Amazon Web Services

Amazon launched Amazon Web Services in July 2002; by March 2006 more than 150,000 developers had signed up.⁠[1]

On March 14, 2006, Amazon Web Services announced Amazon S3, a storage service for software developers; Amazon regards that day as AWS’s public launch, with a single service. Developers could write, read and delete objects from 1 byte to 5 GB each, with no limit on the number of objects; each object was stored under a unique key assigned by the developer and could be public or private, through REST and SOAP interfaces, with a design target of 99.99 percent availability. Pricing was $0.15 per GB per month for storage and $0.20 per GB of data transferred, with no minimum fee.⁠[1][2]

Andy JassyAndy JassyAndy Jassy (Andrew R. Jassy) is President and CEO of Amazon. He joined Amazon in 1997, led the creation of its cloud computing business Amazon Web Services (AWS), served as AWS’s Senior Vice President and then CEO, and succeeded Jeff Bezos as Amazon’s CEO in July 2021.Open the full entry, then vice president of Amazon Web Services, said at the launch: “Amazon S3 is based on the idea that quality Internet-based storage should be taken for granted.”⁠[1]

On August 24, 2006, AWS introduced the beta of Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2), a web service providing resizable compute capacity in the cloud that lets users scale capacity up or down quickly and pay only for the capacity they use.⁠[3][4]

On October 22, 2008, AWS announced that Amazon EC2 had exited its beta period and was generally available, with a service level agreement of 99.95 percent availability within a Region over a trailing 365-day period and service credits if it was not met; it also launched a public beta of EC2 running Microsoft Windows Server and Microsoft SQL Server, with Windows Server pricing starting at $0.125 per compute hour.⁠[4]

Andy Jassy was AWS’s first chief executive and was succeeded by Adam Selipsky. In 2024 Amazon announced Matt GarmanMatt GarmanMatt Garman is the chief executive of Amazon Web Services (AWS), Amazon’s cloud computing unit, a role he took in June 2024; he joined the AWS team as an intern in 2005.Open the full entry as Selipsky’s successor and AWS’s third chief executive; at the time AWS had an annual revenue run rate of $100 billion.⁠[5]

Garman interned at AWS in the summer of 2005 and joined full-time in 2006, when the worldwide sales team had three people. He was AWS’s first product manager, built and led Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS), his first service, and later led hypervisor, storage and sales teams. He earned undergraduate and graduate degrees in industrial engineering at Stanford UniversityStanford UniversityStanford University is a research university in California founded by Leland and Jane Stanford in 1885 and opened in 1891.Open the full entry and was finishing an MBA at Northwestern University when he took the internship.⁠[5]

On October 29, 2026, Amazon announced its third-quarter results: AWS segment net sales were $45,984 million, up 39 percent from $33,006 million a year earlier, and operating income was $17,773 million, compared with $11,434 million a year earlier. Andy Jassy, Amazon’s president and chief executive officer, said AWS’s investment in functionality and infrastructure was working.⁠[6]

As of November 2026, Amazon’s website identifies Matt Garman as AWS CEO and says AWS offers more than 240 services. The AWS global infrastructure page lists 124 Availability Zones within 39 geographic Regions, with two more Regions, in Saudi Arabia and Chile, and seven more Availability Zones announced.⁠[2][7]

Amazon Web Services: Official website: https://aws.amazon.com/ (opens in a new window).⁠[7]

Amazon: Official website: https://www.aboutamazon.com/ (opens in a new window).⁠[5]

X: Public account: https://x.com/awscloud (opens in a new window).⁠[7]

LinkedInLinkedInLinkedIn is a social networking platform for professionals. It was founded in 2002 by Reid Hoffman and others, launched in 2003, and listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2011; after Microsoft acquired it for approximately $26.2 billion in 2016, it became a wholly owned Microsoft subsidiary. Its revenue comes from membership subscriptions, advertising, and recruitment solutions.Open the full entry: Public profile: https://www.linkedin.com/company/amazon-web-services/ (opens in a new window).⁠[7]

YouTubeYouTubeYouTube is Google’s video-sharing and creator platform, founded in 2005 by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim and acquired by Google in 2006. Built around video uploading, viewing, and creator earnings, the platform has developed Shorts, YouTube Music, Premium, YouTube TV, and products for children, and is headquartered in San Bruno, California, United States.Open the full entry: Public channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/AmazonWebServices/Cloud/ (opens in a new window).⁠[7]