Company Men Trivia Quiz

Answer: Google

On September 4, 1998, Larry Page and his partner Sergey Brin officially started the internet company known as 'Google'. The pair started the company while they were still students at Stanford University in California. Almost every human being on the planet has heard of 'google", with a large percentage of those having used it at some point to search for...just about anything.

The search engine was added to the Oxford English Dictionary, and has also turned into a verb, i.e., to google. The name is actually a misspelling of the mathematical expression 'googol'.

Answer: Amazon

Have you ever noticed the Amazon logo? Not only does it have a smile, but the arrow underneath cleverly points from 'a' to 'z', indicating that you can get about anything from the company. Jeff Bezos founded Amazon in May 1996, with its headquarters located in Seattle, Washington. Bezos began with books, but the business now allows online customers to compare and purchase retail items ranging from appliances to zippers.

The company has literally changed the way people shop!

Answer: Facebook

Mark Zuckerberg and his Harvard roommate, Eduardo Saverin (along with Andrew McCollom, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes) were responsible for the launching of 'the social network' with the development of Facebook in 2004. The project was originally meant to allow students to share face time with each other but, instead, it turned into a system for people all over the world to share their thoughts and ideas. With over one billion users, the world is now a smaller place where everyone is, virtually, a neighbor.

Answer: Oracle

Oracle is a computer technology company which was founded way back in June 1977 by Larry Ellison, Bob Miner and Ed Oates, under the name Software Development Laboratories. In 1979 the name of the software maker was changed to Relational Software, Inc and then to Oracle Systems Corp. in 1982. Oracle deals with 'database management systems'. A competitor of Microsoft, in 2015 Oracle was right behind them in terms of generating revenue.
Sidenote: Ellison was brought up by adoptive parents, his father Louis having taken his last name after Ellis Island where he entered the United States.

Answer: Berkshire Hathaway

Speaking of Oracle..."The Oracle of Omaha", Warren Buffett, is next on the company list. Buffett is considered one of the world's best businessmen and investors. At 13 years old he was running a business as a paperboy while, at the same time, selling a horseracing 'tip sheet' he created; he filed taxes on his earnings and claimed his bicycle as a deduction.

He formed Buffett Partnership in 1956 and in 1965 took control of Berkshire Hathaway. As CEO, Buffett has led Berkshire Hathaway Class A to become the most expensive stock in the world.

As of April 2016, it was priced at $200,000 for one share!

Answer: Benihana

Hiroaki 'Rocky' Aoki (1938-2008) was born in Tokyo, Japan and was quite the 'renaissance man'. Early on, he was a musician but switched to athletics. He became a wrestler and qualified for the 1960 Rome Olympics. He moved to New York City in the early 1960s and went on to win the US flyweight title in 1962, 1963 and 1964.

In 1995 Aoki was inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame. As far as his business experience, he worked in an ice cream truck and used his earnings to co-invest with his father in a small restaurant on 56th Street in NYC which he called Benihana (Japanese for safflower).

Answer: Sony

Kazuo Hirai may not be a household name in the United States, but the company he runs as CEO, i.e., Sony, certainly is. Sony was founded in 1946 by Masaru Ibuka and Akio Morita as Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering Corporation. In January 1958 the name was changed to Sony, from the Latin 'sonus' for sound.
'Kaz' Hirai, born in Tokyo, Japan, joined the company in 1984. In 2000, Hirai was responsible for releasing the popular 'Playstation 2' which allowed the company to continue its success and, on April 1, 2012, he was named President and CEO.

Answer: IKEA

We move from the world of technology to functional furniture. As of 2008, IKEA became the world's largest seller of retail furniture. Swedish entrepreneur Ingvar Kamprad founded the company in 1943. Kamprad, like many of the other business successes, began early in life - by selling matches to neighbors.

He moved on to selling fish, seeds, pencils, etc., working his way up. In 1948 he began selling furniture using the acronym IKEA which stood for his initials (IK), the farm where he was born (Elmtaryd) and the nearby village (Agunnaryd).

Answer: SpaceX

You know when someone has reached luminary status? One way might be when he appears on an episode of "The Simpsons". So it was with Elon Musk on "The Musk Who Fell to Earth" which aired on January 25, 2015. Elon Musk founded the aerospace company Space Exploration Technologies Corporation, i.e., SpaceX, in March 2002.

Born in South Africa, Musk is an engineer and inventor. He has some very lofty goals among which are: "reducing global warming" and "making life multiplanetary".

Answer: C-T-R/IBM

You may not know the name Charles Ranlett Flint (1850-1934) or even the original name of the company he founded, Computer-Tabulating-Recording Company (CTR), but you will most assuredly have heard of the company it evolved into...IBM. CTR was founded in 1911 and was renamed International Business Machines in 1924. IBM's inventions include the automated teller machine (ATM) which has forever changed the way we bank.

The company also gave us the 'floppy disc', 'hard disc drive' and the 'magnetic stripe card'. Flint earned the nickname "The Father of Trusts", and we are indebted to him for giving us "Big Blue".