Acquires Whole Foods
Amazon completed its largest acquisition to date, buying the organic grocery chain for $13.7 billion. This move instantly gave Amazon over 450 physical stores and signaled a massive push into the brick-and-mortar grocery market.
Amazon History
Amazon completed its largest acquisition to date, buying the organic grocery chain for $13.7 billion. This move instantly gave Amazon over 450 physical stores and signaled a massive push into the brick-and-mortar grocery market.
Amazon officially entered the Indian market with the launch of Amazon.in. Starting with only books and movies, it quickly adapted to local needs by introducing “cash on delivery” and partnering with local “Kirana” stores for deliveries.
Amazon purchased the leading social site for readers and book recommendations. The deal allowed Amazon to integrate user reviews and “want to read” lists directly into the Kindle ecosystem, tightening its grip on the book industry.
Amazon bought this robotics company for $775 million to automate its fulfillment centers. These orange robots, now known as Amazon Robotics, are the reason the company can process and ship millions of orders so quickly.
Google History
Following low consumer engagement and a security bug that exposed user data, Google officially shut down the social network for personal accounts, shifting its focus toward enterprise communication.
Launched as an invitation-only “social layer” to challenge Facebook, it introduced unique features like Circles for privacy and Hangouts for group video chatting.
Google became the first company in history to surpass 1 billion unique visitors in a single month across its properties (Search, Gmail, YouTube), solidifying its position as the world’s most popular web platform.
A major search ranking update designed to stop “content farms” from dominating results. It rewarded high-quality, original content and fundamentally changed how websites were built for the web.
Facebook History
An AI-powered visual search startup. Its technology allows users to take photos of furniture or clothing and find similar items online. This was integrated into Facebook Marketplace and Instagram to bolster AI-driven shopping.
A video startup focused on interactive social streaming. Facebook “acqui-hired” the team to bring professional-grade interactive features (like polls and on-screen graphics) to Facebook Live for broadcasters and creators.
An Israeli startup that combined email with team messaging. The team and technology were folded into Workplace by Facebook to help the enterprise platform better compete with Slack and Microsoft Teams.
A startup specializing in government ID verification via mobile. Facebook acquired them to improve account security and help verify identities for users who are locked out of their accounts or to flag fake profiles.
A viral anonymous polling app popular with teens that focused on positive feedback. Facebook bought it to regain traction with younger demographics, though the app was eventually shut down in 2018 due to low usage.
An AI startup that built a “knowledge graph” of 2 billion entities to understand real-world nuances in text. The acquisition was designed to make the M virtual assistant in Messenger more context-aware and conversational.