Amazon.com, Inc. is an American multinational technology company which focuses on e-commerce, cloud computing, digital streaming, and artificial intelligence. It is one of the Big Five companies in the U.S. information technology industry, along with Google, Apple, Meta, and Microsoft. The company has been referred to as "one of the most influential economic and cultural forces in the world", as well as the world's most valuable brand. Jeff Bezos founded Amazon from his garage in Bellevue, Washington, on July 5, 1994. Initially an online marketplace for books, Amazon has expanded into a multitude of product categories: a strategy that has earned it the moniker, "The Everything Store". The company has multiple subsidiaries including cloud computing company, Amazon Web Services; autonomous vehicle company, Zoox; satellite internet company, Kuiper Systems; and computer hardware R&D company, Amazon Lab126. Other subsidiaries include Ring, Twitch, IMDb, and Whole Foods Market. Its acquisition of Whole Foods in August 2017 for US$13.4 billion substantially increased its footprint as a physical retailer. Wikipedia