Corporate America Trivia Quiz

Nike was founded in 1964 by Phil Knight, a track-and-field student at the University of Oregon, and his coach Bill Bowerman under the name "Blue Ribbon Sports". In the early years, Knight sold most of the shoes out of the back of his car at track meets up and down the West Coast.

After production partnerships concluded in 1971, the brand adopted the Nike name after the Greek goddess of victory. Nike maintains strong ties with Knight's alma mater at the University of Oregon as the official outfitter for all of the school's sports teams.

The "Googleplex" is the official name for the headquarters of both Google and their parent company Alphabet at 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway in Mountain View, California. The term is both a Portmanteau of "Google" and "complex" and also a pun relating to the numeric googolplex.

A googolplex is written as 1 followed by a googol (10 to the power of 100) of zeroes. The lobby features interactive videoboards showcasing active Google search queries, as well as replicas of rockets and dinosaur skeletons.

The first Starbucks location was opened in Seattle in 1971 and only sold coffee beans instead of the wide menu of beverages they serve today. It was nearly 20 years later that the company began to expand both its menu and its footprint across the United States and the world. Starbucks' current company headquarters is in a renovated Sears warehouse and office space that was built in 1915.

A Sears retail store was open on the ground floor of the building until 2014.

Ford, founded in 1903, was Henry Ford's third attempt at launching an automobile manufacturer. The launch of the Model T in 1908 revolutionized the company and led to the development of the modern production line. When Ford purchased the Lincoln Motor Company in 1920, they relocated to Dearborn, Michigan from their previous headquarters in nearby Highland Park.

By the end of the Roaring twenties, roughly two thirds of the cars on American roads were Model Ts produced at Ford's Dearborn facility.

The brand that became Walmart launched in Bentonville, Arkansas, in 1950 when Sam Walton opened "Walton's 5 and 10" on the city's main street. The Walmart name was adopted when Walton opened a second store in Harrison, Arkansas in 1962 with his business partner Bob Bogle.

After the launch of Walmart's "Supercenter" combination of grocery and department store in 1988, Walmart became the largest grocers in the United States. Walmart expanded across the United States by maximizing economies of scale, and as a result has been criticized for squeezing out independent local businesses in communities across the country.

The Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company was founded in 1902 in northern Minnesota as a mining venture. Their initial mining operation failed when the exploration for corundum, used in the production of sandpaper, came up empty. After relocating to Saint Paul in 1910, the company later repositioned their headquarters to the Minneapolis suburb of Maplewood.

Some of 3M's creations include masking tape and Post-it notes.

The company was named for the developer of vulcanized rubber Charles Goodyear but was not founded by him. Frank Seiberling launched the company, managed a loan to buy the company's first factory in Akron, and designed the now iconic winged foot logo of the company.

The company produced bicycle tires, rubber horseshoe pads, and even poker chips before the creation of the automobile greatly improved the company's fortunes. Akron is known as the "Rubber Capital of the World" as it is also home to rival tire manufacturers Firestone, BF Goodrich, and General Tire.

The first two "Home Depot" hardware stores opened in the Atlanta area in 1979. The founding team, led by Arthur Blank and Bernard Marcus, aimed to create stores much larger than typical independent hardware stores. The company quickly expanded to 20 stores by 1984 and went public on the New York Stock Exchange. Blank used some of his fortune from the company to purchase NFL and MLS franchises in Atlanta.

American Express was founded at the other end of the state of New York, in Buffalo in 1850. Initial investors in the company included Henry Wells and William Fargo, who would collaborate in the launch of Wells Fargo in 1852. Amex relocated to Long Island in 1872. Before launching into the world of credit cards, American Express held a near monopoly over the express movement of goods around New York State.

The company's current headquarters is at 200 Vesey Street in downtown Manhattan, the building formerly known as Three World Trade Center.

William Harley and brothers Arthur and Walter Davidson built their first factory at the site that now boasts the company's corporate office in Milwaukee. The single story wooden factory was only 2400 sq ft when it was built in 1906 and 50 motorcycles were produced inside. Harley-Davidson aided the US military greatly during the First World War in the production of motorcycles, but the company went into dire times when the Great Depression struck and domestic sales plummeted.