Amazon (Amazon.com) is the world’s largest online retailer and a prominent cloud services provider. It has been described as ‘one of the most influential economic and cultural forces in the world’. The company was founded in July 1994 by Jeff Bezos as an online bookseller. After quickly expanding through acquisitions of other book sellers in the UK and Germany, it then began to sell video games, electronics, games and toys. Amazon then went public in May 1997. It has expanded to sell a wide variety of consumer goods and digital media as well as its own electronic devices, such as the Kindle e-book reader, Kindle Fire tablet and Fire TV, a streaming media adapter. Bezos selected the name Amazon because it was “exotic and different” and was a reference to his plan for the company’s size to reflect that of the Amazon River, one of the largest rivers in the world. The business has done just that, with the company's membership and streaming platform, Amazon Prime, now having over 200 million paying subscribers worldwide. It distributes a variety of downloadable and streaming content through Amazon Prime Video, Amazon Music, Twitch, and Audible. It also publishes books through its publishing arm, Amazon Publishing, and film and television content through Amazon Studios. It has also owned film and television studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer since 2022. Amazon Products and Services:

• Product purchase and delivery
• Groceries
• Amazon Prime
• Prime Video
• Cloud Computing
• Amazon Fresh Supermarkets
• Self driving cars

Ownership Anyone can buy shares in Amazon via the Nasdaq as it is a publicly listed company. Jeff Bezos is the founder and largest shareholder of Amazon. He holds 14% voting power and has 10.6% economic interest. The asset management company Advisor Group inc. holds 7.1% of outstanding shares. The mutual fund group Vanguard holds 6.6% of outstanding shares. The biggest asset management company in the world, BlackRock, holds 5.4% of outstanding shares.