Amazon vs CoreWeave: Founders, CEOs and History
Amazon was founded in 1994 by Jeffrey Preston Bezos and is led by Andy Jassy. CoreWeave was founded in 2017 by Michael Intrator, Brian Venturo, Brannin McBee and is led by Michael Intrator.
Company facts
Founders
Amazon
Jeffrey Preston Bezos
Amazon was founded in 1994 by Jeff Bezos, an electrical engineering and computer science graduate from Princeton who was working as a paid quantitative analyst at the Wall Street firm D. E. Shaw & Co.
CoreWeave
Michael Intrator
Michael Intrator is co-founder, chairman and chief executive officer of CoreWeave.
Brian Venturo
Brian Venturo is a co-founder of CoreWeave and its Chief Strategy Officer, having previously served as CTO. He was central to turning the company's GPU mining fleet into a cloud platform and to its relationships with NVIDIA and large AI customers.
Brannin McBee
Brannin McBee is a co-founder of CoreWeave and its Chief Development Officer, responsible for business development, capacity expansion and strategic partnerships.
CEOs and their tenures
Amazon
- Jeffrey P. Bezos1994–2021
Founder & CEO
Jeff Bezos founded Amazon in 1994 and was chief executive until July 2021. He moved the company beyond books in 1998, opened the store to third-party sellers in November 2000, launched Prime in 2005, funded AWS from 2006, and bought Whole Foods Market in 2017.…
Source - Andrew R. Jassy2021–present
CEO
Andy Jassy became Amazon's chief executive in July 2021. He started the AWS business in 2003 and led it as it grew into the largest cloud infrastructure provider by revenue, reporting $128.7 billion of net sales and $45.6 billion of operating income in FY2025.
Source
CoreWeave
- Michael Intrator2017–present
Co-Founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Leads strategy, capital raising and major customer contracts; took the company public in March 2025.
Source - Brian Venturo2017–present
Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer
Former CTO who led the shift from crypto mining to GPU cloud; now leads strategy.
Source - Brannin McBee2017–present
Co-Founder and Chief Development Officer
Leads business development and capacity expansion.
Source - Peter Salanki2017–present
Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer
Leads platform engineering and infrastructure technology.
Source - Nitin Agrawal2024–present
Chief Financial Officer
Joined from Google in 2024; oversees financing, guidance and investor relations.
Source - Sachin Jain2024–present
Chief Operating Officer
Joined from Oracle in August 2024 to run operations.
Source
Timeline: Amazon and CoreWeave side by side
1994Amazon
Amazon Founded
Jeff Bezos incorporated the company as Cadabra, Inc. in Washington state on July 5, 1994, after leaving D. E. Shaw. He and MacKenzie Scott drove from New York to Seattle, and Bezos began building the website in the garage of a rented house in Bellevue.
1995Amazon
Amazon.com Launches
Amazon.com went live on July 16, 1995, selling books. In the first month the site shipped orders to all fifty US states and forty-five other countries.
1997Amazon
IPO on NASDAQ
Amazon went public on May 14, 1997, selling 3,000,000 shares at $18 each on NASDAQ under the ticker AMZN, raising $54 million. Net sales that year grew 838% to $147.8 million.
2000Amazon
Third-Party Marketplace Launch
Amazon Marketplace launched in November 2000, letting third parties sell on the same product pages as Amazon. Third-party sellers accounted for 61% of paid units by the fourth quarter of 2025.
2005Amazon
Amazon Prime Introduced
Amazon announced Prime on February 2, 2005, a $79-per-year membership with unlimited two-day delivery on about one million items. The US price is now $139 a year.
2006Amazon
AWS Launches Cloud Services
Amazon Web Services announced Amazon S3 on March 14, 2006, followed by EC2 later that year. AWS reported $128.7 billion of net sales and $45.6 billion of operating income in FY2025.
2007Amazon
Kindle E-Reader Launch
Amazon released the first Kindle in November 2007 at $399, with free cellular downloads over Whispernet and the Kindle self-publishing service launched the same day.
2012Amazon
Kiva Systems Acquisition
Amazon agreed in March 2012 to buy Kiva Systems for approximately $775 million in cash, bringing warehouse robotics in house. Kiva became Amazon Robotics.
2014Amazon
Twitch Acquisition
Amazon agreed in August 2014 to acquire Twitch Interactive for approximately $970 million in cash, adding live game streaming and a creator community to its media assets.
2015Amazon
Echo and Alexa Reach Everyone
Amazon introduced the Echo speaker and the Alexa assistant in November 2014 for Prime members by invitation, then made Echo generally available in the US in June 2015.
2017Amazon
Whole Foods Acquisition
Amazon agreed in June 2017 to buy Whole Foods Market for $13.7 billion including debt, adding roughly 460 stores and a physical grocery base for delivery and pickup.
2017CoreWeave
CoreWeave Founded as Atlantic Crypto
Michael Intrator, Brian Venturo, and Brannin McBee founded the company in New Jersey, mining Ethereum with consumer GPUs.
2019CoreWeave
Strategic Pivot to Specialized Cloud Infrastructure
Deprecating cryptocurrency mining, the founders incorporated as CoreWeave, building a specialized GPU cloud for VFX and AI.
2020CoreWeave
InfiniBand Networking & Bare-Metal Kubernetes Launch
Integrated NVIDIA InfiniBand high-speed networking and bare-metal Kubernetes, outperforming standard cloud hypervisors.
2021Amazon
Andy Jassy Becomes CEO
Amazon announced on February 2, 2021 that Jeff Bezos would move to executive chair and Andy Jassy would become CEO. The handover took place on July 5, 2021.
2021CoreWeave
$50M Institutional Financing Led by Magnetar Capital
Secured major institutional funding from Magnetar Capital to build high-density AI datacenters in North America.
2022Amazon
MGM Acquisition Completed
Amazon completed its acquisition of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in March 2022 at a purchase price of $8.45 billion, adding a library of more than 4,000 films and 17,000 television episodes to Prime Video.
2023Amazon
One Medical Deal Closes and the FTC Sues
Amazon completed its $3.9 billion acquisition of One Medical in February 2023. In September 2023 the FTC and 17 state attorneys general sued Amazon over marketplace practices, and that case is still unresolved.
2023CoreWeave
NVIDIA Series B Investment & Priority Silicon Allocation
NVIDIA invested $100M into CoreWeave at a $2.0B valuation, granting CoreWeave first-access delivery of H100 GPUs.
2023CoreWeave
Microsoft $10B+ Anchor Compute Deal
Signed a historic multi-billion-dollar infrastructure contract with Microsoft to augment Azure and power OpenAI workloads.
2023CoreWeave
$2.3B Debt Facility Collateralized by GPUs
Pioneered asset-backed debt financing, raising $2.3B from Blackstone and Magnetar secured by NVIDIA H100 hardware.
2024CoreWeave
$7.5B Debt Facility & $19.0B Valuation
Closed a large $7.5B debt facility led by Blackstone and raised $1.1B in equity led by Coatue, reaching a $19B valuation.
2024CoreWeave
1.0B+ European Sovereign AI Datacenter Expansion
Launched large European expansion, constructing renewable-powered AI datacenters across the UK, Norway, and Sweden.
2025Amazon
One Millionth Robot and Project Rainier
Amazon deployed its one millionth robot in mid-2025 across more than 300 facilities and released the DeepFleet AI model to route them. In October 2025 AWS brought Project Rainier, a cluster of roughly 500,000 Trainium2 chips built with Anthropic, fully online.
2025Amazon
FTC Prime Settlement and the Amazon Leo Rebrand
Amazon agreed in September 2025 to pay $2.5 billion to settle the FTC's Prime enrollment case, $1 billion in civil penalties plus $1.5 billion in customer refunds.
2025CoreWeave
Nasdaq IPO as CRWV
CoreWeave went public on March 28, 2025, raising $1.5 billion.
2026Amazon
Record FY2025 Results and 30,000 Corporate Cuts
Amazon reported FY2025 net sales of $716.9 billion, operating income of $80.0 billion, and net income of $77.7 billion. In January 2026 it cut about 16,000 corporate roles, following 14,000 in October 2025.
2026CoreWeave
Backlog reaches about $104 billion
Q2 2026 revenue of $2.575 billion and 2026 guidance raised to $12.4-$13.2 billion.
Acquisitions
Amazon
- One Medical2023$3.9B
- Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer2022$8.4B
- Ring2018Undisclosed
- PillPack2018$753M
- Whole Foods Market2017$13.7B
- Twitch Interactive2014$970M
CoreWeave
- Weights & Biases2025$1.7B
- OpenPipe2025Undisclosed
- Monolith AI2025Undisclosed
- Core Scientific (terminated)2025$9B
- Conductor Technologies2023Undisclosed
Questions about Amazon vs CoreWeave
Who is the CEO of Amazon.com, Inc. and CoreWeave, Inc.?
Amazon.com, Inc. is led by Andy Jassy and CoreWeave, Inc. is led by Michael Intrator. Both serve as the top executive responsible for the company's strategy, operations, and financial performance.
When was Amazon.com, Inc. founded vs CoreWeave, Inc.?
Amazon.com, Inc. was founded in 1994 — 23 years before CoreWeave, Inc., which was founded in 2017. Amazon.com, Inc.'s longer operating history gives it a deeper track record but also potentially more institutional inertia compared to the younger CoreWeave, Inc..
How many employees does Amazon.com, Inc. have compared to CoreWeave, Inc.?
Amazon.com, Inc. employs approximately 1,576,000 people, while CoreWeave, Inc. employs approximately 2,189. Amazon.com, Inc. has the larger workforce at 1,576,000 employees, compared to CoreWeave, Inc.'s 2,189. A higher headcount does not necessarily imply greater efficiency — it often reflects differences in business model (e.g., manufacturing vs. software).
Where are Amazon.com, Inc. and CoreWeave, Inc. headquartered?
Both Amazon.com, Inc. and CoreWeave, Inc. are headquartered in United States, meaning they operate under the same primary regulatory and tax environment.
Who founded Amazon.com, Inc. and CoreWeave, Inc.?
Amazon.com, Inc. was founded by Jeffrey Preston Bezos. CoreWeave, Inc. was founded by Michael Intrator, Brian Venturo, Brannin McBee.
Which company has a longer operating history — Amazon.com, Inc. or CoreWeave, Inc.?
Amazon.com, Inc. has been operating for approximately 32 years, making it the more established of the two companies. CoreWeave, Inc. has been in operation for around 9 years. A longer operating history often signals greater institutional resilience and brand recognition, though it can also mean slower adaptation to new market conditions.
Figures come from each company's filings and the sources linked beside them. Amounts reported in another currency are shown in US dollars at an approximate rate and marked with ~. Back to the Amazon vs CoreWeave overview