Amazon and the Emergence of an Empire

Jeff Besos was a Princeton graduate, working as a hedge fund executive in New York when the idea hit him. He believed that there was great potential for business on the internet, specifically the business of bookselling. In 1994 he moved with this idea to Washington State where he began making his vision a reality. On July 16th, 1995, Jeff Besos officially opened up his brainchild, which he named after the vastest river in South America, Amazon.

Shortly after the launch of Amazon, Besos invited a group of former colleagues to preview the beta for his online website, Amazon.com. While he was not the first person to come up with this online book retail idea, he was the first to make the promise to deliver any book to any reader anywhere, which put him ahead of the competition. Amazon was a success and was growing quickly and by the end of 1996, it had made a profit of almost $16 million. While his bookselling market was growing, Besos didn't want to stop the growth there. In 1998 Amazon began to ship other items such as toys and electronics. Besos received criticism for his company because he wasn't racking in as much profit as he could, but he rebutted this by claiming that his critics did not see the big picture and that he was putting his money back into Amazon to speed up its growth. Besos had the last laugh, as, by the end of 1998, Amazon had revenues of $610 million and in 1999 Besos was given the honor of being Time Magazine's Person of the Year.

After a few more years of rapid growth, Amazon announced its very own tech product called the Kindle. The kindle was an e-reader which allowed people to fit a massive amount of books into a small portable tablet. After the success of the Kindle, Amazon released the Kindle Fire which was also a huge success. Amazon also expanded its reach by purchasing the shoe selling company Zappos in 2009 and the Supermarket Chain Whole Foods in 2017. Today Amazon is a titan in many different industries, having accumulated a market value of $250 billion, along with making Jeff Besos the wealthiest person in the world.




Sources:
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/amazon-opens-for-business
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Amazoncom