Amazon was created by Jeff Bezos, who founded the company on July 5, 1994, in a garage in Bellevue, Washington.

Quick Scoop: The Basics

  • Amazon was founded by Jeff Bezos as an online bookstore that quickly expanded into what he envisioned as an “everything store.”
  • He started the company in a rented garage in Bellevue, Washington, after leaving his Wall Street job to pursue an internet business idea.
  • The company was originally incorporated under the name Cadabra, Inc., before he renamed it to Amazon.com, Inc.

Who Actually “Created” Amazon?

  • Legally and publicly, Jeff Bezos is recognized as the founder of Amazon; he is the one who incorporated the company and drove its early strategy.
  • His then‑wife, MacKenzie Scott, was closely involved in the earliest phase, co-writing the business plan and helping set up operations during the startup days in that Bellevue garage.

Why Bezos Started Amazon

  • Bezos used what he called a “regret minimization framework”: he wanted to avoid looking back later in life and regretting not joining the early internet wave.
  • After seeing data showing the web growing at over 2,000% per year, he chose books as the first product because of huge title variety and steady demand.

How Amazon Grew From There

  • Amazon launched as an online bookstore serving all 50 U.S. states and dozens of countries, then expanded into many product categories, earning the nickname “the everything store.”
  • Over time, it added major businesses like Amazon Web Services (cloud computing), acquired companies like Whole Foods and Twitch, and became one of the Big Five U.S. tech companies.

Today’s Context and Ongoing Discussion

  • Today, Bezos is best known as Amazon’s founder and former CEO, while Amazon continues under professional management and a huge global footprint.
  • Online forums and commentators sometimes debate how much early credit should also go to MacKenzie Scott and early employees, reflecting a broader conversation about startup “founder” narratives.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.