I work at Amazon, the hours are fantastic and the pay is great
Yes.  I love shopping on Amazon.  It's hard to believe that the company was started in 1994.  It bases out of Seattle.  
Seattle is one of the few hearts of innovation in this country. I am grateful places like Seattle and California for being willing to shed it's preconceptions and think freely
Well, the tech giant is the largest internet retailer in the world.  It is amazing to think about how fast and how large the company has grown.  
I would have assumed Alibaba was larger simply because it allows basically anyone to sell anything on there, it's like Craigslist
Yes.  Well, Alibaba Group is largest in sales, but Amazon is largest in the world with revenue and market capitalization combined.  Very good point.  
I think Amazon will take over shipping before long
I agree.  Amazon now offer international shipping to certain countries for some of its products.  Plus, Amazon hosts several retail websites for several international countries too.
That's so crazy, you gotta wonder how they even make money off of it, it must be razor thin margins of large volume
But they host so many product lines: books. DVD's, music CDs, videotapes, software, apparel, baby product, electronics of all sorts, beauty products, gourmet food, groceries, kitchen items, jewelry .... it's massive and amazing.  I don't know how they get it all to work.