50 Fun Facts About Amazon (Company)

What kind of product did Amazon sell when its website launched in 1995?

Bezos picked books from a shortlist of five because of the huge number of titles in print and their low unit price.

The curved arrow in Amazon's logo links which two letters?

It signals that the store carries everything from A to Z, and the arrow doubles as a smile.

Under what name was Amazon originally incorporated in July 1994?

Bezos switched to Amazon within months, partly because a name starting with A would top alphabetical lists.

In which year was Amazon founded?

Bezos had just left his vice-president job at D. E. Shaw to chase the internet's projected 2,300% annual growth.

Who replaced Jeff Bezos as Amazon's CEO in July 2021?

He had run Amazon Web Services from its inception and been its CEO since 2016.

In which year did Amazon buy the Whole Foods Market supermarket chain?

The deal was read as a direct challenge to Walmart's grip on bricks-and-mortar retail.

On which stock exchange did Amazon list its shares in May 1997?

The IPO was priced at $18 a share under the symbol AMZN.

Amazon's developers said the name Alexa is reminiscent of which ancient institution?

They also liked that the hard X consonant made the wake-word easier to recognise.

Whole Foods Market is headquartered in which city?

The first store opened there in 1980 and was wrecked by a flood the following year.

Amazon's rule says a team should be small enough to be fed by what?

In practice that means teams and meetings of roughly six to eight people or fewer.

Which audiobook company did Amazon buy in March 2008?

Amazon also owns Brilliance Audio, which it picked up in 2007.

In which year did Amazon announce Alexa alongside the first Echo speaker?

By January 2019 Amazon said it had sold over 100 million Alexa-enabled devices.

Which video-doorbell maker did Amazon buy in 2018?

The same year Amazon also bought the online pharmacy PillPack.

Amazon was founded in a garage in which Washington city?

Bezos had picked the Seattle area for Microsoft talent and a nearby book warehouse in Roseburg, Oregon.

Bezos dropped the original company name after a lawyer misheard it as what?

He then picked a new name from the dictionary, wanting something exotic and different.

Which bookseller sued Amazon in 1997 over its "world's largest bookstore" claim?

The suit argued Amazon was not a bookstore at all but a book broker; it settled out of court.

In the fourth quarter of which year did Amazon report its first ever profit?

The profit was just one cent per share on revenue of more than $1 billion.

What was the annual fee when Amazon Prime launched in the US in 2005?

Each later figure was a real price hike: $99 in 2014, $119 in 2018 and $139 in 2022.

In which year was the original Kindle e-reader introduced?

Its 6-inch 167 PPI display stayed on every basic Kindle until 2022.

The Kindle's name was picked as a reading metaphor; what does the verb mean?

Branding consultants suggested it as an apt image for intellectual excitement.

Amazon's HQ2 ended up solely in which location after New York was dropped?

The Crystal City area is marketed as National Landing; Amazon plans 25,000 staff there by 2030.

On which TV programme did Bezos reveal drone-delivery plans in 2013?

The service, Prime Air, did not begin real deliveries until 2022.

What did Bezos call the thought experiment that convinced him to start Amazon?

He wanted to avoid regretting, in old age, never having tried the emerging internet.

Which book-cataloguing website did Amazon buy in March 2013?

Amazon later folded its older book site Shelfari into Goodreads in 2016.

What does Amazon subsidiary Zoox do?

Amazon also owns eero (mesh Wi-Fi) and Kuiper Systems (satellite internet).

Kuiper Systems, an Amazon subsidiary, provides what?

Its sibling Lab126 handles hardware R&D such as the Kindle.

What is the name of Amazon's first household robot, announced in 2021?

It is powered by Alexa and can be remote-controlled to check on pets or home security.

In 2013 Amazon teamed up with which carrier to start Sunday deliveries?

It began in Los Angeles and New York before spreading to Dallas, Houston, New Orleans and Phoenix.

Which co-founder sold Whole Foods to Amazon in 2017?

He was the last remaining co-founder of the chain he started in 1980.

In which year was Amazon's acquisition of MGM finalized?

The deal cleared the European Commission two days before the FTC review deadline expired.

Who wrote the first book ever sold on Amazon.com?

The title was Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies, a book about computer models of thought.

At what price per share did Amazon go public in 1997?

Within two months of launching in 1995, sales had already reached $20,000 a week.

In which year did AWS launch its Simple Storage Service (S3)?

The Elastic Compute Cloud followed in 2008, letting companies rent computing power.

Jassy served as Bezos's first technical adviser, a role nicknamed what?

The job meant accompanying Bezos to meetings and debating opportunities with him.

What codename did Amazon use for the Kindle during development?

Bezos told staff in 2004 to build the world's best e-reader before rivals could.

Ivona, the text-to-speech system behind Alexa, was invented in which country?

Its creators were inspired by 2001: A Space Odyssey; Amazon bought it in 2013.

Which drone model did Amazon Prime Air put into delivery service in 2024?

The MK30 entered service in 2024; the earlier MK27 got an FAA airworthiness certificate for research in 2019.

Prime Video debuted in the US in 2006 under what name?

It became Amazon Video on Demand in 2008 and Amazon Instant Video in 2011.

What was the total value of Amazon's 2021 deal to acquire MGM?

Talks had started at an estimated $9 billion before the companies settled on the figure.

Amazon opened its largest campus in the world in 2019 in which city?

The 9.5-acre site was the first Amazon-owned campus outside the US and houses over 15,000 staff.

The first Amazon Go store was located in which Seattle Amazon building?

It opened to employees in December 2016 and to the public in January 2018.

Amazon's European headquarters are in which country?

Its UK base is at Principal Place in Shoreditch, London.

How many people were on the original AWS team that Jassy headed?

He and Bezos came up with the cloud-computing idea in 2003; AWS launched in 2006.

What was the nickname of the first tower at Amazon's Seattle headquarters, opened in 2015?

The wider campus is named "Rufus 2.0" after a dog that was once a company fixture.

Which country was NOT among the first three to get Prime outside the US in 2007?

France followed in 2008, Italy in 2011 and Canada in 2013.

Which branding consultant co-devised the Kindle name with Karin Hibma?

Cronan was also behind the naming of TiVo.

SaferWay merged with which store in 1980 to form the first Whole Foods Market?

The 10,500-square-foot store was huge for a health-food shop of the time and, unusually, sold meat.

Roughly how much did Bezos's parents invest in the Amazon start-up?

The figure is worth roughly $519,000 in 2025 money.

How much in damages was Toys "R" Us awarded after its lawsuit against Amazon?

A court let the toy chain unwind its exclusive 10-year supply deal in 2006.

How big was the Alexa Fund announced in June 2015 to back voice-technology firms?

It has invested in companies including Ecobee, Toymail and Mojio.