Technology

The Eccentric Habits of Tech Geniuses

Published

9 years ago

May 4, 2015

Jeff Desjardins

The Eccentric Habits of Tech Geniuses

The visionaries that innovate and build our technological world have a certain eccentricity that gets preserved over time. Unlike the CEOs of blue chip companies that have an almost institutional and stoic history, many of these founders do not have to go through the extensive corporate gauntlet where every personal idiosyncrasy is lost along the way.

Their uniqueness is embraced and sometimes vilified, but it usually sticks around. We’ve looked before at 26 Surprising Facts About Google and also 37 Surprising Facts About Apple, where the impact of the founders and their unique personality traits became embedded in the company culture.

Today’s infographic goes into some of the more unusual rituals taken by successful tech entrepreneurs and inventors. Probably the strangest is from Yoshiro Nakamatsu, at least partly responsible for the floppy disk, who relaxes in a 24k gold-tiled “calm room” that prevents radio and television waves from entering.

Shigeru Miyamoto is another Japanese tech genius who designed some of the most legendary video games on the Nintendo platform. Shigeru carries around measuring tape with him, so that he can use it to validate his guesses on the lengths of objects. This is totally a normal thing to do.

Original graphic from: WhoIsHostingThis

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.