Amazon accounts for roughly 40% of all US online retail sales—a much larger piece of the pie than its competitor Walmart

Walmart has historically been one of Amazon's largest competitors

While Walmart has been America’s largest retailer by revenue for over three decades, Amazon is now fighting for the title, seeking retail supremacy. In this podcast episode from the Wall Street Journal, Sarah Nassauer explores the efforts Walmart has taken to keep its crown.

Amazon expanded its business and diversified its offerings by acquiring companies

Amazon’s retail and cloud businesses have been key drivers of the company’s growth over the years, but they haven’t done all the work by themselves. Companies Amazon has acquired include the video doorbell maker Ring, the grocer Whole Foods, the streaming service Twitch, the shoe retailer Zappos, and the film studio MGM.

In 1994, Amazon was founded as an online bookseller

Books were just the start, as founder Jeff Bezos' ultimate goal was to create an "everything store," using the internet to transcend the physical limitations of brick-and-mortar retail. The Seattle-based Amazon gradually added CDs and consumer electronics, becoming a dominant e-commerce player in the late 1990s, and one of the few dot-com companies to make it through the bust.

See a visualization of the most popular e-commerce companies in America

Amazon’s app sees more users than the next four most popular e-commerce apps (like Temu, Walmart, and others) combined.

Bezos owned roughly 8% of Amazon as of 2025

Three decades after founding Amazon, Jeff Bezos has built a sprawling empire of businesses and financial interests. Other large stakeholders in the company include Amazon CEO Andrew Jassy and Bezos’ ex-wife MacKenzie Scott. This article provides more details on who owns how much of Amazon.

Amazon's largest profit engine is the cloud-computing platform Amazon Web Services

Also known as AWS, Amazon Web Services is a suite of IT resources such as storage, databases, and more. While Amazon owns AWS, lots of other tech companies—including Slack and Pinterest—use it to help run their IT operations. In 2023, AWS brought in $25B in profit—outpacing Amazon's entire North American retail division.

Around 60% of female billionaires in the US are considered self-made

There are 154 female billionaires in America, and around 60% of them are considered at least partially self-made—meaning some of their wealth comes from a business venture launched on their own. Alice Walton, the founder of Walmart's daughter, is the richest woman in the US, clocking a net worth of $138B. (Some users may experience a paywall.)

Explore America’s top companies by revenue in 1994 versus 2023

America’s top companies by revenue have changed a lot in the past few decades. Sears, for instance, isn’t on the 2023 list, while Amazon isn’t in the 1994 edition.

How Amazon operates a 'flywheel' business model, a self-reinforcing cycle that drives continuous growth

Amazon is both a vendor for Netflix, via its cloud-computing arm, and its rival

Amazon's Prime Video is a subscription streaming service that includes a variety of original shows and movies for free with a paid Prime membership. This Rotten Tomatoes ranking details 100 of the best Prime Video shows available to watch, including the dramas “Fleabag” and “The Boys.”

How Netflix battled Blockbuster

The most consequential business stories involve intense rivalries. The story of Netflix versus Blockbuster is one of those: an agile upstart versus an entrenched incumbent. This nine-part podcast explores the key strategies and pivotal moments in the rivalry that upended the entertainment business, setting the stage for the streaming wars.

Amazon has historically opposed efforts among its employees to unionize

Amazon has done everything from creating mandatory anti-union meetings to hiring union-busting consultants, and even engaging in employee surveillance. Such efforts have proven to be a lightning rod for pro-labor groups.

11,000 new US dollar stores opened between 2007 and 2017

Dollar store retailers experienced significant fiscal gains during the 2010s, which were then accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic. But in recent years, dollar stores have been closing in large numbers and suffering financial hardship. Experts point to Walmart's strategy of decreasing prices to cater to inflation-fatigued customers, and point out that when Walmart does well financially, dollar stores typically suffer.

Online Black Friday shoppers spent over 10% more in 2024 than they did in 2023

Online shoppers shelled out some $11.3M per minute between 10 am and 2 pm on Black Friday 2024, according to Adobe Analytics data. The $10.8B online shoppers spent on Black Friday 2024 was more than double the amount they spent online in 2017.

Screaming, running, and chaos in retailers like Walmart are the norm on Black Friday

This Black Friday episode from Dax Shepard's Armchair Expert podcast features stories both from people who have worked behind the register on Black Friday and those who have stood in line at 4 am to score some deals. From police escorting violent shoppers competing over a discounted laptop computer out of the building, to a false-alarm emergency exit from a Dick's Sporting Goods, the episode is both harrowing and hilarious at times.

Costco and Amazon have very similar pricing across everyday staples

This article compares the average prices of everyday staples at Amazon and Costco, like toilet paper ($1.12 at Costco, $1.14 on Amazon), to help consumers decide which discount retailer to purchase from.

YouTube occupies more US screen time than Netflix

As consumers continue to shift their viewing activity away from traditional cable and broadcast TV, they’re spending an increasing amount of time streaming content, much of it on YouTube. In fact, Nielsen data from August 2025, shows that YouTube accounted for 13.1% of US screen time, compared to Netflix’s 8.7%.

Listen to a podcast that traces the history of DOJ antitrust enforcement

This podcast series traces how the US government's approach to regulating big business has changed over a century—from the DOJ's breakup of John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil monopoly, through lawyer Robert Bork's influence on how courts interpret competition law, to the FTC's modern antitrust lawsuit against Amazon.

The current state of Amazon rainforest deforestation

Scientists say the Amazon rainforest is approaching between 20%-25% deforestation, a critical tipping point at which the damage is irreversible. Demand for beef and soy are the main drivers.

A private equity firm led the leveraged buyout of Toys 'R' Us before the company's bankruptcy

After being acquired by two private equity firms and a real estate company for more than $6B in 2005, Toys 'R' Us filed for bankruptcy in 2017. Many point to the $400M a year the company had to pay to service its debt, as well as increased competition from online retailers like Amazon, for draining its profits and ultimately dragging it under.

Retail investing by the numbers

When average Americans began pouring into the stock market, Wall Street wasn’t sure if its new guests were there to stay. But at the end of 2023, Public confidently declared that retail investors “weren’t going anywhere” after 30 million new individuals began buying and selling stock. Download the report to learn more here.

Immersive technologies are increasingly being used in medicine, retail, and education

More accessible devices and user-friendly tools have increased the adoption of these technologies, which provide interactive, 3D environments that facilitate natural human learning. In 2018, Walmart purchased 17,000 VR headsets to train over a million employees in areas such as customer service and Black Friday preparation.

Despite the popularity of podcasts, most US adults still listen to radio

A 2026 survey found that 84% of adults aged 25-64 report listening to the radio weekly. That's more than double the number of those who listen to podcasts.

Visa, the first credit card network, still dominates competitors with a roughly 52% market share by purchase volume.

Among the major credit card companies in the US, Mastercard had about 25% of the market share in 2025. American Express had roughly 20%, and Discover had the smallest market share of about 4%.

Berkshire Hathaway's origin story is strongly intertwined with Warren Buffett's

"Acquired" is a podcast that tells company origin stories—and in one series of episodes, it dives into Berkshire Hathaway's. While the Berkshire Hathaway story ended up becoming three "Acquired" episodes instead of one, Part I explores how Berkshire Hathaway's former CEO became who he is today.

Sushi is an estimated $33B business in the US

US fishermen stock most of the country's more than 17,000 sushi restaurants. Distributors frequently adjust prices for different fish, based on their availability and the quality of the meat. This podcast unpacks how that industry operates.

The USPS spent $3.97B in 2024, accounting for .058% of the federal budget.

Dozens of S&P 500 stocks, including Coca-Cola and Walmart—known as the dividend aristocrats—have increased dividends every year for 25 years

While the first exchange-traded fund (a 'basket' of different assets that can be bought and sold on a stock exchange) in the US only launched in 1993, the global ETF market has grown to more than $10T in the short time since.

US consumers collectively owe more than $1T to credit card companies—almost as much as they owe in auto loans.

Netflix profits when you're not watching, and its movies are designed that way—read a detail-rich critical essay exposing lesser-known Netflix takes

In its famous catalog, Sears sold $600 DIY house kits from 1908 through the 1940s, resulting in an estimated 100,000 'Sears and Roebuck homes.'

In 2025, four executives from large tech companies were given positions in the US Army Reserves—including Palantir Chief Technology Officer Shyam Sankar, which reinforced Palantir's ties with the US military and its role as a leading defense partner.

SpaceX's S-1 or 'prospectus' revealed many previously unknown details about the company, including its unprofitability despite doing $18.7B in revenue in 2025, exactly how many voting shares Elon Musk will have in the company (roughly 85%), and more.

The price of gas is a composite made up of several different factors, with the federal gas tax making up less than 20% of what drivers pay at the pump.

A century of Billboard issues documenting the evolution of popular music.

US housing costs have risen by roughly 175% between 1991 and 2026—but a growing number of Gen Zers are becoming homeowners anyway. In 2025, 4% of homebuyers were Gen Z, up from 3% the year before.

Domino's Pizza's 30-minute delivery guarantee was responsible for the chain's 1980s surge, but it was discontinued after the company was found liable for delivery driver accidents.

Up to a million Girl Scouts sell about 200 million cookie boxes every spring, generating $800 million, largely because refusing a child is frowned upon

44% of Americans say they pray at least once a day—discover how your state's religiosity stacks up against the rest of the country.

Most of the observable universe's volume consists of voids and supervoids—enormous regions of space with little to no galaxies, stars, or light.

The rivalry between Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson centered on federalism—the question of how much power the federal government should hold relative to the states.

Warren Buffett's former professor Benjamin Graham is known as the 'father of value investing,' a strategy in which investors seek to buy stocks trading below their intrinsic worth.

Discover the catastrophic consequences of a failure of the US electrical grid—something that is more likely than many Americans think.

Children are now three times more likely to say they want to be a YouTuber when they grow up than an astronaut, with some even attending 'YouTube camps' that teach kids how to create content for the platform.

Art theft is the third-largest source of criminal revenues worldwide, thanks in part to the subjective nature of valuing a work of art.

Fireworks-related ER visits are on the rise—in 2024, they increased by 52% as compared to the prior year.

Larger animals like giraffes, elephants, and blue whales have developed a unique defense against cancer, a phenomenon known as Peto's Paradox

The Russia-Ukraine conflict is the largest ground war in Europe since World War II in casualties, forces mobilized, and displacement of civilians.

A small portion of The Winstons' 'Amen, Brother,' an obscure '60s gospel record, is the basis for thousands of hip-hop tracks, making it one of the most sampled records ever that's informally known as 'the Amen break.'