People usually get the timing wrong. If you ask a random person on the street when the retail giant began, they might say 1995 or maybe 1997 when the company went public. Honestly, it's a bit of a trick question.
Amazon officially started in 1994. Specifically, Jeff Bezos filed the incorporation papers on July 5, 1994. But if you were looking for the website back then, you wouldn't have found it. The site didn't actually open its digital doors to the public until July 16, 1995. This gap between the legal birth of the company and its digital "Grand Opening" is why so many people are off by a year.
The Garage and the "Cadaver" Problem
Bezos didn't just wake up and decide to build the "everything store." He was a senior VP at D.E. Shaw & Co., a fancy Wall Street hedge fund. He saw a statistic that the web was growing at 2,300% a year. You don't ignore numbers like that. He quit his lucrative job and drove across the country with his then-wife, MacKenzie Scott.
They landed in Bellevue, Washington.
Why there? Because Microsoft was nearby, and Bezos knew he needed top-tier software engineers. He set up shop in his garage. He even admitted later that he chose a house with a garage partly for the "startup legitimacy" it provided. It's kinda funny to think about now, but the garage wasn't even insulated. It was freezing.
The first name wasn't Amazon, either.
He originally called it Cadabra, as in "Abracadabra." That lasted until a lawyer misheard the name over the phone as "cadaver." Not exactly the vibe you want for a new business. He briefly considered "Relentless.com"—and if you type that into your browser today, it still redirects to Amazon. Eventually, he settled on Amazon because it was the world’s largest river, and he wanted the world’s largest bookstore. Plus, in the 90s, web directories were alphabetical. Starting with "A" was a massive SEO hack before SEO was even a thing.
Why 1994 Still Matters for Businesses Today
Understanding that Amazon started in what year—1994—is more than just trivia. It highlights the "Regret Minimization Framework." Bezos didn't want to be 80 years old looking back and wondering why he didn't try to catch the internet wave.
- Speed vs. Precision: They spent an entire year (1994 to 1995) just building the infrastructure before selling a single book.
- The Beta Test: When the site finally went live in '95, it was still rough. John Wainwright, a computer scientist, bought the first book: Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies by Douglas Hofstadter.
- Customer Obsession: From day one, Bezos focused on the customer, even when the company was losing money hand over fist.
The 1997 Pivot
By 1997, the company went public at $18 a share. If you’d bought in then, you’d be sitting on a gold mine today. But at the time, analysts called it "Amazon.bomb." They thought Barnes & Noble would crush them. They were wrong because Amazon wasn't just a bookstore; it was a data company disguised as a retailer.
They didn't just sell books. They collected information on what people liked.
By 1998, they added CDs and DVDs. In 1999, Bezos was Time's Person of the Year. The momentum was unstoppable, even though they didn't turn a real profit for years. They focused on "Day 1" thinking—the idea that the company should always act like a hungry startup.
Myths vs. Reality
There is a common myth that Amazon was an instant success. It wasn't. In the early days, Bezos and his employees sat on the floor packing boxes because they didn't have packing tables. It was one of the early employees, Nicholas Lovejoy, who suggested getting tables to save their backs. Bezos reportedly said, "That's the most brilliant idea I've ever heard."
Another misconception is that the garage was the fulfillment center. In reality, once they launched in 1995, they moved into a small warehouse in a Seattle neighborhood. The garage was just for the coding and the "dreaming" phase of 1994.
Moving Forward: Lessons from the 1994 Launch
If you're looking to apply the Amazon mindset to your own life or business, here are the takeaways:
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- Don't wait for the "perfect" name. If Bezos had stuck with Cadabra, he might have failed. Be willing to pivot when something isn't working.
- Focus on the long game. The year 1994 was about laying bricks. The results didn't show up until 1995, and the profits didn't show up until nearly a decade later.
- Choose your location wisely. He didn't stay in New York; he went where the talent was.
Basically, Amazon is proof that a simple idea, executed with relentless focus, can change the world. It started with a guy in a cold garage and a list of 20 possible products to sell. Books won because they were easy to ship and didn't break. The rest is history.
If you want to dig deeper into the early days, I recommend reading The Everything Store by Brad Stone. It’s the definitive account of how those early 1994 decisions shaped the company. You can also check out the original 1997 letter to shareholders; it's basically a masterclass in business strategy that still holds up today. Start by identifying your own "regret minimization" move—what's the one thing you'll regret not starting this year?