Question: Which widely recognized company was originally called ‘Cadabra’?
Show answer
Amazon.
The widely recognized company originally called ‘Cadabra’ is Amazon.com, Inc. Founded by Jeff Bezos in 1994, Amazon started as an online bookstore before transforming into the largest internet-based retailer and a major provider of cloud services globally.
The name ‘Cadabra’ was initially chosen because it was meant to suggest magic, as in “abracadabra,” reflecting the magical convenience of shopping online. However, the name was short-lived for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it was often misheard as “cadaver,” especially over the phone, which clearly wasn’t a suitable association for a brand. Secondly, Jeff Bezos wanted a name that started with an ‘A’ so it would appear early in alphabetical listings, which were a common method of organizing search results and directories at the time.
After considering these factors, Bezos decided to rename the company. He settled on “Amazon,” inspired by the Amazon River, the largest river in the world by volume. He envisioned the company becoming the biggest in its field, much like the river. The name Amazon also communicated the scale of Bezos’s ambition and the breadth of what he envisioned – a store that offered an exhaustive variety of products, akin to the vast biodiversity of the Amazon rainforest.
Amazon.com was officially launched in July 1995 and quickly expanded beyond books. It started adding multiple product categories and grew exponentially, both in terms of product offerings and geographical reach. Today, Amazon dominates multiple industries, including e-commerce, cloud computing, digital streaming, and artificial intelligence, fundamentally reshaping how consumers buy products and interact with technology.
