What Amazon bought
Amazon has bought more than 100 companies. The biggest single cheque it ever wrote went to a grocery chain.
Seven of them, in the order the money left.
Audible, 2008, $300m. Amazon bought the audiobook company before podcasts were mainstream.
Zappos, 2009, $1.2bn. The online shoe seller known for customer service.
Twitch, 2014, $970m. A live-gaming site Amazon beat Google to.
Whole Foods, 2017, $13.7bn. Still Amazon's biggest acquisition. It put Amazon into physical retail overnight.
Ring, 2018, about $1bn. The video-doorbell company that made Amazon a player in home security.
PillPack, 2018, about $1bn. An online pharmacy, Amazon's clearest move into prescription drugs.
MGM, 2022, $8.5bn. Amazon's second-biggest deal. It bought the studio for the film and TV catalogue, above all James Bond.
The shape worth noticing: Amazon's two most expensive buys, Whole Foods and MGM, are old-world businesses. Together they cost more than the other five combined.
These are announced deal values, not what was ultimately paid. And these seven are a selection from more than 100 acquisitions; $26.5bn is their sum, not Amazon's total spend.
Next week: what happens to a company after Amazon buys it.
