Business History Facts

Hewlett Packard was started at a garage in Palo Alto in 1939.

Originally, BMW was an airplane engine manufacturer.

In 1999, Pepsi, Inc. paid $0.00 in income tax!

Despite being one of the top 10 richest men in the world, Ingvar Kamprad (founder of IKEA) lives in a small home, eats at IKEA, and uses the bus.

Originally, Du Pont, Inc. was a tiny gun powder mill in New Jersey.

Walt Disney was a high school dropout and he was fired by a newspaper editor because "he lacked imagination and had no good ideas."

After Disney threatened to sue three day care centers for unauthorized use of their characters, Hanna-Barbera gave them the right to use Universal characters as decorations.

A Kodak engineer constructed the first digital camera in 1975. They didn't want to go digital. They went bankrupt in 2012.