From Online Bookstore to $2 Trillion Tech Giant

Amazon celebrates its 30th anniversary as a $2 trillion company on Friday, capping extraordinary growth since the company was founded as an online bookstore in a garage in the early days of the internet.

Founder Jeff Bezos stepped down as chairman of the board in 2021, but remains chairman of the board and largest shareholder of the company, which is now known as an e-commerce and cloud computing giant.

From its founding as a bookstore, the company has grown into an online retail giant where customers can buy almost anything.

The company has also expanded, producing many of its own products that it sells online, including electronics, with a popular range of tablets and smart home systems and speakers.

The Seattle-based company is now a leading technology company, both thanks to its Alexa virtual assistant that powers its smart home products and to Amazon Web Services (AWS), the company’s cloud computing division that has data centers around the world and provides server space to many of the world’s largest companies.

When Amazon last month became one of the few companies to be valued at more than $2 trillion — trailing only Nvidia, Apple and Microsoft — part of the recent stock price rally was attributed to growing demand for cloud computing thanks to the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) services.

AI services require a lot of energy and computing power, which means many companies need to increase their cloud computing power to support these new, in-demand tools.

Mr Bezos confirmed he plans to sell nearly $5 billion worth of Amazon shares. This follows a similar announcement in February that he would sell $8.5 billion worth of shares – the first time he has sold Amazon shares since 2021.

Looking ahead, Amazon’s dominant position in the e-commerce market is likely to face increasing competition from a range of alternative solutions and rivals, including emerging e-commerce companies in Asia, as well as the growing popularity of second-hand goods markets as consumers look to save money and do their bit for the environment by recycling old goods.

The company’s position in the AI ​​products market also faces intense competition from other tech giants and emerging AI companies.

The development of generative AI tools such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT has set the standard for a new generation of virtual assistants that are both text- and voice-based and can also search for and generate images and videos.

Amazon’s Alexa is currently primarily a voice assistant and conversational assistant, and many believe the company will need to evolve that concept if it wants to compete with ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini, and Microsoft’s Copilot.