Why It's Hard to Escape Amazon's Long Reach

In 1994, soon after Jeff Bezos incorporated what would become Amazon, the entrepreneur briefly contemplated changing the company's name. The nascent firm had been dubbed "Cadabra," but Bezos wanted a less playful, more accurate alternative: "Relentless." Twenty-four years later, perhaps no adjective better describes Bezos' empire than the name he once wanted to give it. The company is known as the "everything store," but in its dogged pursuit of growth, Amazon has come to dominate more than just ecommerce. Amazon is a fashion designer, advertising business, television and movie producer, book publisher, and the owner of a sprawling platform for crowdsourced micro-labor tasks.