Editor’s note: This article was first published in November 2013. FedEx’s market capitalisation of “more than $42 billion” is a 2013 figure, and the statement that Facebook “has become a tech giant” is written from 2013.
Which companies have the best stories behind them, and which of those stories are the most inspiring? In a recent Quora thread, users were asked which stories of entrepreneurs or company launches are the most inspiring.
We have picked the three most striking stories, and perhaps the least known to the general public.
One complaint, one company
There was a man called Ferruccio, a farmer who in time began building tractors. His business was so successful that he became one of the richest men in Italy. Ferruccio bought himself a Ferrari, but he wasn’t very happy with the money he had spent or with the trouble the car was giving him.
His mechanical knowledge led him to discover that the Ferrari had the same clutch as some of his tractors, so naturally he went to complain directly to Ferrari’s owner, but they couldn’t reach an agreement.
Ferruccio said that Enzo Ferrari was a very arrogant man, while Enzo Ferrari insulted Ferruccio, calling him a peasant and saying the problem was him and not the car.
Ferruccio promised Ferrari that he would build a car far more luxurious than his, for people who truly appreciated exclusivity and quality. In the end, Ferruccio’s efforts and revenge resulted in one of the most powerful and prestigious car brands of our time.
By the way, this peasant’s name was Ferruccio Lamborghini.
Source: Sid Pathak
Sometimes it’s a matter of waiting for the result
In Facebook’s early days, when the company had only 15 employees, a young man who worked there, Steve Chen, decided to leave to develop a business idea he had come up with. His idea had something to do with videos on the internet. One of the people who had hired him, Matt Cohler, told him he was making a serious mistake, because Facebook was going to be a big company.
See also: The future for graduates: working for people who didn’t go to university
Cohler warned him that if he left now, he would regret it for the rest of his life. Even so, Chen wasn’t convinced about staying and decided to leave Facebook.
The truth is that Cohler was right: there’s no denying that Facebook has become a tech giant. But the young man who left the company went on to found, with some friends, a video platform called YouTube. It gave them plenty of headaches and never became profitable for them, until one day a company called Google decided to buy it for $1.65 billion.
Source: Neal Wu
Fail me, but I’m starting the company anyway
In 1965, a young man named Fred Smith was studying at Yale University. In a paper, he wrote about how goods were shipped in the United States and how they ought to be shipped. Smith’s theory was that if companies focused more on small shipments rather than large, heavy freight, they could make their business far more profitable and gain market share.
His professor failed him, judging that his theory wouldn’t work, and on top of that made an astronomical miscalculation: that sending small packages around the world wouldn’t pay off once they had to go by plane or ship.
The fact is that Smith walked away with a failed paper but with the idea of creating this company. Six years later, FedEx (Federal Express) was born. Unfortunately, three years after the company started, rising fuel prices left it on the brink of bankruptcy, as nobody wanted to finance a company whose numbers were so negative.
Smith is said to have had only $5,000 in his account, which wasn’t enough to keep operating the following Monday, since that $5,000 couldn’t cover the cost of fuel for the planes. That’s why he decided to fly to Las Vegas and bet the $5,000 at blackjack.
By Monday, Smith had $32,000 that he had won over the weekend at the casino tables. With that $32,000 the company was able to keep operating for a few more days, enough to show its suppliers and customers that it was still alive. Later they managed to raise the money, and today FedEx is one of the most important courier companies in the world, with a market capitalisation of more than $42 billion.
Source: Hunter McCord
Further reading
- 3 rules that make companies great
- 17 brilliant ideas for business success, from T. Boone Pickens
- 15 habits for success in business and your career
Featured image: Unknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
