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In March 1997, Amazon had about 80,000 average daily visits, TechCrunch reported. It had only 256 employees that year.
In the years that followed, Amazon extended its product range beyond books to include electronics, tools, toys, CDs, and more.
Bezos invested $250,000 in Google in 1998, before its IPO in 2004.
Time Magazine then named Bezos as its Person of the Year in 1999 after Amazon rapidly grew.
Bezos had the same annual base salary of $81,840 for decades while he was CEO, but his annual total compensation for many years exceeded $1 million, owing to costs related to security and business travel.