Amazon — Net Worth and Career Earnings
Amazon generated $638 billion in total revenue in fiscal year 2024, verified through SEC filings, making it one of the largest revenue-generating companies in history. Net income was $59 billion — a dramatic improvement from the losses posted in 2022, reflecting both AWS margin expansion and improved efficiency across the retail business. Amazon Web Services generated $107 billion in revenue, growing 19% year-on-year, and remains the most profitable segment of the business despite representing less than 20% of total revenue.
Amazon's advertising business, often overlooked relative to AWS and e-commerce, generated $56 billion in 2024 — growing at approximately 20% annually and now larger than the entire advertising revenues of traditional media companies. The business monetises Amazon's unique position as a shopping intent platform where advertisers pay to appear when customers are actively searching for products to buy. Prime membership, Alexa, Amazon Pharmacy, Amazon Fresh and Amazon Studios round out a diversified revenue base that extends far beyond its e-commerce origins.
Amazon invested $4 billion in Anthropic, Claude's developer, in 2023-24 — making it one of the most significant AI bets by a non-AI company and giving AWS a competitive AI services offering to counter Microsoft's OpenAI partnership. Jeff Bezos founded Amazon in 1994 in a Seattle garage after quitting his Wall Street job to sell books online. Andy Jassy, who built AWS from a small internal project into a $107 billion business, became CEO in July 2021. Amazon employs approximately 1.5 million people worldwide, making it one of the world's largest private employers.