When Amazon opened its cyber-doors in July 1995, the site was just a page of text separated by headlines and topped by the company’s first logo — a capital letter A, with what was supposed to be a river flowing through it. Even then, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos claimed it was “Earth’s biggest bookstore,” and now it certainly is that, and a whole lot more. The first book sold on Amazon was ordered by software engineer John Wainwright in April 1995. Using a beta version of the site, he purchased Fluid Concepts And Creative Analogies: Computer Models Of The Fundamental Mechanisms Of Thought by Douglas Hofstadter, a book about artificial intelligence.
When the Amazon idea clicked:
Wainwright even kept the sales slip for the book, which reads: “Thanks for shopping at Amazon.com!”
Bezos originally wanted to call his company Cadabra, as in “abracadabra,” but when his attorney thought he said “Cadaver,” Bezos decided to go with an alternative.
The first sale was important to Bezos. There’s now a building on Amazon’s sprawling Seattle campus named after Wainwright, who spent just $27.95 USD to earn a place in tech history.