Business / By Gennaro Cuofano / December 25, 2023 December 26, 2023
- Jeff Bezos is best known for his association with retail giant Amazon. The company also has a multitude of well-known and lesser-known subsidiaries including IMDB, Whole Foods Market, and Twitch.
- Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post and through Bezos Expeditions, has significant stakes in companies such as Google, Uber, and Airbnb.
- Blue Origin is another Jeff Bezos-owned company which he hopes to devote more time to in the future. Blue Origin is seeking to make space travel more affordable and reliable.
| Company / Organization | Business Category | Key Differentiator | Integration Strategy |
|---|---|---|---|
| Amazon | E-Commerce and Technology | Leading e-commerce and tech company. | Founded and led Amazon, focusing on online retail, cloud computing, and technology innovation. |
| Blue Origin | Aerospace and Space Exploration | Private aerospace manufacturer and spaceflight company. | Advances space exploration and commercial space travel through innovative technology and missions. |
| The Washington Post | Media and Publishing | Prominent newspaper and media outlet. | Acquired The Washington Post, supporting quality journalism and digital media development. |
| Bezos Earth Fund | Philanthropy | Climate-focused philanthropic initiative. | Establishes the Bezos Earth Fund to address climate change and environmental challenges through grants and investments. |
| Day 1 Fund | Philanthropy and Education | Philanthropic fund dedicated to education and the underserved. | Focuses on early childhood education, families in poverty, and homelessness. |
Jeff Bezos was best known for founding eCommerce giant Amazon in 1994. However, the entrepreneur owns companies in several industries, including health care, retail, robotics, real estate, and media. Many of these companies have been acquired by Amazon over the years, but some have been the result of direct investment from Bezos himself (through his investment arm is called Bezos Expeditions).
Amazon
The success of Amazon is well documented, transforming from a small bookstore to a retail behemoth offering cloud services and streaming content among other things.
Some of the most well-known of the 40 Amazon subsidiaries include:
- Audible – both a seller and producer of spoken audio entertainment.
- Whole Foods Market – a supermarket chain selling organic food that was acquired by Amazon in 2017. Whole Foods is now fully integrated with the Prime membership program.
- Zappos – a reputable online shoe marketplace that has been owned by Amazon since 2009.
- Twitch Interactive – a live streaming service for gaming and esports competitions.
- Digital Photography Review – a reputable website for all things photography established in 1998.
- IMDB – internet movie database IMDB is also a wholly-owned subsidiary of Amazon.
- Amazon Robotics – formerly Kiva Systems, Amazon Robotics is a company that manufactures mobile robotic fulfillment systems. These systems are now exclusively used in Amazon inventory management.
The Washington Post
The Washington Post is a major American newspaper that was acquired by Bezos for $250 million. The acquisition ended 42 years of the newspaper being part of a publicly-traded company.
Although the newspaper has been in print circulation since 1877, Bezos immediately shifted the focus to digital media to increase national and global readership.
Bezos Expeditions
Bezos Expeditions is the name given to the personal venture capital investments of Jeff Bezos.
The company was an angel investor in Google, with a $250,000 stake or 3.3 million shares that are now worth between $1-2 billion. Other notable investments include investments in Twitter, Uber, Basecamp, and Airbnb.
Blue Origin
Blue Origin is an aerospace company founded in 2000 as a human spaceflight start-up. According to Bezos, it will be a key focus once he steps down from the Amazon CEO role in late 2021.
The primary goal of Blue Origin is to make space travel cheaper and more reliable. To that end, the Blue Origin moon lander is set to be fully operational by 2024.
AWS Elemental
AWS Elemental is a company owned by Amazon Web Services. Before the acquisition, it was known as Elemental Technologies.
AWS Elemental specializes in multiscreen video and creates software that performs video encoding, decoding, and transcoding. This software can be run in turnkey, virtualized deployment, and cloud-based models.
Key Highlights about Jeff Bezos’s Ventures and Companies:
- Amazon: Jeff Bezos is renowned for founding Amazon in 1994. Amazon has evolved into a diversified company with subsidiaries spanning e-commerce, cloud services, advertising, streaming, and more. Some prominent Amazon subsidiaries include Audible, Whole Foods Market, Zappos, Twitch, and IMDb.
- Audible: An audio entertainment platform that Bezos has under Amazon’s umbrella.
- Whole Foods Market: An organic food supermarket chain that Amazon acquired in 2017 and integrated into its Prime membership program.
- Zappos: An online shoe marketplace that Amazon has owned since 2009.
- Twitch: A live streaming service for gaming and esports competitions.
- The Washington Post: Bezos acquired the major American newspaper for $250 million, focusing on digital media to expand readership globally.
- Bezos Expeditions: Jeff Bezos’s personal venture capital arm that made investments in companies like Google, Twitter, Uber, Basecamp, and Airbnb. Their Google investment, for instance, is now valued between $1-2 billion.
- Blue Origin: An aerospace company founded by Bezos in 2000 with a focus on making space travel more affordable and reliable. It aims to achieve this through projects like the Blue Origin moon lander.
- AWS Elemental: A company owned by Amazon Web Services that specializes in multiscreen video software for encoding, decoding, and transcoding.
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