CCGL9067 Companies and People: Friends or Foes?

Journaling – Week 2
Name: Chung Yik Lun Anson
UID: u3593621
Industry: Online Retailing
Company name: Amazon.com, Inc.

The company I would like to study on is the Amazon.com, Inc. Being one of the
largest multinational corporations as well as the e-commerce platforms, it was
founded in July 1994 by Jeff Bezos and was later listed in US stock market in 1997.
Its headquarter is located in Seattle, US, and its current CEO is Andrew R. Jassy. It at
first focused on online book-selling business and expanded into an online shopping
platform in 1998, for example like the Free Super Savers Shipping, bringing a huge
profit and a high popularity among the world to it. Besides of its major business, it
also engaged in other work, like development of smartphone, which can be
exemplified by the Firephone in 2014, acquisition of Twitch and Whole Foods. In
2020, its market valuation had already reached US$1 Trillion and hired 1.298 million
employees. Although it is a worldwide corporation serving more than 200million
Amazon prime members, it still mainly targeted the US customers as they occupied
65% of the total buyers who are a prime member. Therefore, its business could be
more famous in the West, especially in the US.

Except Andrew Jassy, there are in fact 10 other board directors, including Jeff Bezos.
Both of them, adding Jeffrey Blackburn, once a top executive serving the firm for
years, are the 3 largest individual shareholders. As for institutional shareholders,
Amazon is regarded as a company with optimistic prospect, so many groups own the
shares of Amazon. For instance. The three biggest ones were Advisor Group Inc.,
Vanguard Inc. and BlackRock Inc.

However, it was dragged into some controversies, one of them was the argue on
whether to remain the patents on e-commerce processes owned by Amazon in the
public for the well-being of the society, and also the critics on the rise of consumerism
catalyzed by Amazon as it leads to the rapid increase in waste of unused products.

All in all, Amazon, owing to its transnational scale and influence on the society,
should be thoroughly investigated and discussed.
References
1. https://money.howstuffworks.com/amazon.htm
2. https://etaileast.wbresearch.com/blog/amazons-engaged-buyers-drive-social-
media-revenue
3. https://www.visualcapitalist.com/amazon-worlds-most-valuable-retailer/
4. https://fortune.com/company/amazon-com/fortune500/
5. https://www.geekwire.com/2021/andy-jassy-will-join-amazons-board-directors-
takes-ceo-reins-jeff-bezos/
6. https://www.investopedia.com/articles/insights/052816/top-4-amazon-
shareholders-amzn.asp
7. https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/jeff-blackburn-return-amazon-
company-s-most-powerful-person-hollywood-n1267322
8. https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/04/amazon-plans-to-cut-waste-following-
backlash.html
9. https://press.aboutamazon.com/news-releases/news-release-details/amazoncom-
announces-long-term-test-free-super-saver-shipping