while Andy Jassy became CEO.

A common mix-up is confusing Amazon’s founder with its current CEO: Bezos founded the company, but Jassy has led it as CEO since 2021. Another nearby fact readers often ask about is Amazon’s original name, “Cadabra,” before Bezos changed it to Amazon.