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Konosuke Matsushita: The Founder & the Former CEO of Panasonic Corporation

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The story of the industrialist and the famous Japanese God of Management, Konosuke Matsushita, is nothing more than a roller coaster ride. The Japanese entrepreneur went through a lot of struggle and faced all type of conflicts, but, at last, emerged as the greatest leader, with its largest Japanese consumer electronics company Panasonic. The writer of four million sold copies of the Developing A Road To Peace And Happiness Through Prosperity and the inspiration of millions, Konosuke Matsushita was a true entrepreneur.

Early Life

Matsushita was born on November 27, 1894, in a Japanese village of Wasa. He belonged to an affluent family. His father was a landlord, primarily owned huge farmlands. Due to some bad investments, soon, the family went through a huge loss and had to give up all of their property. The family moved to a three bedroom apartment in the city and started working for their living. Matsushita received a standard schooling in the city.

Career

With the bad financial conditions, Matsushita could not continue his schooling and started working at a bicycle shop. The Shop went out of business, and his family sent him to Osaka, to do an apprenticeship at a hibachi store. Unfortunately, the store got shut within a year of his joining, and he had to look for another job. At the age of 15, he started working at Osaka Electric Light Company, an electrical utility company. During his job with Osaka Electric, he was promoted several times. After working for five long years with the company, he decided to take up another job, where he could also complete his education. But his father advised him to continue the same job and gain more experience in the field.

During his work at Osaka Electric Light Company, he had gained enough knowledge and experience, so that he invented a new and improved light socket in his spare time. He also introduced the idea to his boss, but his boss was not sure about the potential of the invention.

Founding Panasonic

At the age of 22, Matsushita got promoted as the electrical inspector of the company. In 1917, he decided to leave Osaka Electric and start his own firm, with the help of his wife and brother-in-law. Under the name of his company, he started producing the samples of his newly invented sockets, and approached various wholesalers, to sell his product. But, the new idea could not impress the wholesalers. This caused him a huge loss, and his employees also left him. With his wife and brother-in-law, he continued working on the samples and received his first huge order of thousand insulator plates for electric fans. Being a better and an inexpensive product it gained popularity and wholesalers started trading the product and eventually, Matsushita launched Matsushita Electric Housewares Manufacturing Works on 7 March 1918, that later became Panasonic in future.

Konosuke Matsushita
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In the mid-1920s, Matsushita came with the idea of battery lamps for bicycles, as at the time, the bicycles used to have oil and wax lamps, that could be lighted only for 3 hours.

With the time, Matsushita became more focused on the marketing of the products, that proved to be a big contribution in raising the sales of his company. By 1929, he managed to establish his company among other Japan’s electrical manufacturing companies and opened a few sales branches in some other places across the country.

In the beginning, he produced the products with brand name National and developed many affordable electric appliances. Those appliances included electric iron, battery lamps, and three-tube model radio, etc. In 1940, during the second world war, Matsushita was forced to sign government military contracts. Those contracts helped him establish Matsushita Shipbuilding Company and the Matsushita Airplane Company. Although with these big achievements, due to the war, Matsushita lost 32 of his manufacturing factories and sales offices situated in the various parts of the country.

In 1951, during his tour to the USA, he realised that in order to help Japan recover from all the losses of the second world war, adoption of advanced Western technology was essential. In 1952, Matsushita signed a contract with Philips of the Netherlands. The company saw huge growth between the time of 1950 to 1973 and introduced new home appliances to the Japanese customers. In 1973, he retired from all of his duties for Panasonic.

Personal Life

Matsushita was married to Mumeno Iue, who was a big support for him during his struggle period. Matsushita was always focussed on economic growth of people and has published 44 books based on his social and commercial philosophies. He received the Grand Cordon of the Order of the Paulownia Flowers in 1987. At the age of 94, on 27 April 1989, he died from pneumonia.

Mark Zuckerberg : The Founder & CEO of World’s Biggest Social Network

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The inventive programmer and the youngest billionaire of the world, Mark Zuckerberg needs no introduction. The CEO and the founder of Facebook, the largest social media network, was once the captain of the fencing team of his school. The young entrepreneur was always interested in programming and used to develop games based on the sketches, his artist friends made. Having a few lawsuits in his name and films made on his life story, Zuckerberg is among the few programmers who have established themselves as the smartest entrepreneurs of the world.

Early Life

Mark Zuckerberg aka Mark Elliot Zuckerberg was born on May 14, 1984, in White Plains, New York, and grew up in the suburbs of Dobbs Ferry, New York. His father Edward Zuckerberg, a dentist and mother Karen (née Kempner), a psychiatrist, belonged to a Jewish family. He was a bright student and always topped in the class. He completed his schooling from Ardsley High School and Phillips Exeter Academy, in New Hampshire. He excelled in mathematics, astronomy, physics and won many prizes in quiz competitions of his school. By the end of his school, he became proficient in French, Hebrew, Latin, and ancient Greek.

Mark Zuckerberg
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Zuckerberg owned his first PC Quantex 486DX, on the Intel 486, when he was in middle school. He, eventually, grew an interest in programming languages and ended up learning Atari BASIC Programming form his father. He also received a private tuition to learn more about programming. Soon, he started developing small applications and developed a program, that connected the computers of his father’s office, through a messenger named ZuckNet. During his final year, at the high school, he joined a company name Intelligent Media Group, that worked to build a music player Synapse Media Player. The media player was developed using AI technology, that enabled it to create a playlist based on the music choice of the user. The music player even grabbed the attention of Microsoft and AOL.

Founding Facebook

After completing his school, due to his outstanding performance, he managed to get admission in one of the top universities of America, the Harvard University. By creating some useful software and games, he had already made his reputation as a programmer. He adopted Computer Science and Psychology as his major subjects. His first software at his college was the CourseMatch. The software helped the students to choose the right course and help others with their choices.

In the summer of 2003, Zuckerberg created a website for the students of the Harvard, named as Facemash. The project was developed during one his insomniac nights. The website was inspired by the college yearbook Facebook, that included the profiles of the students having their personal details and pictures in it. The concept behind Facemash was to compare two students based on their appearance. Most of the students enjoyed using it and the others complained about Zuckerberg, saying that he was using their personal data, without permission. The site got shut down within two days and Zuckerberg had to apologise to the students.

After the failure of Facemash, he started working on his new project, The Facebook. Zuckerberg launched the website after one month, i.e., on 4 February 2004. The website was basically designed for the students of Harvard, to help them connect with each other, easily. The website became an instant hit, and just after a year, it expanded to other colleges and schools, in the city. In the second year of his college, he left his studies in between, to work full-time on The Facebook. The founder of PayPal, Peter Thiel, became its first angel investor, by investing $500,000. Soon, Facebook had 50 million registered users, and Zuckerberg started receiving offers to sell Facebook, from large companies, like Yahoo. Even receiving offers worth billions, he never accepted one. Although, he himself acquired many major projects like What’s App and Instagram.

The Lawsuit

On the initial launch of Facebook, three of Zuckerberg ‘s seniors at the University, Divya Narendra, and twin brothers Cameron Winklevoss and Tyler Winklevoss, accused Zuckerberg of stealing their idea. According to them, Facebook was based on their idea, that was to create a platform to connect the students of Harvard. They even claimed that they had hired Zuckerberg to work on their website. Later, they even sued him for the same. In the end, there was a settlement between them, for 1.2 million Facebook shares.

Personal Life

Zuckerberg married his longtime girlfriend and fellow student from Harvard, Priscilla Chan, on 19 May 2012. The couple has two daughters Maxima Chan Zuckerberg and August Chan Zuckerberg.

In July 2018, Zuckerberg became the third richest person in the world $81.6 billion net worth. Although, within a week, his net worth was tumbled nearly $20 billion, eliminating him from the position of the third richest person.

Anthony Levandowski : The Controversial Ex-Engineer of Google

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Anthony Levandowski, the former engineer at Google, does not need any introduction, thanks to all the controversies, he faced in the past one year. The irony is that the man who was the originator of the idea of driverless vehicles, is at the centre of a lawsuit between two major companies, for stealing the same. However, the lawsuit is against him, he must be credited for the introduction to such a technology.

Early Life

Anthony Levandowski was born on 15 March 1980. At the age of 18, he joined the University of California, Berkeley. He received a bachelor’s and a master’s degree, in Industrial Engineering and Operation Research. He was always into machines and loved working on them. In 2004, he participated in the DARPA Grand Challenge with his autonomous motorcycle, named as the Ghostrider, that he built with the help of other fellow engineers. The motorcycle was first of its kind as it was a driver-less bike that rode in the challenge.

Career

Anthony took a job at Google and started working on the Google’s Street View project, in 2007. Already being in love with machines and automobiles, he kept on experimenting with the driver-less cars and started his own company 510 Systems in the same year, he joined Google. He started another company with the name Anthony’s Robots that produced self-driving cars. Under Anthony’s Robots, he built a self-driving Toyota Prius, Pribot, having one of the first spinning Lidar laser ranging units that rode on the public roads.

Anthony
Image Source: businessinsider.com

After recognising the potential of Anthony’s autonomous car production projects, Google acquired the both, transforming it into a single venture, Waymo. Anthony continued making self-driving cars under Waymo, for Google, until January 2016.

Founding Otto

In 2016, Anthony left the job at Google and co-founded Otto, self-driving technology company, along with his former colleague from Google, Lior Ron. In the same year, Uber acquired Otto by paying $680 million. Levandowski held the leadership of Uber’s driverless car operation and continued working with Otto. In October 2016, Otto manufactured an autonomous semi-truck, that completed the 132-mile route, achieving the longest continuous journey by a driverless vehicle.

The Controversy

In February 2017, his former company, Waymo, filed a lawsuit against him, accusing him of stealing 9.7 GB of Waymon’s highly confidential files, trading the secrets and using the blueprints and design files to manufacture autonomous vehicles for Uber. Waymo claimed that the files were stolen, back in 2009, while Levandowski was still working with Google. Levandowski was refrained from working with Otto and later, in the same year, Uber fired him for not co-operating in the investigation.

Levandowski started his own self-driving car company named Kache.ai in July 2018.

Ernest Harrison : A British Entrepreneur & the Co-Founder of Vodafone

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From starting a career as a clerk to becoming the chairman of a multinational company is not a piece of cake. The recipient of the Mountbatten Medal and the most successful businessman of UK, Sir Ernest Harrison, was the first chairman of Vodafone, who started his journey as the head clerk at the parent company of Vodafone. His decision making and business skills led him and his company at the top of the telecom business.

Early Life

Sir Ernest Harrison was born in Hackney, north-east London, on 11 May 1926. His father was a docker, working under the Casual Labour Scheme, and his mother was a dressmaker, in an East End garment factory. He moved to Holloway with his family and attended Trinity Grammar School, Wood Green. During his school, he became a die-hard fan of the Arsenal Football Club and played in his school football team. He got his education interrupted when the world war 2 broke out, and he was evacuated. In 1944, joined the Fleet Air Arm, in Canada.

Career

During his service at the Fleet Air Arm, he received a training in accountancy. In 1951, after his release, he joined the newly formed Racal Telecom, as the chief accountant, and the 13th employee, at a monthly salary of £650. Soon, he became the chief buyer, following by the role of personnel director, and contract negotiator, of the company. He held many important positions while working in Racal, in his 50-year career with Racal. He was appointed the deputy managing director in 1961 and eventually, became the chairman of the company, in 1966.

Ernest Harrison
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With Harrison, Racal won many crucial deals, like negotiation of a British Army battlefield radio contract, a merger between Racal and British Communications Corporation, acquiring Decca, and buying the British Rail Telecommunications network, etc.

Creation of Vodafone

In July 1982, Harrison, as the chairman of Racal, along with Jan Stenbeck, from the Millicom, Inc., jointly bid for the UK’s second cellular radio licence, forming a company, named Racal-Millicom, Ltd. In the bid, the company won the second UK mobile phone network license. With the final ownership of Racal-Millicom, Ltd, Racal holding 80% and Millicom holding 15% shares, on 1 January 1985, Racal-Millicom launched Racal-Vodafone Ltd. in Newbury, Berkshire. In December 1986, by paying a total sum of GB£110 million, to the smaller shareholders, Racal Electronics transformed Vodafone into a fully owned brand of Racal Telecom.

By the end of 1996, Vodafone had acquired the major shares of many other telecom companies, like Talkland, Peoples Phone, Astec Communications, etc. In September 1991, Racal Telecom demerged into Vodafone. It expanded to other neighbouring countries and after 2005, it established its network in other continents too.

Vodafone became the first telecom company to provide roaming call. Currently, Vodafone serves 400 million customers all over the world.

Personal Life

Harrison’s first marriage was with Beryl Cole and had twin sons with her. The two got divorced in 1959. Harrison, in 1960, got married to Janie Knight, with whom he had three children. He loved watching Arsenal football matches and also, enjoyed horse races. He had a hobby of collecting medals. Harrison died on 16 February 2009, at the age of 82.

Garrett Camp : The Co-founder of the Online Discovery Platform StumbleUpon

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If you are skilled enough you are destined to achieve the goals you set even before you are a graduate. Garrett Camp, a Canadian entrepreneur, was still a student when he started his own business along with three of his college mates. The company gained popularity and within a year, bringing him into the spotlight and making him one of the Top Innovators under the age of 35.

Early Life

Garrett was born on October 4, 1978, in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, to an economist father and an artist mother. Later, his parents started a business of architecture. Garrett completed his high schooling from a local government school. Later, he joined the University of Calgary and received a degree in electrical engineering, in 1996. During his junior year, at the college, he went through an internship, in speech recognition technology from Nortel Networks, Montreal. After graduating from the University of Calgary, he enrolled in the Masters in Software Engineering, in the same University and researched on the collaborative systems, evolutionary algorithms and information retrieval.

Garrett Camp
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Founding StumbleUpon

Garrett was still in College when he came up with the idea of StumbleUpon. StumbleUpon was the first discovery engine, that was used to find web content for the users. Garrett founded StumbleUpon, with his friends at the University and established its office in San Francisco. The company received its first funding from the Silicon Valley’s Angels Investors. In 2007, eBay acquired StumbleUpon for $75 million. The company expanded its service to 25 million registered users in the next year. Camp re-acquired the company in 2015, as it went under debt, and helped the company recover its original status, once again. The company is still running its website successfully.

Other Ventures

In 2009, with Travis Kalanick, Garrett co-founded Uber, a transportation network company as UberCab. He made the initial funding for the project of $250K, himself. The idea behind Uber was to make the black taxis affordable for the people. Till mid-2012, Uber launched UberX and Uber SUV, making its way in the list of Forbes Top 10 Companies of 2012. Uber has become popular among the people as an affordable medium for travelling and is running its business in 500 cities across the globe.

In 2013, Garett started another venture named Expa that helps other startups financially, by raising funds from the major investors of Silicon Valley.

In 2007, Garrett was listed among the Top Innovators under the age of 35, at Technology Review’s Emerging Technologies Conference, at MIT and Bloomberg Businessweek named him one of Tech’s Best Young Entrepreneurs in 2008. He spoke at the Wireless Influencers and South by Southwest, many a time and attended the DEMO Mobile 2013, as the judge and the panel member. In 2015, his total wealth was estimated to be US$5.3 billion by Forbes.

Soichiro Honda : The Founder of the Honda Motor Company

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Some achievers are not only achievers but are also the trendsetters. Those trendsetters bring a revolution in their field and get their name registered in the history for their contribution to the world. One such trendsetter is the Japnese Engineer, Soichiro Honda. It would be difficult to find even a single person who is not aware of Honda Motors or hasn’t seen a Honda vehicle. The owner of the company of 100,000 people, did not have an easy ride, but without struggles, there can’t be any progress.

Early Life

Honda was born to a blacksmith, Gihei and a weaver, Mika, on November 17, 1906. His father ran a bicycle repair business. Honda was never interested in the traditional education and used to forge his family’s stamp on the school grade reports, using a rubber bicycle pedal cover. Honda once went to see a demonstration of an aeroplane, that made him fascinated about machines and grew a love for them.

Soichiro Honda
Image Source: youberelentless.com

Career

Honda’s career did not start very smooth. He was just 15, when he moved to Tokyo, and joined a motor garage, as a mechanic. He worked there for over six years. In 1928, he moved back to his hometown and started his own repair business, at the age of 22. He became more interested in automobiles and motor machines, becoming engaged among new experiments with the engines.

Building Honda Motor Co. Ltd.

In 1937, he started producing piston rings for the major car manufacturing Toyota, under his newly founded company, T?kai Seiki. After two years, the second world war occurred and two of his factory plants, of T?kai Seiki, got destroyed in a US B-29 bomber attack (1944) and in an earthquake (1945). After selling the salvageable remains of the company to Toyota, for ¥450,000, in October 1946, he founded the Honda Technical Research Institute. He became the president of the company and stayed the one until he retired in 1973.

Honda designed a mass-produced engine, that he used in the Type A motorised bicycles, that his company sold till 1951. In 1949, he manufactured the first model in the Dream series of motorcycles, that became a landmark of Japanese Automotive Technology. Just in a few years, his company’s turnover was in billions, and it became an MNC, producing the bestselling bikes, in the world. Soon, his company motorcycles were competing with the sales of Triumph and Harley-Davidson. Honda Motors opened its first abroad plant in the US, in 1959.

Even after he retired from his post of President in 1973, he remained as the director of the company and became the supreme advisor of the company, in 1983.

Personal Life & Death

Honda was married to Sachi Honda till his death. His only son, Hirotoshi Honda, followed his lead and became an entrepreneur. He was the CEO of Mugen Motorsports, that produced original racing vehicles.

Honda was very active as a sports person even at the age of 77. He and his wife loved outdoor activities like golf, hang-gliding, ballooning and skiing. On August 5, 1991, Soichiro Honda died, due to liver failure.

Honda has made an impact on the industry of personal motor vehicles and was listed, among the 25 most intriguing of People magazine, in 1980. He was awarded the Grand Cordon of the Order of the Rising Sun, in 1991, and even got established Soichiro Honda Medal by ASME, in his name. The medal is given for the outstanding achievements or significant engineering contributions, in the field of personal transport motor manufacturing.