Take Care of Business With This Quiz on Famous Founders

After starring in TV's "Dark Angel," and movies including "Fantastic Four," "Sin City," and "Good Luck Chuck," actress Jessica Alba became an entrepreneur and business owner. In 2011, she founded the Honest Company, a consumer retailer that sells baby-care items, beauty products, and more. In 2021, the company went public on the Nasdaq stock exchange with a value of just under $1 billion.

After leaving the National Cash Register Company in 1914, Thomas Watson joined a conglomerate of technology companies called the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company, which later changed its name to International Business Machines. Under Watson’s leadership, IBM dominated the early computer industry throughout the ’30s and ’40s. By the ’60s, an estimated 70% of the world’s computers were made by IBM.

Michael Dell started his namesake computer company during his freshman year at the University of Texas-Austin. By his second semester, he had $80,000 in sales. Dell soon dropped out of college to focus on the business full time. Dell, Inc. went public in 1988, and in 1999, overtook Compaq as the world’s biggest computer manufacturer.

After graduating from the University of Oregon, former track athlete Phil Knight pursued his vision of importing lower-cost Japanese sneakers to America. On a 1962 trip to Japan, he signed a deal with a shoe brand called Tiger, and in 1964, he went into business with his college coach Bill Bowerman. During Nike’s early days, Knight sold the inventory at track meets from the trunk of his green Plymouth.

Born Josephine Mentzer in 1908, Estée Lauder learned how to make lotions and skin creams from her uncle, who was a European skin specialist. She launched her cosmetics company in 1946, selling just four products at local hotels and salons. In 1947, the company had its big break when major department store Saks placed an $800 order. The business continued to grow over the next several decades, and by 1973, Estée Lauder had 1,000 employees and $100 million in worldwide sales.

While working as an industrial mixer salesman in 1954, Kroc visited a hamburger shop run by two brothers, Maurice and Richard McDonald. Observing the store’s efficient, detail-driven production methods, Kroc believed the idea could easily scale and entered a licensing agreement with the brothers. His first McDonald’s opened in 1955. By 1961, the chain had 228 locations and annual sales of $37 million. His endeavors were the subject of the movie “The Founder,” starring Michael Keaton as Kroc.

After leaving the White House, Barack and Michelle Obama decided to start their own production company, Higher Ground. The company inked a deal with Netflix to produce a slate of TV series, movies, and podcasts, including the documentaries "Becoming" and "American Factory," the kids' show "Waffles and Mochi," and the movie "Fatherhood."

In 1929, Margaret Rudkin and her family moved to a property called Pepperidge Farm, where she began to bake and sell her goods to neighbors and friends and then to her local grocer. By 1939, Rudkin had sold more than 500,000 loaves of bread. Less than 10 years later, the Pepperidge Farm brand opened its first modern bakery, and has since produced many beloved items such as the “snack that smiles back.”

In 1919, Roy Allen started a root beer stand during a parade in Lodi, California. It was a huge success. A few years later, Allen partnered with his employee Frank Wright to lease their first franchises. When the duo joined forces, they created a new name for their root beer and restaurant company, calling it A&W after the first letters in their last names.

Clara Barton earned her reputation nursing soldiers and delivering supplies during the Civil War, and in 1864, she was made regional nurse superintendent for the Union Army. After a trip to Europe in 1869, she became involved with the Geneva-based Red Cross. Barton brought the ideas back with her, and in 1881, she launched the American Association of the Red Cross, now known as the American National Red Cross.

The "Wal" in Walmart comes from Walton, the last name of the company's founder. In 1950, Sam Walton and his family moved to Bentonville, Arkansas, where he opened a Walton's 5&10 store in the downtown square. In 1962, he expanded his business and opened the first Walmart. Today, there are nearly 10,000 Walmarts worldwide, and just under 600 locations of Sam's Club, the company's membership-only warehouse brand.

One of the most famous American inventors in history, Thomas Edison is best known for his development of the modern light bulb and phonograph. But the Wizard of Menlo Park also provided the foundation for one of today’s most ubiquitous brands: General Electric. The company was formed through a merger between the Edison Electric Light Company and two other electrical companies.

Widely considered one of the most innovative founders in American history, Henry Ford is best known for his assembly line methods of mass-producing cars. While he was a key figure in the automotive revolution of the 1920s, Ford also made lasting contributions to the labor movement, cutting the workweek from six days to five and making the workday eight hours instead of nine.

Elon Musk, who in 2021 became the richest person in the world, founded SpaceX, Neuralink, and the Boring Company. But he’s perhaps best known as the CEO of the electric car company, Tesla. The son of an emerald mine magnate and a model, Musk grew up in South Africa and later studied economics and physics at the University of Pennsylvania.

Dave Thomas tried all five of his children's names before deciding on his daughter Melinda's nickname, Wendy, as the name of his new restaurant. Thus, Wendy's Old-Fashioned Hamburgers was born, and Melinda became the red-haired mascot for the company. Later in life, Thomas regretted the pressure he put on his daughter by naming the chain after her, but Wendy said she wouldn't have had it any other way.

After becoming the host of "AM Chicago" and turning it into the nationally syndicated "The Oprah Winfrey Show," Oprah Winfrey started her own production company in 1986. Named Harpo Productions ("Harpo" is "Oprah" backward), the studio has been a producer for Winfrey's myriad media properties, including her eponymous talk show. It is also a partial owner of OWN, the Oprah Winfrey Network.

In 1964, NHL legend Tim Horton opened his first Tim Hortons location in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. The coffee shop quickly became a success, and Horton went on to franchise the restaurant, eventually growing it to the more than 4,000 locations it has today, including those in Kuwait, Thailand, and Mexico. In 2014, the global chain was bought by Burger King for over $11 billion.

Bill Gates grew up in Seattle, where he took an interest in computer programming at an early age. In the mid-1970s, after Gates and his hometown friend Paul Allen successfully completed a project to create software for early microcomputers, Gates dropped out of Harvard and the pair founded Microsoft. They licensed the first widely popular operating system, MS-DOS, in 1981. Gates stepped down from leading the company’s day-to-day operations in 2008.

In 1869, Henry John Heinz formed a horseradish company with two other men in Sharpsburg, Pennsylvania. The business was defunct by 1875, partially because of the economic panic of 1873. One year later, Heinz restructured the company and moved it to Pittsburgh. With a focus on tomato ketchup and its famous “57 Varieties” slogan, Heinz found success. By 1919, the company had 25 factories and 6,000 employees.

Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak founded Apple on April 1, 1976, in Jobs' garage in Los Altos, Calif.. The business grew rapidly after the launch of the Apple II computer, but the duo parted ways in the 1980s and left Apple to pursue other ventures. Jobs then returned to the company in the late '90s, and Wozniak still represents the company at events in a ceremonial capacity.