Amazon Celebrates 31 Years as World's Largest Company After Bezos' 30-Year Warning

In a 2018 all-hands meeting, Jeff Bezos warned that companies like Amazon usually last about thirty years and that the firm would eventually fail without a fierce customer focus. Since then, Amazon has grown into the world’s largest corporation, ranking first on the Fortune Global 500 after beating Walmart with $716.9 billion in 2025 revenue and a market cap around $2.5 trillion. The company celebrated its 31st anniversary, crossing the timeframe Bezos once cited as a risk horizon.

Bezos now says true customer obsession requires a love of invention, a view echoed by CEO Andy Jassy, who maintains the 16 leadership principles and is steering a $200 billion AI spending push. Amazon also recently cut about 30,000 jobs, framing the reductions as a cultural reset rather than a financial necessity. The firm’s origins trace back to a 1994 online bookstore called Cadabra, rebranded as Amazon after a brief naming concern.