Amazon.com in 1999: The Beginnings of Jeff Bezos's Company in a Video

Need something? Amazon has it. We're not exaggerating: clothing, computer parts, kitchen items, and even toilet paper appear in its catalog. How did it get to this? It seems incredible, but Amazon is a company with 27 years of activity, and not all of them were happy. However, by 1999 it had already become a very respectable force, even with the technological limitations of the era working against it.

From Wall Street to the Web

Jeff Bezos left a very lucrative career on Wall Street as vice president of D. E. Shaw & Co. to found Amazon on July 5, 1994. Originally it was called Cadabra Inc., but the mistake made by a lawyer interpreting it as "cadaver" led to it becoming Amazon a year later.

History tells us that the first book sold online by Amazon was Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies: Computer Models of the Fundamental Mechanisms of Thought by Douglas Hofstadter in July 1995, and its public introduction took place three months later. Amazon's initial public offering was on May 15, 1997, entering the NASDAQ with its current ticker AMZN. At that time, a single Amazon share was worth $18. And in 1999, this is how it worked:

Jeff Bezos's Legendary Desk

The first thing that catches our attention is Jeff Bezos's desk, which has become a legend over the years. It is indeed a door with legs made of 4-by-4-inch wood, and in response to the journalist's mockery, Bezos said it is a symbol to remember that "money is spent on things that matter to customers".

Some of the people who worked there don't have good memories of those desks, and they turned out to be much more expensive than everyone imagines, but the idea of "frugality" had been successfully installed. In 1999, Amazon.com was already on par with companies like Texaco, with a market capitalization of $30 billion.

Today, those $18 per share from 1997 have become $3,450. Amazon is a $560 billion beast, invests in franchises with extraordinary popularity (The Lord of the Rings is the most recent example), and is preparing a much broader landing in Latin America. But as they say across the pond, you can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs. Its strange "tax optimization" maneuvers and the conditions under which its employees work are at the top of complaints, making it clear that the Seattle giant offers no paradise.