There is a company in Japan that has schools that teach you how to be funny. The first one opened in 1982. About 1,000 students take the course each year.
100 Mind-Blowing Company Facts
There is a company that sells mirrors that make people look 10 pounds thinner. Overall, the mirrors have contributed to 54% of total sales for retailers that use them.
In 1994, the company that had a patent on GIFs tried to charge a fee for using GIFS. The PNG was invented as an alternative, and the company backed down.
There is a company in the U.K. that offers “being hungover” as a valid reason for calling off work. They are allotted four hungover days per year.
Samsung means “three stars” in Korean. This was chosen by the founder because he wanted the company to be powerful and everlasting, like stars in the sky.
Originally, bumper cars were not supposed to hit each other. Drivers were supposed to avoid crashing despite chaotic driving. The first company to patent a bumper car was in 1920 named Dodgem.
A Dutch start-up company has been able to start training wild crows so that they pick up cigarette butts and put them in bins for a peanut as a reward.
As per the Shark Tank contract, if you mention the name of any company you own, then Shark Tank automatically owns 5% of that company or gets 2% of the lifetime profits.
The insurance company backing the payouts for “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” sued the show for being too easy.
In 1922 & 1933, The Coca-Cola Company was offered a chance to buy the Pepsi-Cola Company, and it declined on three separate occasions.
The wealthiest company in the world in 2020 was Saudi Aramco.
According to Chess Journal, the world’s most expensive chess set, which includes diamonds and emeralds and was commissioned by Great Britain’s Royale Jewel Company, is valued at more than $9.8 million.
Wonder Bread was created in Indianapolis in 1921 at the Taggart Baking Company. The owner of Taggart went to the first race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, which was a hot air balloon race, and the view and “wonder” of the experience inspired the brand’s name and colourful circle design on its packageing.
As Food52 reported, the San Francisco syrup company Torani is said to have invented the flavoured latte in 1982. Its origin story alleges that the retired coffee industry veteran LC “Brandy” Brandenburg created a flavoured latte out of steamed milk, espresso and Torani’s vanilla and orange syrups, which he dubbed “Fantasia.”
German chocolate cake was invented in Texas. The “German” part of German chocolate cake comes from an American man—not a European country. Specifically, it’s named after Sam German, who in 1852 created the formula for a mild dark baking chocolate bar for Baker’s Chocolate Company, which was subsequently named Baker’s German’s Sweet Chocolate. Fast-forward to June 13, 1957. The Dallas Morning Star published the recipe for the cake, invented and submitted by a reader identified as Mrs. George Clay, according to What’s Cooking America.
Kleenex tissues were originally intended for gas masks. When there was a cotton shortage during World War I, Kimberly-Clark developed a thin, flat cotton substitute that the army tried to use as a filter in gas masks. The war ended before scientists perfected the material, so the company redeveloped it to be smoother and softer and then marketed Kleenex as facial tissue instead.
The inventor of the microwave appliance received only $2 for his discovery. Percy Spencer was working as a researcher for American Appliance Company (now Raytheon) when he noticed that a radar set using electromagnetic waves melted the candy bar in his pocket. He had the idea to make a metal box using microwaves to heat food, but the company was the one to file the patent. That was in 1945, and he received a $2 bonus but never any royalties.
Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ron Wayne started Apple Inc. on April Fools’ Day. The three technology innovators signed the documents to form the Apple Computer Company on April 1, 1976. However, the company was not fully incorporated until January 3, 1977. Thirty years later, the company was renamed Apple Inc. and is no joke. In 2018, Apple became the country’s first trillion-dollar company. Of course, computers have come a long way over the years—here’s what computers looked like the decade you were born.
Uncle Ben’s rice was air-dropped to World War II troops. German chemist Erich Huzenlaub invented a process of parboiling rice to keep more nutrients in the rice and lessen the cooking time. The “Huzenlaub Process” had another unexpected benefit: It stopped bug infestations. The quick-cook, bug-free rice was a big advantage during World War II, and converted rice (as it was then known) was air-dropped to American and British troops. After the war, the company rebranded itself and became Uncle Ben’s Original Converted Brand Rice, named after one of the company’s best rice suppliers. The product hit grocery store shelves in 1947.
May 20, 1873, is the “birthday” of blue jeans. According to the Levi Strauss company, this was the day that Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis, the innovators behind the sturdy blue jeans we all love, got a patent on the process of adding metal rivets to men’s denim work pants. The pants were called waist overalls until 1960 when baby boomers began calling them jeans.
The MGM lion roar is trademarked. At the start of any movie made by the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studio, the iconic lion roars at the audience. While MGM has gone through several iterations of lion mascots, the sound of the roar is always the same. The company trademarked the “sound mark” with the United States Patent and Trademark Office in the 1980s.
3 Musketeers bars got their name because they used to come with three flavours. The original 3 Musketeers bars of the 1930s came in three packs, with a different nougat flavour in each: vanilla, chocolate, or strawberry. World War II rations made that triple threat expensive, so the company cut down to one.
The blob of toothpaste on a toothbrush has a name. It’s called a ‘nurdle’ and there was once a lawsuit over which toothpaste company had the right to portray it.
M&M’s stands for “Mars & Murrie’s.” The two ‘M’s on this candy staple represent the names of Forrest E. Mars Sr., (founder of Newark Company), and Bruce Murrie (son of Hershey Chocolate’s president William F. R. Murrie). One of the little-known fun facts about M&M’s is that it’s made with Hershey’s chocolate. Another fun fact? It’s a copycat product! Mars only had an idea for the product from seeing its British predecessor, Smarties.
Dodge made the first engines used by Ford. The Dodge Brothers Company built every part of the earliest Ford car except the seats and tyres.
The foil seals on medicine bottles were placed due to poisoning incidents. The Tylenol poisonings of 1982 were a widespread crisis that involved U.S. consumers dying or falling ill from Tylenol. It was later found that the bottles had been laced with potassium cyanide. To restore the faith of the public in the product and the company, Johnson & Johnson patented the seal to prevent further tampering incidents. This is also the thought behind the “Do not accept if seal is broken.” warnings that we see with other products.
The Little Mermaid was Disney’s first princess movie in 30 years. When Disney released Sleeping Beauty, it was such a box office bomb that the company was put off creating princess movies. Disney didn’t make another princess movie until 30 years later when The Little Mermaid was released in 1989.
Ben & Jerry’s learned how to make ice cream from a $5 course at Penn State. The titular Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield were childhood friends. Although Greenfield finished college, he was unable to pursue med school. Cohen, on the other hand, dropped out of school. In 1977, Cohen and Greenfield completed a course on ice cream making from Pennsylvania State University’s Creamery. One of the fun facts no one knows about this famous product: Have you ever wondered why Ben & Jerry’s is so chunky? Ben Cohen has a condition where he can’t smell or taste anything. Instead, he relied on food textures texture to provide variety in his diet. This led to the company’s trademark chunks in their ice cream.
Kleenex tissues were supposed to be for gas masks. During a cotton shortage in World War I, Kimberly-Clark devised a thin, flat cotton substitute to use as a filter for army gas masks. However, the war ended before scientists could perfect the material. In turn, the company constructed a thinner and softer material that eventually became Kleenex tissues.
Apple Inc. was founded on April Fool’s. Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne signed the documents for the Apple Computer Company on April 1st, 1976. However, the company was not fully established until January 3rd, 1977.
More monopoly money is printed annually rather than actual currency. The U.S. government prints around $974 million annually to replace old money. However, the company behind the beloved board game prints over $30 billion worth of fake money annually.
IKEA is an acronym. It stands for Ingvar Kamprad Elmtaryd Agunnaryd. This is also the name of the company’s owner.
Samsung translates to ‘three stars’ in Korean. This name was chosen by the founder mainly due to its symbolism. He wanted the phone company to be as powerful and everlasting as the stars.
Coca-Cola was originally green. However, the company itself said that this may be due to the green bottles they once used. New marketing techniques switched to plastic bottles instead of glass later on.
The number 57 on the bottle of Heinz ketchup has a meaning. This number represents the number of products the company has. However, in the beginning, it was said that Henry Heinz simply used the number because he believed it was lucky.
Around 70% of virus programmers are said to allegedly work under a strict contract for crime syndicates. Their jobs are to constantly detect vulnerabilities within their own company and try to find a way to block unwanted breaches out. There is often a black-or-white scale in the world of virus programming.
A footlong from the subway is not one foot long. The subway footlong is made to be the registered trademark of the sandwich company. The restaurant states that it was not made to be used as a measurement of length.
The name ‘Adidas’ comes from Adolf (Adi) Dassler (Das). Building off of a shoe business that he started with his brother, Adolf “Adi” Dassler established his own company upon their separation in 1949. The founder named his brand Adidas as a contraction of his name. More interesting facts about shoes? Adi’s brother, Rudolf Dassler was the founder of Puma.
The Fender Guitar company makes 90,000 guitar strings a day. Fender may be one of the biggest music companies, but its founder, Leo Fender, did not know how to play any instruments.
There’s a company you can pay to kidnap you. The Ultíme Réalité is a French company that offers kidnapping services. If you pay them a fee, they will come to kidnap you when you least expect it – ropes, binds, and all. They won’t do it immediately, though. They’ll wait for a certain period so you won’t remember that you paid someone to kidnap you.
LEGO has an underground vault with all the LEGO sets ever made. Yup, you read that right. One of the fun but still WTF facts: LEGO has an underground bunker that holds all the LEGO sets made since the company started in the mid-90s. The Memory Lane vault contains 4,720 sets.
Heroin used to be sold as cough medicine. The Bayer pharmaceutical company distributed heroin as a cough medicine from 1898 to 1910. It was also marketed as a non-addictive substitute for morphine. Thank God for modern medicine.
The most layers on a sandwich are 60. The world record for the most layers in a sandwich is 60. It was achieved by the DiLusso Deli Company at Madison Square Park in New York, USA on October 22, 2016.
Grass flip-flops are an actual product you can buy. The Australian company KUSA makes artificial grass flip-flops that simulate the feeling of walking on fresh grass. See for yourself if these grass flip-flops are as comfy as they say so.
Marvel action figures helped ToyBiz save money. In the U.S., dolls based on human figures are taxed more heavily than other toys. Owning the rights to several Marvel Comics characters, ToyBiz successfully convinced the court that X-Men and Fantastic Four action figures should be taxed less. Their argument? The action figures were based on mutants, not humans. Following their appeal, the toy company won a reimbursement on the year’s taxes and cut their rate in half.
Toy Story helped sell the Etch-a-Sketch. The Etch-a-Sketch made a 12-second appearance in the 1995 feature film, Toy Story. That 12-second cameo was enough to boost Etch-a-Sketch sales, thus saving the Ohio Art Company from bankruptcy.
The main production company for the film was Universal Pictures. Universal took a risk in financing and distributing the movie, but it paid off both financially and critically.
The 57 on Heinz ketchup bottles represent the number of varieties of pickles the company once had.
The first drive-in service station in the United States was opened by Gulf Oil Company – on December 1, 1913, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
For years, the pharmaceutical company Bayer held the trademark for the word “heroin” and sold the drug as a cough and headache remedy.
A company in Japan awards non-smokers an extra six days of paid leave each year. It was brought to the marketing firm’s attention that employees who went for smoke breaks had more than 15 minutes of extra time away from their desks each day. Instead of penalising smokers, they came up with a creative incentive to quit smoking while keeping their non-smoking employees happy in the process!
In Japan, when a train leaves the station at the wrong time, the rail company apologizes. Back in 2018, a train in Japan left the station a full 25 seconds early, which probably sounds like nothing out of the ordinary to most people worldwide. The train operator admitted his mistake, exclaiming, “The great inconvenience we placed upon our customers was truly inexcusable.” Japanese trains are known for their punctuality, so there were a few passengers who missed their train that day!
Kim Il Sung loved Hennessy cognac so much he bought more than $800,000 of it per year! The vast majority of people in North Korea live rather impoverished lives, and this has been the case under multiple generations of the ruling dynasties now. High-ranking officials and North Korea’s leaders live very different lives, spoiling themselves lavishly and allowing themselves access to otherwise forbidden imported goods. For example, Kim Il Sung was so crazy about Hennessy that he was the cognac company’s number-one customer for a few years in the 1990s.
Nintendo was founded in 1889 as a playing card company.
There aren’t “57 varieties” of Heinz ketchup, and never were. Company founder H.J. Heinz thought his product should have a number, and he liked 57. Hint: Hit the glass bottle on the “57,” not the bottom, to get the ketchup to flow.
Sliced bread was first manufactured by machine and sold in the 1920s by the Chillicothe Baking Company in Missouri. It was the greatest thing since…unsliced bread?
Play-Doh started as a wallpaper cleaner before the head of the struggling company realized the non-toxic material made a good modelling clay for children and rebranded it.
Although no longer connected to the beer company, Guinness World Records was founded by the manageing director of Guinness Brewery in the 1950s.
Michelin stars are highly coveted by elite and upscale restaurants the world over—but they’re given out by the Michelin tyre company, the same one whose mascot is the marshmallow-like Michelin Man. If you want to get fancy, pronounce it in the original French, “mich-LEH.”
Xerox is not a verb for photocopying but is the name of a company that creates and sells xerographic technology. Many people often use the word “xerox” when they want to photocopy something. Yet, they do not know that it is a company name called Xerox Holdings Corporation.
Aeromobil has introduced the world’s first commercial flying car. Flying cars exist! The Slovakian company aims to debut the world’s first roadable aircraft in the market this 2023, which will shake the transportation industry.
Google has worked with a goat-herding company to help reduce the company’s carbon emissions.
Jeff Bezos named his company Cadabra Inc. before renaming it Amazon.
Google’s Name Comes From A Spelling Error. Sergey Brin and Larry Page founded Google in 1998. 70% of search queries worldwide run through Google’s search engine. On occasion, people wonder where the name Google comes from, and its origin story comes from a spelling error. A “googol”, in mathematics, is the number 1 followed by 100 zeros. Page originally wanted to call the search engine googol. By the time the company was formed, it switched its name to Google. Perhaps the name is easier to spell and looks more friendly on the screen. People perform billions of search queries each day through Google. It’s such a popular name that it became a verb years ago among users. Most people refer to running an Internet search as “Googling” something.
What Was The First Apple Logo? Everyone recognises the Apple logo today, which is unsurprisingly an apple. Ronald Wayne, Apple Computer Co co-founder, designed the original Apple logo when started the company. In the 1970s, Apple’s logo featured Isaac Newton sitting under an apple tree. Newton discovered gravity when an apple fell on his head, hence the symbolism of the logo. A quote from William Wordsworth lined the frame of the Apple logo. Apple has since adopted its more common “bitten-apple” based logo. Nonetheless, few people could identify the company’s original logo if given a multiple-choice quiz. The modern, simplified logo for the company right now exemplifies everything Apple is about today.
What Was The First Ever.COM Domain? Symbolics Inc. registered the first .COM domain on March 15, 1985. For obvious reasons, the company chose to register Symbolics.com on the World Wide Web. Nordu.net was technically the first domain name ever but didn’t go through the registration process. Less than 15,000 domains had been registered to the web in 1992. In 2010, more than 200 million domains were registered to .COM alone. Dozens of other domain names exist, and millions of websites are registered with each one. No domain name is going to come close to dethroning .COM anytime soon, if ever. Regardless, Symbolics.com will hold its place in history.
Google Was Put On Sale In 1999. In 1999, Yahoo and Excite held the top spots in search engine popularity. Larry Page pitched a sale of Google to Excite CEO George Bell. Page wanted $750,000 and 1% of Excite to let go of his fledgling search engine. At the time, Bell considered the offer competitive except for one detail: Page wanted Excite to ditch its search engine technology and adopt Google’s system. Bell declined the offer and threw himself into Internet lore. In 2021, most people don’t know the name Excite, but everyone knows and uses Google. The company is now worth over 300 billion dollars.
This Is The World’s Largest Hard Disk Drive (HDD). Seagate launched the Exos 20+ hard disk drive (HDD) in December 2020. The HDD utilises HAMR and MACH2 technologies to offer 20 terabytes (TB) of storage. Typically, home computers utilise hard drives ranging from 1TB to 4 TB. Businesses and data centres may use significantly larger hard drives. It’s an impressive development from Seagate. The company recently launched 18TB hard drives to the market as well. Lately, companies have released larger and larger hard drives with improved performance. Solid state drives (SSDs) continue to grow in popularity, but the HDD remains a competitive alternative, especially for larger capacities.
IBM 305 RAMAC: The Supercomputer That Weighed A Ton (Literally). In September 1956, IBM announced and released the IBM 305 RAMAC supercomputer. It was the first supercomputer to use magnetic disk storage. More than 1,000 systems were built and sold before the 305 RAMAC became obsolete in 1962. The machine weighed more than a ton and required multiple people to set up or move. IBM charged companies and organisations $3,200 per month for the IBM 305. That amounts to nearly $30,000 in today’s dollars. For that reason, government organisations and large corporations were the main customers of IBM’s supercomputer. Subsequent supercomputers were released by IBM. The company releases a new supercomputer every few years on average.
“123456” is the most used password in the world!! NordPass released the list of the most common passwords of 2020. Over 2.5 million users decided to use the password “123456”. Unsurprisingly, that’s a weak password that nobody should ever use. It was cracked over 23.5 million times in 2020. Hackers can crack the password in less than a second due to its sequential and common nature. For better or worse, NordPass lists “12345” as the most common password from 2019. That password fell to number eight on the company’s list for 2020. The most secure passwords include letters, numbers, and symbols. Also, a longer password is always more difficult to crack than a shorter one.
Over 1 billion Active iPhones in the World. Around 1.65 billion Apple brand devices are currently in use, says CEO Tim Cook. How does the company determine this number? Folks only need to use their Apple-branded device once within 90 days and the activity is added to the total. Having recently set both revenue and product sales records – with iPhones leading the way – further proof of this company’s record-setting numbers is measured by the number of “upgraders” also counted. Contributing to these statistics are FaceTime calls driven by the pandemic. It’s anyone’s guess whether chip shortages or supply chain issues will impact Apple sales in 2022.
YouTube Has 2 billion Monthly Logged-in Users. Are you impressed by the number of active iPhones currently in use? Multiply that number by two and you will have a good idea of the number of people who count on YouTube tutorials and broadcasts for myriad reasons. An international presence is partly responsible for these big numbers. Localised versions of YouTube produce content for around 100 nations, broadcasting in approximately 80 languages. Do you upload content? You’re in good company. About 500 hours of content are uploaded to YouTube every minute, fulfilling this social media platform’s long-term goal to be a primary resource for folks around the planet.
Nintendo didn’t start as a video games company. Founded in 1889, Nintendo was around long before computers! So what did they sell? From 1889-1956, Nintendo was a playing card company. They still manufacture playing cards in Japan and even have a bridge tournament called the “Nintendo Cup.”
NASA’s Internet speed is 91 GB per second. The average household Internet speeds are roughly 25 MB per second, which is usually fast enough to watch Netflix with no buffer time. And let’s face the fact; if there’s any tech company that would make good use of their Internet speeds, it’s NASA.
Nokia is the largest company in Finland. So much so, that it is viewed as a national pride by Finns! And while we often think Nokia is just a cell phone company, this famous brand was originally a paper manufacturer in 1865. Nokia branched out into technology in the 1980s.
Millions of hours of TV and movies are watched every day on Netflix. Of course, Netflix is a massively popular company, so it’s not that big of a surprise. The world spends about 164 million hours every day streaming Netflix, which is equivalent to 18,812 years’ worth of TV and movies every 24 hours. Now my binge-watching habits don’t seem so bad!
In 2005, a fortune cookie company called Wonton Food Inc. correctly foretold lottery numbers, resulting in 110 winners and an investigation. No fraud was involved.
Expedia.com, Hotels.com, Hotwire.com, Trivago, Travelocity, and Orbitz are all owned by the same company, Expedia Inc.
A Canadian company started selling fresh air in a can as a joke, and then Chinese consumers made it real, paying up to $20 a can.
In 2003, it was discovered that the same company that produced an anti-graffiti chemical also produced the Zyklon B gas used in concentration camp gas chambers during WWII.
So Far, in 2024, The Worldwide Antivirus Software Market has Increased to $4.25 Billion. According to a report from The Businesses Research Company, the worldwide market of Antivirus Software has expanded from $4.06 billion in 2022 to $4.25 billion in 2023. It shows a CAGR rate of 4.5% between the two years for the industry.
Need proof of how successful Linux is? Take a look at its long-time arch-rival, Microsoft . The company who famously tried to ‘extinguish’ the project in the late 90s and early 00s now leverages Linux in its server business. It even contributes to kernel development!
Linux is used as a product name to describe a furnace by a Denmark-based company.
Commercial Linux enterprise Red Hat is perhaps the first billion-dollar open-source company.
Father of the telephone Alexander Graham Bell founded the company that would decades later help bring Unix to life, and by extension, Linux as well.
Linux was created by a Finnish developer and the telecommunications company where Unix was created is now owned by Nokia, a Finnish tech giant.
Ubuntu is the world’s most popular cloud operating system. No wonder, Microsoft partnered with Canonical (Ubuntu’s parent company) for Microsoft’s cloud system.
Using a single password, hackers infiltrated the Colonial Pipeline Company in 2021 with a ransomware attack that caused fuel shortages across the U.S. (Bloomberg)
Meat processing company JBS was the victim of a ransomware attack that shut down beef and poultry processing plants on four different continents. (Wall Street Journal)
In 2020, cybercriminals cloned the voice of a U.A.E. company director to initiate a $35 million bank transfer. (Forbes)
A data breach can cost a company an average of $1.3 million in lost business. (IBM)
Hacking attacks increased significantly during 2020 (Iomart): According to studies from Iomart, the number of cyberattacks, hacking, and their resulting costs have increased significantly during 2020. The number of breaches increased by around 273% during the first quarter of 2020, compared to the same period in the year before. Not only has the number of attacks increased, but the severity of the hacks is higher too. According to Japanese brand, Honda in June, a hacking attack hitting internal production systems cost the company around $250,000 in bitcoin.
The First Universal Credit Card Was Introduced in 1950: Credit cards originated in the U.S. back in the 1920s, but were issued by individual firms, such as oil companies and hotel chains, to their customers, specifically for purchases made at company outlets. It wasn’t until 1950 that Diners Club founders Ralph Schneider and Frank McNamara issued a card that could be used at a variety of establishments. The Diners Club card sparked the modern credit card era. Others soon followed, such as American Express, which debuted their card of this type in 1958.
Between 1821 and 1825, the “Russian-American Company”, which then controlled Alaska, issued 10,000 banknotes printed on sealskin. Today, approximately 40 sealskin banknotes remain.
According to OpenAI, even ChatGPT-4 still isn’t entirely reliable as it “hallucinates facts and makes reasoning errors.” The company also admits that GPT-4 poses risks such as generating harmful advice, buggy code, or inaccurate information.
Microsoft expanded its investment in OpenAI with $13 more billion in 2023. It represents the third investment that the company founded by Bill Gates made. It plowed $1 billion into OpenAI in 2019 and reinvested in 2021.
‘’China’s top search engine company Baidu made a smart cat shelter in Beijing that uses AI to verify when a cat is approaching and open its door. The cat shelter is heated and also offers cats food and water.’’ – The Verge.
At a $140 billion valuation, the biggest AI unicorn in the world is a company called Bytedance from China. Musk’s SpaceX is second, valued at $100.3 billion.