Amazon founder Jeff Bezos speaks at the Kindle 2.0 launch event in 2009. Bezos founded the company in his garage in Bellevue, Washington 30 years ago on July 5, 1995.
Mario Tama/Getty Images/Getty Images North America
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Mario Tama/Getty Images/Getty Images North America
[Editor’s note: Amazon is among NPR’s financial supporters and pays to distribute NPR content.]
30 years ago today, Jeff Bezos founded an online bookstore in his garage.
The company Bezos later named Amazon is now one of the largest companies in the world — one of a handful worth $2 trillion.
Alina Selyukh covers the company on NPR’s Business Desk. She spoke with NPR’s Andrew Mambo about how Amazon has taken over much of the internet to become the “everything store.”
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Interview Highlights
Andrew Mambo: So let’s talk about the man who started it all, Jeff Bezos. What was he doing in 1994?
Alina Selyukh: Bezos was a Wall Street investment banker, and he really wanted in on the dot-com boom. Imagine a guy with thin hair, wearing khakis, driving a Honda. He was very frugal, but he was serious and focused. His other idea for a company name was actually irresistence.com – if you typed in irresistence.com, you would still be taken to Amazon.com.
Bezos wanted to build a store that sold everything, and he did it.
Mambo: It’s worth reminding people that Amazon originally only sold books.
Selyukh: Yes. He started with books because they were relatively cheap, didn’t break… pretty sturdy to ship. And there were only millions of them, so you could sell a lot of them.
Mambo: So how do you go from a bookstore to a global e-commerce giant?
Selyukh: Yes, Amazon has bought a lot of other companies: software, robotics, grocery stores. It has had a sales tax advantage for a long time—as an online seller, Amazon hasn’t collected sales tax for much of the country for about two decades. Plus, Amazon has pumped all of its money back into Amazon. It’s famous for delivering years of no profits without being pressured by investors.
And then Amazon created transformative products — think Kindle e-readers, smart speakers. Amazon made some pretty transformative business decisions like opening up its marketplace to small businesses… now these small businesses actually sell the vast majority of the stuff you find on Amazon.
And Amazon focused on two-day and then same-day delivery, then started charging for membership to get access. Now, enough people pay for Amazon Prime to live in the eighth-largest country on Earth.
Mambo: In recent years, we’ve also seen a lot of articles about the harsh working conditions at Amazon warehouses. What’s the human cost of building a company like Amazon?
Selyukh: Amazon is now the second-largest private employer in the United States, behind only Walmart. It employs 1.5 million people. And most of them work in its warehouses and fulfillment centers, packing and delivering your orders, often for minimum wage or just above minimum wage. It’s hard physical work.
This has led to a new chapter in the Amazon story, the union push. Amazon is fighting union campaigns really hard. So far, one warehouse has actually unionized in New York, but Amazon has refused to recognize the union and it’s been two years.
Mambo: So where is Amazon now? Now that they’ve become a major force in so many different industries, what’s next?
Selyukh: Amazon is in its 30s. The company’s knees are creaking a little and it feels a little bloated! In fact, the company has grown so big during the pandemic that it’s now downsizing some of its warehouse space.
I think there’s a big technological challenge for Amazon, which is catching up in the AI race. But really the big picture is that Amazon faces a federal antitrust lawsuit that could — though theoretically huge — try to break the company up. The lawsuit accuses Amazon of strangling rivals, which actually raises costs for both sellers and buyers over time. But that lawsuit will take years.
Some sellers are protesting Amazon’s fees and restrictions. Some workers are protesting the speeds and conditions.
But Amazon’s main defense all along has been that customers trust the brand, love the brand, so it will be interesting to see how Amazon can maintain that trust. Can Amazon stop the fake reviews, counterfeit products, inflated prices, search frustration, and stay ahead of the competition?
