Amazon was founded on July 5, 1994, by Jeff Bezos in Bellevue, Washington.^[6] The company originally started as an online marketplace for books but gradually expanded its offerings to include a wide range of product categories. This diversification led to it being referred to as "The Everything Store".^[7]

The company has multiple subsidiaries, including Amazon Web Services, providing cloud computing, Zoox, a self-driving car division, Kuiper Systems, a satellite Internet provider, and Amazon Lab126, a computer hardware R&D provider. Other subsidiaries include Ring, Twitch, IMDb, and Whole Foods Market. Its acquisition of Whole Foods in August 2017 for US$13.4 billion substantially increased its market share and presence as a physical retailer.^[8]

Amazon has a reputation as a disruptor of industries through technological innovation and aggressive reinvestment of profits into capital expenditures.^{[9][10][11][12]} As of 2023, it is the world's largest online retailer and marketplace, smart speaker provider, cloud computing service through AWS,^[13] live-streaming service through Twitch, and Internet company as measured by revenue and market share.^[14] In 2021, it surpassed Walmart as the world's largest retailer outside of China, driven in large part by its paid subscription plan, Amazon Prime, which has close to 200 million subscribers worldwide.^[15][16] It is the second-largest private employer in the United States.^[17]