12. HTC
A few folks will tell you HTC stands for High-Tech Compute, which it once did but this is not the true reason behind the name. H. T. Cho and Peter Chou founded the company in 1997 and they both decided to use their own initials to form a name and that’s how HTC was born. HTC produced the world’s first touchscreen smartphones (in 2000), the first Android smartphone and the first Microsoft 3G phone.
11. Samsung
Samsung is a Korean word which means “three stars”. It was chosen to represent the virtues of being Big, Numerous and Powerful, like stars in the night sky.
In the early stage, Samsung sold vegetables, dried fish, fruits and noodles. Later, the company diversified into many fields such as retails, insurance and security. In the late 1960s, Samsung entered into the electronic industry and its first electronic product was a black and white television set.
10. Virgin Group
Virgin is a private limited conglomerate company founded by Richard Branson in 1970. It consists of more than 400 companies worldwide and best known for its travel, entertainment and lifestyle area. The name was suggested to the founder by a friend who claimed they were complete virgins at business. Today, the net worth of Virgin Group is $22 Billion.
9. Adidas
Adidas is a multinational corporation founded by Adolf Dassler. The company is best known for its footwear and sports equipment. It has total revenue of $20 Billion and 46,500 employees. Adidas is taken from the nickname founder Adolf Adi Dassler. His brother Rudolf Rudi Dassler went on to found his own shoe company called Ruda presently known as Puma.
8. eBay
eBay is a consumer to consumer corporation founded in 1995 by Pierre Omidyar. The site was launched as “AuctionWeb“. In mid-1997, Omidyar and Jeffrey Skoll (eBay’s first full-time employee and president) made a decision to change the name. The Domain Name was already taken by mining company based on Echo Bay, Nevada and hence registered as in short eBay.com. The first item sold on the web was a broken laser pointer for $14.83.
7. Amazon.com
The company was founded in 1995. Jeff Bezos left his job (vice president of D.E Shaw) and began to work on a business plan that eventually became Amazon.com. He started with the list of 20 products (Computer hardware, Video, Books etc.) that can be sold online. Later he decided to sell only books on the internet. Amazon.com meant to represent the potential of larger volume sales in an online bookstore as compared to physical bookstore.
The company was incorporated as Cadabra on 5th July, 1994. According to the book (named Jeff Bezos: The Founder of Amazon.com) by Ann Byers, Bezos had a very legitimate fear that people could mishear Cadabra as Cadaver. Later, he came with an alternative, Amazon, which is taken from the name of the largest river in South America. No doubt, Bezos had big ambitions right from the beginning.
6. Audi
Audi is an automobile and motorcycle company founded by August Horch. The name is actually taken from its founder only, Latin for Horch. August was banned for using Horch (by German Supreme Court) as a brand name in his new car business. He called his friend to decide the new name. One of his friend’s sons was quietly studying Latin in the room and blurted out audiatur et altera pars. In German horch means to hear and audire means to listen in Latin. Audi is the singular form of audire and that’s how they accepted the name Audi.
5. Sony
Sony is a multinational conglomerate founded by Masaru Ibuka and Akio Morita. The brand name chosen from the Latin word Sonus which means sound. They selected because “SONY” could be pronounced easily in many languages. In 1946, the company had $530 and a total of 8 employees and now it has climbed to total assets of $152 Billion.
4. Google
Google began as a research project by two PhD Students Larry page and Sergey Brin. They originally nicknamed their engine BackRub because searching process is based on the backlinks present on the pages. Typically, they changed the name to Google, which is originating from the word Googol (10100). Google has over 1.2 billion unique visitors per month and a total asset of $94 billion.
3. IBM
IBM is an international company that manufactures and markets computer software and hardware, hosting and consulting service ranging from nanotechnology to mainframe computers. The company was founded on 16th July 1911 by Thomas J. Watson and Charles Ranlett Flint. After leaving a national cash register Thomas Watson one-upped is former employers by calling his company International Business Machines.
2. Apple
Apple sells computer software, hardware and consumer electronics. The company is best known for its Mac, iPod and iPhone products founded by Steve jobs and Steve Wazniak. Jobs suggested the name Apple Computer after his visit to apple Orchard (kind of commune). Apple was so much better than any other name they could think of. In 2007, the company dropped “Computer” from its name to become just Apple.
1. Microsoft
Microsoft is a software giant company ($142 Billion Assets) best known for its Windows operating system and Microsoft office tools. It was founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen in 1975. The word Microsoft (without hyphen) was first suggested by Gates on 26 November 1975 and the name became a registered trademark in 1976. Actually the name was derived from two words “Microcomputer Software” when Gates and Paul were building software for the Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems’s (MITS) Altair 8800.
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