In his first letter to shareholders in 1998, Jeff Bezos laid out a plan for world domination. “This is Day 1 for the Internet and, if we execute well, for Amazon.com,” he wrote. “Today, online commerce saves customers money and precious time. Tomorrow, through personalization, online commerce will accelerate the very process of discovery. Amazon.com uses the internet to create real value for its customers and, by doing so, hopes to create an enduring franchise, even in established and large markets.” The letter, as Brad Stone reports in The Everything Store, has “become the equivalent of holy scripture inside Amazon,” evidence that Amazon emerged almost fully formed in Bezos’s imagination. The letter lays out the principles that have defined Amazon’s unprecedented success: a company devoted to customer satisfaction, long-term goals, and, above all else, relentless growth.

Twenty years later, Amazon is on the verge of becoming the world’s first trillion dollar company. It has come a long way from its beginnings as an online bookstore—it is now not only a one-stop shop where you can buy Tuscan milk, underwear, and an array of Amazon-built gadgets, but also an incredibly profitable technological services company that is making inroads into health care, banking, and brick-and-mortar retail. In Bezos’s most recent shareholder letter, he took something of a victory lap—and revealed one of the most prized secrets in the business world. Since its launch 13 years ago, Amazon has never revealed the number of paying Prime subscribers, who pay $99 a year to receive free shipping, access to streaming music and video, and steep discounts at the company’s growing number of brick-and-mortar stores. But on Wednesday, Bezos announced that the company has “exceeded 100 million paid Prime members globally.”



This is a staggering number, especially given Amazon’s concentration in the United States, where it has been estimated that over 60 percent of households have Prime memberships. (According to the Census Bureau, there are an estimated 126 million households in the United States total.) For Amazon’s shareholders, this is a big moment—further proof that the company is on the verge of fulfilling the totalizing vision laid out by its founder in the 1990s. But for everyone else, it’s a troubling figure, one that portends a future dominated by Amazon.



Why is Bezos disclosing this number now? Because of a succession of presidential tweets attacking the company, Amazon’s stock has hit some rare turbulence recently. Releasing an eye-popping figure will reassure analysts, who will continue to recommend its stock, causing its price to continue its stratospheric rise. It will also assuage concerns about some of Amazon’s pricy endeavors, including a $1 billion Lord of the Rings adaptation. And, as Jason Del Ray pointed out three years ago in a post about Amazon’s refusal to release its Prime figures, while Bezos himself has made it clear that he doesn’t care much about what Wall Street thinks, many of his employees care very much about the company’s stock price.

Finally, the announcement serves as a useful bit of publicity. Given that Prime may already have infiltrated two-thirds of American households, customer acquisition will likely be more difficult and costly going forward.

