Early family common-stock purchases
$0.1717, rounded filing basis
Miguel Bezos purchased 582,528 shares and the Gise Family Trust purchased 847,716 shares at the filing’s rounded $0.1717 common-share price. These were specific private transactions.
E-commerce & cloud · AMZN
Amazon
Amazon’s early common-stock investments and Series A preferred financing preceded its 1997 IPO. Preferred shares converted six-for-one, before later public stock splits.
01 / YOUR SCENARIO
Choose your starting point.
Starting price: $14.05 · Series A · Jun 21, 1996
6 AMZN share equivalents per starting share at your ending date.
DOCUMENTED PRIVATE PRICE → IPO OFFER PRICE
AmazonAMZN · 1996 Series A · $14.05
Hypothetical price-only value of $1,000.00
$7,686.83Series A · Jun 21, 1996 → 1997-05-15
7.687×Price multiple
$6,686.83Gain / loss
427.04626335 AMZN share equivalents · ending price $18
Six IPO-basis common shares per preferred share. The six-for-one conversion already incorporates pre-IPO common splits; do not apply them twice.
Formula: amount ÷ $14.05 × 6 × AMZN ending price.
Amazon 1997 registration statement and agreements ↗Amazon investor FAQ ↗Illustrative paper value; no sale or access to a historical investment is assumed. Excludes fees, taxes, cash dividends, warrants and other distributions; fractional shares assumed. The IPO mark does not assume an executable sale.
THE STORY & THE EVIDENCE
Amazon: before the public market.
Amazon’s early common-stock investments and Series A preferred financing preceded its 1997 IPO. Preferred shares converted six-for-one, before later public stock splits.
IPO6 sourced milestones3 documented share scenarios
- Private common financing
- Private common financing
Angel common-stock investment
$0.3333, rounded filing basis
Tom Alberg purchased 150,000 common shares at the filing’s rounded $0.3333 per share.
- Private preferred financing
Kleiner Perkins Series A
$8,000,013.80 gross, calculated from the agreement$14.05 per preferred share
569,396 preferred shares were sold for $14.05 each. Each preferred share converted into six IPO-basis common shares.
- Private preferred financing
Additional Series A purchases
$200,000 combined$40 per preferred share
Scott Cook and Patricia Stonesifer each purchased 2,500 preferred shares at $40; the same six-for-one IPO conversion applies.
- IPO
Amazon goes public
$18
The final offer price was $18, superseding preliminary estimates in the registration statement.
- Share basis
Public share splits
2 × 3 × 2 × 20 produces 240 common shares per IPO share. The calculator applies the splits by ending price date.
What the records do not establish
- Private investment access, allocations and minimum investment amounts are not established by these records.
- Results exclude dividends, fees, taxes and other distributions; they are illustrative share values, not realized proceeds.
Research reviewed 2026-09-24. Selected public records, not a complete private cap table. An undisclosed price is left unknown.
Open this company’s sourced data (JSON) ↗
Source documents & filing locations
Amazon 1997 registration statement and agreements ↗
Certain Transactions; preferred stock note; June 21, 1996 purchase agreement. Preliminary IPO estimates are not used as final offer prices.
Amazon investor FAQ ↗
May 15, 1997 IPO at $18 and public stock-split history.
Amazon 2024 Form 10-K ↗
Share information and June 2022 twenty-for-one split.