Amazon made headlines in February 2020 when it gained a $1 trillion (£794bn) valuation. It was the fourth company in the world to do so: Apple hit the landmark in August 2018, Microsoft reached it in 2019 and Alphabet, Google's parent company, did so in January 2020.

Amazon has since gone from strength to strength; the company didn't just weather the pandemic but flourished, and with bolstered investment into its Prime Video content and other services, it's no surprise it's currently valued at a whopping $1.9 trillion (£1.5tn).

But it's not all plain sailing at the retailer. Ahead of this year's Black Friday, Amazon workers in 20 countries, including the US and UK are planning to strike to protest the company's "anti-worker and anti-democratic practices". Christy Hoffman, UNI Global Union's general secretary, has said: "Amazon's relentless pursuit of profit comes at a cost to workers, the environment and democracy... Bezos's company has spent untold millions to stop workers from organizing, but the strikes and protests happening around the world show that workers' desire for justice – for union representation – can't be stopped."

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Updated by Alice Cattley

Amazon then and now: from tiny garage to tech titan