Originally posted on June 19, 2025 @ 9:42 pm
The Mega Brands That Built America Recap for The Rise of Internet Empires
This week’s episode of The Mega Brands That Built America is titled The Rise of Internet Empires, which shows us how online shopping began.
In the 1990s, computers were slowly but surely beginning to take the world by storm. AOL would bring us the internet and before long, things would change forever.
Jeff Bezos wanted in on the action and knew he had to think of something big if he wanted to succeed. He had several ideas with his wife McKenzie, but kept coming back to the idea of having an online store.
The initial idea was to sell books and took a gamble by quitting his job, moving to Seattle and working on making his dream a reality. Together with Shel Kaplan, Cadabra.com was invented. However, the name sounded too close to cadaver, which made him wonder if people would be confused as to what he was selling.
In California, Pierre Omidyar is a millionaire who is looking to start his own website. His initial idea was already in use by another company, but little does he know that this would be a blessing in disguise.
Jeff and his team go through the dictionary and find the word Amazon, deciding that would be the name of their company.
Pierre and his friend Jeff Skoll play a game of chess and try and figure out how to get their business off the ground. They talk about buying things via the classifieds section in the newspaper and decide to use a similar concept for their site.
Amazon is launched in 1995, initially just selling books. They have $12,000 in sales in the first week and are soon a hit. It was all hands-on deck and before long, Yahoo contacted them to be on their home page, making the business grow even bigger.
Pierre is working on his own project, wanting to get the best price for the buyer and the seller. He is inspired by auctions and decides to do a test run of an online auction. He does a test run with a broken laser pointer and lo and behold, Auction Web is born.
The gamble works out because people realize that their junk is someone else’s treasure.
Pierre begins to advertise in chat rooms and is soon making a pretty penny. Jeff S. joins him and they set up a team to keep the website running.
They even set up a feedback forum so people can leave feedback on buyers and sellers…the good, the bad and the ugly.
Jeff B. wants to expand Amazon and works with a financing company to help it grow.
Leonard Riggio, from Barnes and Noble meets with Jeff and Shel to tell them that he is going to crush them. However, he offers to buy Amazon…which Jeff turns down.
Pierre is trying to grow Auction Web, which is more or less a niche company now. Jeff S. suggests listing Beanie Babies so people can get the ones they want but cannot find. This is a hit, but getting to the site was a bit difficult since it was through Pierre’s original company. Enter eBay!
Amazon and Barnes and Noble remain in competition. Jeff B. wants to deliver products faster, so he opens warehouses to do so….only to realize there is even more competition with Tower Records. They decide to expand and sell more products, including music and movies. This is a success, but Jeff B wants more.
Pierre steps down from eBay and Meg Whitman takes over. This leads to Amazon and eBay to possibly partner up….even though Jeff B. wants to buy her out. Meg says no and the deal is off.
Meg continues to help eBay grow…but faces trouble when the site goes down in June 1999. She sends a message to customers thanking them for the patience but is panicking. Things only get worse when Amazon announces its own auction site.
Amazon is now selling toys and electronics and growing bigger and bigger….despite not turning a big profit. They are also facing a ton of competition.
A market crash sends .com companies into a nosedive and causes them to lose money.
Meg decides to ask Jeff B. to work together again and offers to buy Amazon Auctions. He is not interested.
Jeff B. is feeling the pressure to keep Amazon off the ground and decides to lower prices of his products. This ends up being the best thing he could have done. Amazon Auctions changes to Amazon Marketplace and sells 12 million products per day and makes 600 billion dollars a year. It is the one stop shop for everything and anything.
eBay makes billions of dollars per year and has billions of buyers and sellers.
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