Amazon's extraordinary evolution (2025)

2012

Amazon buys Kiva Systems, a Massachusetts-based maker of warehouse robots, for $775 million. The deal allows Amazon to amp up automation at its fulfillment centers, delivering products faster and with less need for human staff. Amazon later terminated Kiva's client relationships with retailers like Office Depot and the Gap in order to keep the technology to itself.

2013

Bezos says he will pay $250 million of his own money for the financially struggling Washington Post. His plan: To take it private and pump cash into new staff and better online products. The newspaper now says it is profitable. But the partnership hasn't been without headaches: President Donald Trump has claimed the move was an attempt by Bezos to buy influence in Washington, D.C.

Amazon begins delivering packages through the US Postal Service seven days a week in Los Angeles and New York. It will later roll out the service nationwide. Although Amazon's contract with the mail carrier is confidential, the USPS says it makes a profit on the deal.

2014

Amazon enters the smartphone market with its Fire phone, which integrated with Amazon's universe of media streaming options. But the phone flopped, forcing Amazon to take a $170 million writedown and cease production the following year.

Amazon buys Twitch Interactive, the three-year-old video game streaming company, for $970 million. The deal not only complements the work being done at Amazon's own game production division, but it helps pull the global gaming community towards its cloud platform, Amazon Web Services.

2015

After being blamed for the decline of independent bookstores across the country, Amazon opens its own physical retail location in Seattle. The store's opening is meant to market Amazon's growing list of electronic devices as much as it is to sell books. Amazon now has 15 bookstores in cities across the United States.

After unveiling its first smart speaker in 2014 to select customers, Amazon puts the Echo in 3,000 stores nationwide just in time for the holiday season. The Echo is the platform for Alexa, Amazon's virtual personal assistant, and therefore the key to a wealth of consumer data and purchasing decisions.

2017

After struggling for years in the intensely competitive grocery delivery business, Amazon ups the ante and purchases Whole Foods' 471 stores for $13.7 billion. It has since started to integrate the two companies' distribution networks and offer discounts to Prime members.

Pushing the boundaries of its growth in Seattle, Amazon sets off a race between scores of cities across the United States and Canada to host its second headquarters. Bids include lavish tax incentives and real estate for the campus, among other goodies. A decision is expected by the end of 2018.

2018

Fueled by investor enthusiasm for rising profits, Amazon's stock price rises enough to make the company briefly worth $1 trillion. It's the second company to pass that threshold, after Apple reached it earlier in the year, and analysts quickly started to predict $2 trillion won't be too far off in the future.

Under pressure from unions and progressives like Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, Amazon announces it will raise its minimum wage to $15 an hour, effective November 1. The change is expected to impact 250,000 of the company's employees, plus 100,000 seasonal workers.

More than a year after it first announced its competition for its second headquarters, Amazon finally chooses New York's Long Island City and Virginia's Arlington to split the duties as its HQ2. Both locations will receive a $2.5 billion investment from Amazon, and each will employ more than 25,000 workers over time. In addition, the company announced a new hub in Nashville that will employ 5,000 people. The development projects promise to bring each city a giant infusion of high-paying jobs and tax revenue, but will also impact area infrastructure and property values. Hiring begins in 2019.

2019

Amazon ditches plans to build a new headquarters in New York after facing backlash from local politicians and community members. In a statement Amazon said "a number of state and local politicians have made it clear that they oppose our presence” in Long Island City. The company’s decision was met with cheers by some and jabs from politicians frustrated by the company's decision to walk away. Amazon said it did not intend to reopen the search for a new HQ2 location and that its plans in Northern Virginia and Nashville, Tennessee, remain in place.

2020

Amazon's sales and profit soared in the third quarter as shoppers turned to the online giant to deliver goods to their homes in the pandemic. Amazon said its sales grew 37% compared to the same period last year, to $96.1 billion, and profit increased 197% to $6.3 billion. Sales at online stores, which include products like Alexa and items Amazon sells directly to customers on its website, grew 38% in the third quarter. Amazon's sales from third-party sellers that offer items on its site increased 55%. Revenue from Amazon Web Services, the company's cloud computing business and largest profit driver, grew 29%, while its advertising business grew 51%.

2021

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos will step down from his role as chief executive later this year and transition to the role of executive chair. He will be replaced by Andy Jassy. Bezos has been Amazon's CEO since its founding in 1995. He oversaw its growth from an online bookseller into a $1.7 trillion global retail and logistics behemoth, which has also made Bezos into one of the world's richest people. Jassy has worked for Amazon since 1997 and currently serves as CEO of the company's cloud business, Amazon Web Services, its biggest profit driver.