Amazon
How Amazon Expanded
From an online bookstore to one of the broadest platform companies in history.
Last reviewed:
History
Jeff Bezos launched Amazon in 1995 as an online bookstore. The company expanded category by category, then opened the underlying logistics, computing, and marketplace infrastructure to others.
Timeline
- 1995Amazon.com launches
- 2002AWS roots in S3 design
- 2005Prime introduced
- 2006AWS launches
- 2017Whole Foods acquired
Business model
Multi-engine: retail, marketplace, advertising, AWS, Prime, devices.
Key decisions
- - Opening up Marketplace to third-party sellers
- - Externalizing infrastructure as AWS
- - Subsidizing customer experience with Prime
Challenges
- - Regulatory scrutiny
- - Workforce and supply-chain issues
- - Capital intensity
Lessons learned
- - Long time horizons enable counterintuitive bets
- - Internal services can become external businesses
- - Customer obsession compounds
Workshop exercises
- - Identify an internal capability that could become a product
- - Design your 'Prime' bundle
Sources & further reading
- Amazon - official site — Web
- Amazon - Wikipedia — Wikipedia
- Amazon - Crunchbase — Crunchbase