27 years of Bezos and Amazon

1994, Jeff? Bezos quit his job as a hedge fund company and started Amazon in a garage in Seattle. In the past 27 years, with the help of the internet, Amazon has gone from an online book sales platform to a trillion-dollar technology giant, and Bezos has also become the richest man in the world from a person who packs book orders.

Now, Bezos decided to bid farewell to Amazon for the time being and pursue his space dream.

Amazon: Selling the books in the garage to the business empire

July 5 is the day when Amazon CEO Bezos officially stepped down, and a legendary era of global Internet online retail may be coming to an end.

Looking back at the last time Bezos resigned, it was 1994, which was also the period when the first Internet bubble appeared in the United States. 2300%! A set of data shows that the network usage is increasing at this rate every year.

Bezos was moved by this set of data. He made a decisive decision, resigned as the vice president of DESCO, a hedge fund company, got into a garage in Seattle and took out all his savings to start Amazon.

At that time, Amazon was just a niche second-hand book seller platform. No one expected that it would reshape the global retail market in the near future. Shopping malls are no longer popular, and people can receive all kinds of goods with a click of the mouse at home.

Within one month after Amazon went online, the company was able to ship goods to all 50 States and 45 other countries in the United States. In the five years after the establishment of Amazon, their customer registered accounts surged from 65.438+08 million to 6.5438+07 million, and their sales increased from 5.65438+00 million dollars to more than 65.438+06 billion dollars.

While the strength of the company is increasing day by day, luck has also brought a lot of bonuses. When Amazon went public on 1997, it met the first wave of investment boom from big-name investors, thus raising $54 million.

But even with the favor of capital, Amazon is still only involved in low-profit retail business. Wall Street believes that this company will never become a super-profitable big enterprise.

Now, no one will hold this view, because the cloud computing business has become Amazon's printing machine. Bezos predicted the potential of cloud computing earlier than anyone else. As early as 2006, Amazon has launched Web Services (AWS) in cloud computing. This is four years earlier than Microsoft's Azure and seven years earlier than Google Cloud.

For many years after that, AWS became Amazon's profit engine. In 2020, AWS' revenue only accounted for 65,438+02% of the company's total revenue, but it contributed 60% of the company's annual operating profit.

In fact, Amazon was not called Amazon at first, but Cadabra. Bezos chose "Amazon" to put the company name first. Bezos's reason is that the Amazon River is the largest river in the world, which breeds the most species, which also represents his desire to integrate everything into the platform.

As the name implies, after 27 years of development, Amazon has become a "big river" in the Internet field. From cloud computing to advertising business to streaming media, this company is almost everywhere. From 2065438 to September 2008, Amazon's market value exceeded $65438 +0 trillion, and now, this figure has reached $65438 +0.77 trillion.

Bezos: the richest man in the besieged world

Bezos' efforts for Amazon have also made him. 1999 Time magazine named him "Person of the Year", making him one of the youngest people to win this honor and calling him "the king of e-commerce".

Today, Bezos is the longest-serving founder of the four American Internet giants FAAG-with a market value of more than one trillion dollars-among Apple, Microsoft, Amazon and Google.

The soaring market value of the company naturally drives Bezos to become the richest man in the world. According to the latest real-time data of Forbes' global rich list, Bezos is worth $65,438+0.9/kloc-0.40 billion, ranking first.

"Bezos is a combination of pragmatism and idealism," said Wang Peng, an associate professor at Renmin University of China. Wang Peng believes that Bezos is planning a new round of career that can be realized in the foreseeable future after leaving his current job. It may include the integration of artificial intelligence and physical industry, and the exploration in the field of biomedicine.

But looking back on Bezos' journey, some are "unattainable". If investors think Bezos is a visionary and aggressive CEO, then in the eyes of Amazon employees, Bezos' image may not be so tall.

Bezos was selected as the worst boss in the world by Glory at the 3rd International Trade Union Confederation in Berlin, Germany in 20 14, which was the choice of over 1 61500 trade union representatives from1countries.

Within Amazon, there is a concept called "Jeffisms", the most important of which is customer first. Bezos emphasizes low price, convenient delivery and unlimited choices.

And such an ideal picture was completed by countless Amazon workers. But in Bezos' plan, Amazon's own workers don't have much space. An Amazon employee once said, "If you don't behave well, Bezos will tear you to pieces. If you do well, he will let you do it until you get down. "

This situation was more serious during the epidemic last year. In response to the surge in business, Amazon recalled its employees to the warehouse with an almost tough attitude and operated at full capacity. According to the statistics of 65438+ 10 last year, more than 19000 Amazon employees were infected with COVID-19 due to rework.

In addition to the complaints of his employees, Bezos is also unpopular in society. In the eyes of the public, it is natural to "pay more if you earn more", but according to the American news website ProPublica, Bezos did not pay any federal personal income tax in 2007 and 20 1 1 year.

Although Bezos is not the only rich man who avoids taxes, others usually use charitable donations to "atone" their huge wealth. But Bezos doesn't like paying taxes or donating money. Looking through the past donation records, Bezos only donated $65.438+0.46 billion to support charity, accounting for less than 654.38+0% of his total wealth.

Maybe the real world is not worthy of Bezos' future dreams. After leaving office, Bezos decided to devote himself to the space he had always been fascinated by. On July 20th, he plans to go into space in the first manned plane made by his company Blue Origin.

Sadly, however, a petition that does not allow him to return to earth has collected nearly 654.38+500,000 signatures.

Anti-monopoly: How does the new helmsman sail?

In fact, as Amazon's business has entered a mature growth track, Bezos has not invested so much energy in the company's daily operations in the past two years.

Whether Bezos announced his resignation or went to heaven, it had little impact on Amazon's share price or market value. The indifference of the market may prove investors' confidence in Amazon and the huge enterprise machine created by Bezos in the past 27 years.

Nowadays, it is generally believed that Amazon has established a set of smooth procedures for developing new products, managing discussions and making major decisions.

However, the new head of Amazon, Andy Jassy, is still crucial. The handover of Bezos and Jasi marks the first leadership handover of Amazon on the 27th anniversary.

As a follower of Bezos for more than 20 years, Jia's most famous achievement is the establishment of Amazon's huge AWS cloud computing business. But for him, it is not easy to keep Amazon's position in the future.

According to Zhang Xiaorong, president of the Institute of Deep Science and Technology, Amazon is now a giant with many development directions to choose from. As the world's top Internet integrated service provider, the future development direction is renewable energy and zero-carbon economy, which is also an area repeatedly emphasized by Bezos.

Zhang Xiaorong further pointed out that cloud computing is of course an important direction for Amazon now, but comparatively speaking, antitrust investigation is a problem that Amazon needs to work hard to solve.

If you want to wear a crown, you must bear its weight. After Jia took office, the first and most important problem he faced was more and more scrutiny from regulators. So he needs to go to Capitol Hill instead of Bezos to solve the company's "antitrust" problem.

Last year, in June+10, 5438, after conducting a 16-month investigation on the competitive behavior of technology giants including Amazon, the anti-monopoly subcommittee of the US House of Representatives concluded that Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google formed a monopoly.

At the same time, the US Congress is also considering legislating anti-monopoly, and one of the goals of this legislation is the huge business empire Amazon.