Did you know Amazon has owned the “Alexa” trademark since 1999? Twelve years before Jeff Bezos first sketched out what would become the Amazon Echo.
Back in 1999, Amazon acquired Alexa Internet for 4,369,884 shares of stock, worth approximately $250MM at the time. Adjusted for stock splits, that’s about $2.86 per share compared to the closing price on [insert todays date] of [insert current closing price]. Adjusting for the stock splits, those shares would be worth $15 billion dollars.
But what was Alexa Internet doing in 1999, and why was it so valuable to Amazon? Founders Brewster Kahle and Bruce Gilliat originally offered a toolbar that provided web traffic data and page suggestions, but they were also building a database of information crawled from the web that would become The Internet Archive, accessed via the founders other project, The Wayback Machine.
Acquiring this early treasure trove of consumer data and analytics on their competitors demonstrates Amazon’s forward-thinking approach to technology and data.
It’s a reminder that some of the most impactful innovations are built on foundations laid long ago.
What are the untapped opportunities you see today that could shape the next big thing?
#Amazon #BusinessStrategy #Acquisitions #TechInnovation #LongTermValue
