22 Interesting Facts About Amazon (Company)

Amazon is an American multinational I.T. company based in Seattle, Washington, which deals in eCommerce, Digital streaming, artificial intelligence, and Cloud computing. The company is now counted in 5 top most information technology companies like Microsoft, Apple, Google, and Facebook. The company was founded by Jeff Bezos on July 5, 1994. So let’s dive into the facts of the world’s biggest eCommerce platform and one of the biggest information technology companies on the planet.

Bezos got its graduation from Princeton University in 1986 with a degree in electrical engineering and computer science after changing his major from physics.
After graduation, Jeff Bezos worked on Wall Street, and in the year 1990, he became the youngest senior vice president at the investment firm D.E. Shaw. Just four years later, he thought to open and run one of his own companies, which became the world’s most beloved eCommerce platform.
He started the company with the money that his parents accumulated over their lifetime. It took him over 50 meetings back then to get an initial investment of $1 million, and the most common question he faced was: “What is this internet thing?
When the company was just started in the year 1994, its name was Cadabra which was derived from the magical word “abracadabra.” After a few months, Jeff Bezos changed the name of the company to Amazon.com, Inc because a lawyer misheard its original name as “cadaver”.
Jeff Bezos selected the name of Amazon by looking through the dictionary. He settled on “Amazon” because it was exotic, and the amazon river was the biggest river in the world, from where he planned to make his store the biggest bookstore in the world.
The slogan of the company when it use to sell only books was marketed as the “Earth’s biggest bookstore.” Who knew at that time that it would be the biggest online store on the planet.
Jeff Bezos chose to sell books because he thought that there were more items in the book category than any other category and so he could build a universal section of books.
According to the general manager of amazon’s AmazonSmile program, the first product ever ordered by a customer on the company’s website was the book “Fluid Concepts And Creative Analogies: Computer Models Of The Fundamental Mechanisms Of Thought” by Douglas Hofstadter.
After opening its eCommerce store for books within just one month, the company shipped books to all 50 U.S. states and 45 other countries.
Initially, when the company was new in 1994, the company booked no profit as such. But in 1995, the company made $511,000, and in 1996 it booked revenue of $15.7 million. Over those time periods, its net loss expanded from $52,000 to $303,000 to $5.78 million.Then by the end of the decade, the company wasn’t that promising as it seems to. Despite having revenue of $1.6 billion in 1999, The Company still managed to lose over $719 million. Things did not get better in 2000; despite raising billions of dollars, the company had just “$350 million of cash on hand”.
Then by the end of the decade, the company wasn’t that promising as it seems to. Despite having revenue of $1.6 billion in 1999, The Company still managed to lose over $719 million. Things did not get better in 2000; despite raising billions of dollars, the company had just “$350 million of cash on hand”.
A prehistoric Ice cave bear skeleton was purchased by Jeff Bezos from amazon auctions. Although the Auctions resulted as a failed venture, it led to the discovery of Amazon Marketplace.
Amazon finally turned a profit in 2003, which was nine years after being founded and seven years after going public. Bezos was able to turn things around for Amazon by laying off one-seventh of Amazon’s workforce and closing some distribution centers.
The company now owns over 41 subsidiaries, some of which are Audible, Diapers.com, IMDb (internet movie database), Amazon mechanical Turks, Amazon Web Services ( AWS), Kiva Systems( now amazon robotics), Shop bob, TeachStreet, Twitch, and Zappos
The Subsidiary amazon web service, which deals in cloud computing and hosting services, registered revenue of 10.81 billion USD in the second quarter of 2020. Whereas Amazon Revenue increased by 40% to 88.9 billion USD in the second quarter of 2020.
The company ranks at no 1st position in terms of most dog-friendly in the North American region. The headquarters in Seattle has more than 7000 dogs in the workspace.
In 2015 the giant amazon became more valuable than Walmart retailer.
Currently, Amazon’s market capital is $1.7 trillion, which makes it worth almost five times that of Walmart Inc.
On April 1, 2005, the share price of the company was 34.01 USD. While on October 1, 2020, the share price was 3221.26, which counts the rate on investment (ROI) of 9,371.51%.
The company is currently the largest online marketplace on the globe. It has dedicated marketplaces for United States, United Kingdom, France, Canada, Ireland, Germany, Spain, Italy, Australia, Japan, China, India, Mexico, and new ones are always being added.
The fastest prime delivery ever recorded by amazon was in Birmingham. The order was placed at 2.46 in the noon and got delivered at 3 pm to a postcode in Sutton Coldfield – taking just 14 minutes and 8 seconds.
Amazon is 3rd most innovative company on the globe after Apple and Alphabet (Google).