What is Amazon?
The everything store and the world's largest cloud provider — e-commerce, AWS, advertising, and devices under one roof.
- Category
- E-commerce & Cloud Computing
- Headquarters
- Seattle, Washington, USA
- Founded
- 1994 (Jeff Bezos)
- Employees
- ~1.58 million
- FY2025 revenue
- $716.9B (+12% YoY)
- Valuation
- ~$2.65T market cap (NASDAQ: AMZN, June 2026)
What is Amazon?
Amazon (Amazon.com, Inc.) is a public technology and retail conglomerate that runs the world's largest e-commerce marketplace and the largest cloud platform, Amazon Web Services (AWS). Founded by Jeff Bezos in 1994 as an online bookstore, it now spans online and physical stores, advertising, devices (Alexa, Kindle, Fire), streaming, logistics, and enterprise cloud.
Amazon generated $716.9 billion in net sales in 2025, up 12% year over year, with net income of $77.7 billion (up from $59.2 billion in 2024). Its three reporting segments are North America ($426.3B), International ($161.9B), and AWS ($128.7B); AWS alone grew 20% for the year and delivered roughly $45.6 billion in operating income, making the cloud business the company's primary profit engine even though it is only about 18% of revenue. Growth re-accelerated into 2026: Q1 2026 revenue hit $181.5 billion (up 17%), with AWS up 28% to $37.6 billion — its fastest growth in 15 quarters — as AI demand and Amazon's own silicon (Graviton, Trainium, Nitro, now a $20B+ annual run-rate) pulled cloud spend higher.
The retail flywheel runs on more than 200 million Prime members worldwide and millions of third-party sellers, who account for the majority of units sold on the marketplace. Amazon monetizes that traffic through a fast-growing advertising business (a multi-tens-of-billions, high-margin engine) and fulfills orders through one of the largest private logistics networks on earth.
With a market capitalization around $2.65 trillion (NASDAQ: AMZN) and roughly 1.58 million employees as of the end of 2025, Amazon remains one of the most valuable companies in the world and a dominant force in both consumer retail and enterprise infrastructure — even as a record SpaceX IPO briefly leapfrogged it in the most-valuable rankings in June 2026 and Amazon trimmed ~30,000 corporate roles between late 2025 and mid-2026.
What does Amazon offer?
Amazon operates across e-commerce, cloud computing, advertising, devices, streaming, and logistics — a portfolio few companies match in breadth.
- Amazon.com Marketplace· E-commerce
- Third-Party Seller Services (FBA)· E-commerce
- Amazon Prime· Subscription
- Amazon Web Services (AWS)· Cloud
- Amazon Advertising· Advertising
- Alexa & Echo· Devices
- Kindle & Fire· Devices
- Prime Video· Media & Streaming
- Whole Foods Market· Grocery / Physical Retail
- Amazon Logistics· Fulfillment & Delivery
- Amazon Bedrock & SageMaker (AI)· Cloud / AI
- Trainium & Graviton (silicon)· AI / Chips
How does Amazon make money?
Amazon makes money four ways: retail (first-party sales and Prime subscriptions), third-party seller fees and fulfillment, AWS consumption-based cloud, and advertising. AWS and advertising are the highest-margin engines, while retail drives volume and the Prime flywheel.
On the consumer side, Prime costs $139 per year or $14.99 per month in the U.S. (with a discounted $69/year — $7.49/month — student tier), bundling fast shipping, Prime Video, and other perks to lock in repeat purchasing; the $139 price has held since 2022, though analysts widely expect a hike in 2026. Third-party sellers — who account for the majority of units sold — pay referral fees (commonly ~8–15% of item price) plus Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) storage and pick-pack-ship fees, turning the marketplace into a high-margin services business.
AWS is pure pay-as-you-go consumption: S3 object storage starts around $0.023 per GB-month, and an EC2 t3/t2.micro on-demand instance runs roughly $0.01 per hour, with steep discounts for reserved, savings-plan, and spot capacity. Because AWS is sold on usage with no upfront commitment, it scales with customers' workloads and generated roughly $45.6 billion of operating income in 2025; Amazon's in-house chips (Graviton for general compute, Trainium/Inferentia for AI) let it undercut rivals on price-performance while protecting margin.
Advertising — sponsored product placements across the marketplace plus Prime Video ads — has become a multi-tens-of-billions business that monetizes the same traffic retail already attracts, at margins closer to AWS than to retail. The combination of low-margin retail volume funding high-margin cloud and ads is the core of Amazon's economics, and the company is reinvesting the profits into a $100B+/year AI and data-center capex program.
Who leads Amazon?
Amazon is led by President & CEO Andy Jassy, with founder Jeff Bezos as Executive Chairman. A 28-member 'S-team' of senior VPs runs the major businesses, including AWS, Worldwide Stores, finance, and technology.
- Andy JassyPresident & Chief Executive OfficerCEO since July 2021 (joined 1997)Built and ran AWS from inception before succeeding Jeff Bezos as Amazon CEO; now driving an AI-led efficiency push and ~30,000 corporate role cuts.
- Jeff BezosFounder & Executive ChairmanFounder 1994; Executive Chairman since 2021Founded Amazon as an online bookstore and built it into a trillion-dollar conglomerate; remains the largest individual shareholder and chairs the board.
- Brian OlsavskySenior Vice President & Chief Financial OfficerCFO since June 2015Longtime finance leader overseeing capital allocation, including the $100B+/year AI and data-center capex plan; still CFO as of Q1 2026.
- Matt GarmanCEO, Amazon Web ServicesAWS CEO since June 2024 (joined 2006)Career AWS leader who ran sales and product before taking over the cloud unit from Adam Selipsky.
- Doug HerringtonCEO, Worldwide Amazon StoresCEO Worldwide Stores since 2022Runs global e-commerce and physical retail, including Amazon Fresh and Whole Foods.
- Dr. Werner VogelsVice President & Chief Technology OfficerCTO since 2005Architect of Amazon's scalable, service-oriented technology philosophy and a public face of AWS.
- Beth GalettiSVP, People eXperience & Technology (Chief HR Officer)S-team HR leader since 2017Leads global HR for a ~1.58M-person workforce — talent, leadership development, and workplace safety.
How do you contact Amazon's leadership?
Amazon does not publish individual executive emails. Internally it uses a firstname.lastname@amazon.com convention, while a first-initial + last name variant (e.g. ajassy@amazon.com) also appears across the org; the personal addresses below FOLLOW that pattern and are inferred, not confirmed. Press inquiries route to the verified, published media address amazon-pr@amazon.com.
firstname.lastname@amazon.com (also [first-initial][last], e.g. ajassy@amazon.com)How much funding has Amazon raised?
As a private startup Amazon raised only about $8 million in venture capital (a single Series A from Kleiner Perkins) plus roughly $1 million in earlier seed/angel money, before raising about $54 million in its 1997 IPO. It has been public ever since and now carries a market capitalization of roughly $2.65 trillion (NASDAQ: AMZN).
In 1994–1995, Jeff Bezos seeded Amazon with about $10,000 of his own money plus follow-on personal loans of roughly $84,000, then raised about $1 million from his family and roughly 20 angel investors (around $50,000 each) to get the bookstore off the ground at a valuation near $5 million.
In 1995–1996, Kleiner Perkins led Amazon's only institutional venture round — an $8 million Series A — with partner John Doerr joining the board at a valuation of around $60 million. That was the last private capital Amazon ever needed.
Amazon IPO'd on May 15, 1997 at $18 per share on NASDAQ, raising about $54 million at an initial market value near $438 million. Since then it has funded growth from operating cash flow and debt rather than equity raises, compounding from that ~$438M IPO valuation to roughly $2.65 trillion in mid-2026 — making Kleiner's sub-$10M venture stake one of the highest-returning bets in VC history.
How did Amazon get here?
From a 1994 garage bookstore to a ~$2.65 trillion conglomerate spanning e-commerce, cloud, and AI.
- July 1994Amazon foundedJeff Bezos incorporates Amazon as an online bookstore in Bellevue/Seattle, Washington.
- 1995–1996$8M Series A from Kleiner PerkinsAmazon's only VC round; John Doerr joins the board at roughly a $60M valuation.
- May 1997IPO on NASDAQGoes public at $18/share, raising ~$54M at a ~$438M market value.
- March 2006AWS launchesAmazon Web Services debuts S3 and EC2, creating the modern public cloud market.
- August 2017Acquires Whole Foods$13.7 billion all-cash deal pushes Amazon into physical grocery and retail.
- July 2021Andy Jassy becomes CEOFounder Jeff Bezos steps back to Executive Chairman; AWS founder Jassy takes over.
- FY2025$716.9B revenue, $77.7B net incomeNet sales up 12%, AWS up 20% to $128.7B, amid a $100B+/year AI/cloud capex plan.
- Q1 2026AWS re-accelerates to +28%Revenue $181.5B (+17%); AWS hits $37.6B, its fastest growth in 15 quarters, on AI demand.
Who are Amazon's competitors?
Amazon competes on multiple fronts: Walmart and Alibaba in retail, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud in cloud, and Shopify and Temu in marketplace/commerce enablement.
- WalmartLargest physical retailer and Amazon's closest revenue rival (~$700B+ annual), strong in omnichannel grocery and in-store pickup.
- Microsoft AzureAWS's biggest cloud rival (~24% market share vs AWS ~30%), strongest in enterprise software integration and OpenAI/AI.
- Google Cloud#3 hyperscaler, differentiating on data analytics, Kubernetes, and AI/ML infrastructure (Gemini, TPUs).
- AlibabaDominates Chinese e-commerce and a major cloud player in Asia, competing internationally via AliExpress.
- ShopifyPowers millions of independent DTC brands, enabling merchants to sell outside Amazon's marketplace.
- PDD Holdings (Temu)Ultra-low-price cross-border marketplace squeezing the budget end of Amazon's selection.
Amazon — frequently asked questions
