Amazon

Jeff Bezos could see the potential for online commerce and knew that he had to build his Web-based business before every other entrepreneur also figured that out.

Bezos had only one requirement when he and his wife were looking for a house to rent in Seattle: It had to have a garage. Many of the entrepreneurs whom Bezos admired had started in their garages—including Steve Jobs, who created Apple with his friend Steve Wozniak in his parents’ garage. Perhaps it was a sign of things to come when Amazon’s computers and other equipment maxed out the space’s electrical capacity in a matter of months. Bezos joked that electricity was the reason companies had to move out of garages. “It’s not that they run out of room,” he said. “It’s that they run out of electrical power.”

Amazon Reviews

One of the earliest features added to Amazon.com was the ability to add reviews, which Shel Kaphan coded over a weekend in June 1995. Although Kaphan and other Amazon employees wrote the first book reviews, it didn’t take long for others to join in—or to add a bit of humor. Shoppers have left creative reviews for everything from Bic pens to gummi bears. One long, descriptive review of sugar-free gummi bears ended with this line:

“Not only did they cause me to fail my final test, but the anguish I experienced is something I wouldn’t wish upon anyone, not even my worst enemy.”

By the Book

Drive west. This was the only instruction that Jeff Bezos and his wife, MacKenzie, gave the movers who had packed up their Manhattan apartment in the summer of 1994. Bezos promised to call them with a specific destination the next day. At the age of 30, Bezos had just quit his job as a rising star at a New York investment company. He had a vision for an online bookstore.