What was the last thing you bought and how did you buy it? Did you buy it offline or online? Most probably you would have bought it online due to this pandemic. If you did that then you are not the only one doing that. There are probably millions or billions of people who are doing the same thing right now. Not only now but even before the pandemic, many people were buying all kinds of things online. But this was not always the case. Just two decades ago the world was a totally different place compared to what it is today. Not many people would have believed that they would one day be able to order everything online. As the years went by the technology has become more and more sophisticated. This has helped the foundation of e-commerce solutions. But what was key in the explosion of the e-commerce industry is the rise of internet usage.
Over the years the internet has become cheaper and faster. Today there are probably no countries that do not have the internet. If you see everyone has a smartphone and internet connection these days which makes it far easier for them to order anything from the internet. You can literally order anything from online stores. From clothes to appliances to the food you name it and the tech companies have covered it all. But before all this, there were the first e-commerce websites that have started it all. They had a vision that one day they would deliver all kinds of products to people’s homes. One such company is Amazon. If you are an online shopper then you must have ordered from Amazon at least once. But not many people know who owns it. This article is completely about that before knowing that let’s know a little more about the company.
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History of Amazon
A lot of people might know that Jeff Bezos has started the company. But not all of them when it was started and how it became this e-commerce giant that we are seeing right now. Let’s take a look at that journey. Many people think that the story of Jeff Bezos is a rag to riches one but this is not true. The parents of Jeff Bezos were well off. They have given him nearly $250,000 to start the company. With that money, Jeff Bezos started Amazon in the year 1994 in Washington. Amazon was not like the way you know it when it was started. It did not have any intentions of selling anything and everything. Amazon started as an online platform whose sole intention was to sell books. But after a few years, a of that has changed. After the first three years of its foundation, the company went public.
This is when Amazon started evolving into the e-commerce platform you know today. After the first year of the company going public, it started selling other products like toys, video games, electronics, and a few other consumer goods. In 2002 Amazon also started its own cloud computing platform that is Amazon Web services. If you know anything about cloud computing then you will definitely know how big AWS is in cloud computing. Most of the companies that use cloud services use AWS. This is because the company doesn’t have a subscription model. Companies pay for the number of resources they have used and it provides unlimited resources. Over the years Amazon has ventured into almost every sector. One of its popular recent ventures is Amazon prime which is an online movie streaming platform. Apart from that they also have a number of other products like Kindle, Appstore, Alexa, Amazon Fresh, and others.
Who owns Amazon?
Now that you have learned that the company went public in 1997 you must have understood that many people hold the shares of the company. Here you will be looking at the individual shareholders and institutional shareholders who own most of the shares. Let’s look at individual shareholders first.
Jeff Bezos
This should come as no surprise as Jeff Bezos is the founder and the current CEO of the company. Amazon has made Jeff Bezos the richest man in the world. This has got him so much fame after his net worth surpassed that of Bill gates. Jeff Bezos owns an incredible 11.1% stake in Amazon which is 55 million shares. This is outstanding when you look at the valuation of the company.
Andrew Jassy
The second individual who owns most shares of Amazon is Andrew Jassy. He is the CEO of Amazon Web Services. Jassy was one of the key members in making Amazon Web Services the largest cloud computing company in the world. But his shares pale in comparison to the ones owned by Jeff Bezos. He owns nearly 94,700 shares which are about 0.02% of the total shares. This may not look like much but it is a lot if you look at the scale of the company.
Jeffrey Blackburn
He has been the Senior Vice President of business since 2006. Blackburn owns nearly 49,000 shares which are about 0.01% of the total shares.
Now let’s look at the institutional shareholders of the company.
Advisor Group Inc
Advisor Group Inc is a brokerage company. It has more than $296 billion in global assets. This company owns nearly 7.1% of the total shares of Amazon which is nearly 35 million shares.
Vanguard Inc
This is a company that you might be familiar with if you have read the other “who owns” articles on Zeen. This company owns major shares in almost all the top companies in the world. It owns most shares of Apple, Netflix, Facebook, and even Disney. It is an ETF and mutual funds company that has $6.2 trillion in global assets. Vanguard Group owns 6.6% shares which nearly 33 million shares.
BlackRock Inc
BlackRock Inc is another company that owns most shares in all of the companies that have shares owned by Vanguard Group. This is also an ETF and a mutual fund management company. It has $6.47 trillion in global assets. It owns nearly 5.4% shares which are nearly 27 million shares.
Conclusion
These are the people and institutions that own most shares in Amazon. You can clearly see that Jeff Bezos owns more shares than anyone so it is safe to say that he is the one who owns Amazon. Learn more about Amazon by reading about the business model of Amazon prime. You can also know about people and institutions that own some of the biggest companies in the world. Click here to know who owns Disney.