We all know Amazon. At one point or the other, we have all used it. What we do not know is that there are some things we are clueless about when it comes to the mega company. So let’s end that by shedding light on them in our list of 20 Things You Didn’t Know About Amazon
1. Amazon started in the garage of Jeff Bezos’ home located in Bellevue, Wash. Jeff is Amazon’s founder.
2. Jeff picked the company name “Cadabra” coined from the word “Abracadabra” initially before deciding to go with Amazon. The reason for the change of heart was when someone misheard Cadabra as Cadaver.
3. Jeff also fancied “Relentless” as a company name. Enter Relentless.com as your URL and see what will happen.
4. When Amazon started operating, in its very early stages, only books were sold.
5. The very first book to be sold on Amazon was titled “Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies.” It was by Douglas Hofstadter.
6. There was a massive programming error in Amazon’s early stages that allowed customers to deceive Amazon into sending them cash. How they did this was by ordering a negative quantity of books and Amazon will end up crediting the cash to your credit card.
7. Years back, 1997 to be precise, Barnes and Noble took Amazon to court, saying their 1990s slogan “Earth’s Largest Bookstore.” was not true. They both ended up settling out of court and Amazon did not stop using the slogan.
8. As Amazon began to take over, their first set of employees worked for nothing less than 60 hours weekly.
9. Amazon’s regular habit of employing several seasonal workers originated after the crazy holiday season of 1998. Amazon lacked workers so much so that the employees worked for a longer time and even involved family and friends to complete some of their work.
10. As per a book by author Jeff Stone, in Amazon’s early days a bell rang in the office every time someone bought something. After a few weeks, sales increased remarkably that they had to shut it off.
11. As of 2014, Amazon had over 117,000 employees all over the world. Right now, in 2019, it has increased remarkably.
12. Amazon’s fulfillment center in Ariz, Phoenix to be precise, is made up of 1.2 million square feet. Very large.
13. To reduce the workload on its warehouse employees, Amazon uses robots time help in collecting items. These robots are created by Kiva Systems, which is a company Amazon purchased 5 years ago for $775 million.
14. As it developed, Kindle was named “Fiona” after a character in The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson.
15. Amazon is a patent holder on one-click buying and licenses it to Apple, makers of the iPhones, iPads, and iPods. Therefore, whenever you purchase something on iTunes with 1-Click, Jeff smiles to the bank
16. Jeff Bezos is reportedly an extremely tough boss. A kind of employer does not fail to scream at workers. Employees that have granted interviews have attested to Jeff saying these things: “Are you lazy or just incompetent?”
“I’m sorry, did I take my stupid pills today?”
“This document was clearly written by the B team. Can someone get me the A team document? I don’t want to waste my time with the B team document.”
“Why are you wasting my life?”
17. Several ex-Amazon workers are successful business owners right now. Hulu’s Jason Kilar and Quora’s Charlie Cheever are some of them.
18. Amazon once listed a book about flies for $23,698,655.93.
19. Apple lost $4.8 million in August, 6 years ago, when its website went down for just 40 minutes. Calculating, that’s a loss of $120,000 every 60 seconds.
20. Ever if Jeff Besoz is Amazon’s CEO, he earns just $81,840 every year. Before you shake your head though, it is worth mentioning that he owns close to 87 million shares in Amazon valued at $23.5 billion. Making him the 20th richest man worldwide.