---
title: "Which came first, Amazon or Google?"
description: "Amazon vs Google: Amazon came first, by 4 years — 1994 against 1998. What happened in each case, and why the dates are often given differently."
url: https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/amazon-vs-google/
site: "At One Place"
---

# Which came first, Amazon or Google?

**Which came first, Amazon or Google?: Amazon**

1994 — 4 years before Google

Amazon came first, by 4 years. Jeff Bezos incorporated the company in Washington state.

## Side by side

|  | Amazon | Google |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Year | 1994 | 1998 |
| Date | 1994-07-05 | 1998-09-04 |
| Category | technology | technology |
| What happened | Jeff Bezos incorporated the company in Washington state. | Google Inc. was incorporated in a garage in Menlo Park. |

## Amazon

Amazon was incorporated on 5 July 1994, originally as Cadabra, and the website opened in July 1995 selling only books. The 1994 incorporation date is used here because it is the company's own founding date; if you mean the shop, 1995 is the answer. Either way it predates Google by three or four years and eBay by about a year.

## Google

The date used here is the incorporation, 4 September 1998. Two others compete: the research project called BackRub began at Stanford in 1996, and the google.com domain was registered on 15 September 1997. Google itself has celebrated its birthday on four different September dates over the years, which is a fair indication that no single one is correct. It is younger than Amazon, eBay and Netflix.

## Common questions

### Which came first, Amazon or Google?

Amazon, by 4 years — 1994 against 1998.

### When did Amazon start?

1994. Jeff Bezos incorporated the company in Washington state.

### When did Google start?

1998. Google Inc. was incorporated in a garage in Menlo Park.

## Related pages

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- [Amazon or Python?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/amazon-vs-python/)
- [Amazon or Java?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/amazon-vs-java/)

## Sources

- Wikidata — Wikimedia Foundation (https://www.wikidata.org/) [CC0 1.0]
- Typical range compiled from manufacturer specifications — At One Place (/about/)