Technology

Who Secretly Runs the Tech World?

Published

10 years ago

July 23, 2014

Jeff Desjardins

Who Secretly Runs the Tech World?

Famous tech titans, like Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk, usually command the spotlight in tech publicity, but there are many other influential entrepreneurs flying under the radar. It’s likely that you’ve never heard of any of these entrepreneurs before, but it might be worth your while to keep an eye out for them from now on.

Paul Graham founded the most successful startup incubator of all time, YCombinator. Since its inception, YCombinator has added an impressive $6.1 billion to the American economy and created 3,000 jobs. YCombinator was a driving force in developing Reddit and Dropbox, two of the most successful startups in Silicon Valley. The cloud sharing service received seed funding and mentorship from the program and it has paid off well. Dropbox is now valued at approximately $10 billion.

Another tech entrepreneur who is a major player, but flies under the radar, is James Clark. In addition to being a founder of Netscape, he made lucrative investments in companies that made it big: Apple, Facebook and Twitter. James bought a large chunk of Apple stock in February 2009, when it was trading in the mid-teens, and we all know what has happened to the price since.

The impact these four tech leaders, and many other incognito tech titans, have inspired and helped develop a generation of entrepreneurs that will change the world. They may not always get the spotlight, but they are more than worthy of it.

Original infographic from: WhoIsHostingThis.com

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Brands

How Tech Logos Have Evolved Over Time

From complete overhauls to more subtle tweaks, these tech logos have had quite a journey. Featuring: Google, Apple, and more.

Published

1 day ago

April 22, 2024

Marcus Lu

How Tech Logos Have Evolved Over Time

This was originally posted on our Voronoi app. Download the app for free on iOS or Android and discover incredible data-driven charts from a variety of trusted sources.

One would be hard-pressed to find a company that has never changed its logo. Granted, some brands—like Rolex, IBM, and Coca-Cola—tend to just have more minimalistic updates. But other companies undergo an entire identity change, thus necessitating a full overhaul.

In this graphic, we visualized the evolution of prominent tech companies’ logos over time. All of these brands ranked highly in a Q1 2024 YouGov study of America’s most famous tech brands. The logo changes are sourced from 1000logos.net.

How Many Times Has Google Changed Its Logo?

Google and Facebook share a 98% fame rating according to YouGov. But while Facebook’s rise was captured in The Social Network (2010), Google’s history tends to be a little less lionized in popular culture.

For example, Google was initially called “Backrub” because it analyzed “back links” to understand how important a website was. Since its founding, Google has undergone eight logo changes, finally settling on its current one in 2015.

Company	Number of Logo Changes
Google	8
HP	8
Amazon	6
Microsoft	6
Samsung	6
Apple	5*

Note: *Includes color changes. Source: 1000Logos.net

Another fun origin story is Microsoft, which started off as Traf-O-Data, a traffic counter reading company that generated reports for traffic engineers. By 1975, the company was renamed. But it wasn’t until 2012 that Microsoft put the iconic Windows logo—still the most popular desktop operating system—alongside its name.

And then there’s Samsung, which started as a grocery trading store in 1938. Its pivot to electronics started in the 1970s with black and white television sets. For 55 years, the company kept some form of stars from its first logo, until 1993, when the iconic encircled blue Samsung logo debuted.

Finally, Apple’s first logo in 1976 featured Isaac Newton reading under a tree—moments before an apple fell on his head. Two years later, the iconic bitten apple logo would be designed at Steve Jobs’ behest, and it would take another two decades for it to go monochrome.