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The Journey of the World’s Largest Telecom Company

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at&t
Image Source: cbsistatic.com

Telecommunication industry is considered the most progressive industry in the world. In the past more than a hundred years, from its origin to until now, it has seen a radical change. The time changed, but the company that belonged to the inventor of the telephone, Graham Bell, is still standing strong as the leading multinational conglomerate holding company. AT&T known as the largest telecommunication company has its own part in the history of the development of the telecom industry.

Birth of AT&T

After the discovery of the telephone, Graham Bell founded a company named the Bell Telephone Company, in 1880. By 1885, the company evolved as the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, the AT&T Co. AT&T, later, acquired the Bell Telephone Company, in December 1899. It started getting a hold on the customers in Canada and the United States, resulting in AT&T’s monopoly in the telecommunication industry. This growing monopoly of AT&T provoked the US government to drag the company to the court for an antitrust challenge. Later, it was settled outside the court on the basis of the Kingsbury Commitment, resulting in the government-authorised monopoly with the name of Bells System. The merger continued for the entire 20th century. Also, the company became the largest telephone company in the world.

After continuing for over 80 years, in 1981, the government-authorised monopoly was dissolved by the US regulations and resulted in the origin of smaller companies, including the Southwestern Bell. All the smaller companies started due to the break-up of the monopoly were known as Regional Bell Operating Companies or Baby Bells. The breaking-up of the monopoly also resulted in a rise in competition for AT&T as other independent telecommunication companies, like MCI and Sprint also came into the business.

The new Southwestern Bell company was founded by Robert G. Pope, who led the company with some really successful acquisitions. The company not only worked in the telecommunication but also acquired some of the cable companies and entered into the business of cable connections. In 1990, the company was rebranded as SBC Communications. The success of the company led it to the list of top 500 Fortune companies, in 1999.

In 2005, the SBC Communications was rebranded again, as AT&T Co., after it acquired its previous parent company, AT&T, for $16 billion. It also retained the iconic logo and stock-trading symbol of older AT&T.

Current Status & Achievements

The AT&T’s acquisition was followed by the other important ones as well, including the Mexican carrier Iusacell (2014), NII Holdings (2014), DirecTV (2015), Time Warner (2016), etc. The DirecTV deal was worth $48.5 billion and AT&T spent $108.7 billion for the acquisition of Time Warner. By 2017, AT&T became the world’s largest telecommunications company and second largest provider of the mobile telephone. AT&T is also the largest provider of fixed telephone services in the United States.

Alan Mamedi : The Person Who Made the Phonebook of a Smartphone Smarter

Founder, start-up, Story, Tech Story / By

The telephone is the most useful invention by humans. The era changed and brought the revolution in the telephone industry, jumping from two-piece landlines to a chordless smartphone. But, one thing that was constant, the reception of blank calls and cold calls. Even at the time of landlines, people could not identify the caller, as there was no medium that could show the identity of the caller. But, yes, later on, the caller Ids, did help to an extent. However, it was still impossible to recognise the callers from the new numbers. The same problem remained in the time of the mobiles and smartphones as well. But, Alan Mamedi, a developer from Sweden, came to the rescue and gifted the much-awaited app Truecaller to the world.

Early Life

Mamedi was born on 30 October 1984, in an Iranian family. His mother was a Kurd, and his father was an Iranian political leader. After the Iranian revolution took place, his family brought him to Sweden. He was a bright student and completed a B.sc degree in Computer Science, from The Royal Institute of Technology, in Stockholm Sweden.

Alan Mamedi
Image Source: techinasia.com

After completing his education, Mamedi started working as a Salesman at The Phone House and stayed at the same company for two years. With an experience of two years and a graduate degree in Computer Science, Mamedi got inspired to start his own company. In 2006, Mamedi founded ‘Bidding.se’, an auction website, where the one with the lowest bid would win the auction. The website was a success, and Mamedi received an offer to sell it, within three months of its launch.

In 2007, Mamedi again came with another product, Möbeljakt.se, that became the largest search engine, working in Sweden, for the home interior. In 2008, he started working as the Chief Architect at Birdstep Technology and Företagsinformation i Mediaportalen, at the same position, for the next two years.

In 2009, Mamedi launched Jobbigt.se, an employer review website, known to be the biggest employer network in Sweden. Through the website, people could post reviews about their current or previous employers.

Founding Truecaller

After the launch of Jobbigt.se, Mamedi started receiving calls from those employers, who had got bad reviews on Jobbigt.se. The employers wanted Mamedi to delete those bad reviews as those were affecting their reputation.

This incident made Mamedi, think and discuss the matter with his old friend Nami Zarringhalam, as he was receiving unlimited calls regarding the same. The discussion also included the issue of increasing cold-calls, invading the privacy of people. At the time, there was no such software that could help in avoiding those kinds of calls and identify the new numbers. The two came to the conclusion that there must be a software that can handle those issues. The software must have a caller ID so that people could decide the priority of the call. With the intense discussion, Mamedi and Zarringhalam finally decided to create a new app; Truecaller.

On 1 July 2009, Mamedi released the initial version of Truecaller, under the name of his company True Software Scandinavia AB. The company was founded by Alan Mamedi and Nami Zarringhalam in the same year and is situated in Stockholm, Sweden.

Initially, the app was launched for the BlackBerry smartphones, but due to huge success, it was also released for the Symbian and Microsoft Windows mobile phones. On 23 September 2009, the app became available for the iOS and Android phone users. By the year 2012, it was also launched for the RIM Blackberry, Windows Phone, and the Nokia Series 40, and it grew to five million global users in the same year.

Truecaller in 2012, received US$1.3 million funding from OpenOcean, a venture capital. In 2014, it also received an investment of $18.8 million from Sequoia Capital and $60 million from Niklas Zennstrom’s Atomico investment firm and from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.

Due to the increased user base in India, Truecaller also launched another app, exclusively for India, with name Truemessenger, that can identify the sender of a message.

Samaira Mehta : Little Fingers Running from Coding to Entrepreneurship

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samaira mehta
Image Source: Facebook

Most of the children, at the age of six, are adjusting with their school’s environment, some have still not joined the school yet, and some brilliant minds of the same age, are working towards excellence, and making their ways into the tech world. Such gifted kid, from the Silicon Valley, is a ten years old Samaira Mehta, who has been into the limelight for her invention, at the age of eight, becoming one of the youngest entrepreneurs and a powerful motivational speaker.

Samaira Mehta, an Indian-American girl, was born on 4 March 2008, to Rakesh Mehta and Monica Mehta. Her father works as an engineer at Intel Co., and her mother worked in the field of marketing for more than a decade. Samaira was just six years old when her father started teaching her programming. The bright Samaira developed an immense interest in the same and started practising it. According to one of her interviews, she loved doing coding and playing the board games. Love for the two brought her the idea of mixing both of them and creating a board game that could help the people of age from 4-104, to learn to code in an easier way.

When Samaira turned eight, she finally decided to transform her idea into reality and launched a board game, naming it the CoderBunnyz. The game became popular in no time, and hence, Samaira co-founded a company, with her mother, given the same name to it as the game.

samaira mehta
Image Source: indiawest.com

Little Samaira became a self-made entrepreneur at the tender age of eight. After the success of CoderBunnyz, she came out with its sequel CoderMindz. CoderMindz is based on the concept of Artificial Intelligence and is another hit. The game is first of its kind, and Samaira gives half of its credit to her younger brother Aadit Mehta, who assisted her in the development and is just six-years-old.

From basic to advance, the CoderBunnyz has thirteen levels, that makes the players grow their skills, with every step. The game has made a place among the Five Best Board Games of the World, that is a huge thing for anyone, at the age of ten. Before making up to the top five board games, it had already won the second-place prize of $2,500, from Think Tank Learning’s Pitchfest, in 2016.

After the launch of the game, Samaira started providing demo classes in libraries and schools, so that the kids could learn how to play. Soon, she received invitations for large tech events. Her game also grabbed the attention of the to tech giants, like Google and Microsoft, and they also organised the demo workshops for the game. Until now, she has done over 50 workshops in Silicon Valley, teaching over 2000 kids, including over 50 at Google. After the workshop at Google, she also received an offer of working with Google, as soon as she completes her college, by Stacy Sullivan, Google’s Chief Culture Officer.

Samaira also developed another board game, especially for the underrepresented girls, named as Girls U Code. Her achievement also brought her a letter of appreciation from the White House. Samaira has been featured in NBC, Sony, ZDF, Mercury News, sina.com and several media in three continents (North America, Asia, Europe) and over 11 countries. She spoke at the CMG Impact 2016 Women in Tech (2017), becoming the youngest speaker at CMG. She also gave a speech at the MyPowerTalk at Silicon Valley tech forum, in the same year, where she received a standing ovation from more than 400 women. The Cartoon Network also profiled her as the real-life “Powerpuff Girl”. She has received the Young Entrepreneur Award from the Silicon Valley, in 2017.

The big tech companies are all set to hire the young entrepreneur, but, it all it is up to her whether she will go with a multinational tech company or will run her own business. Until then, we can just watch her progress. Along with playing with codes and creating unusual board games, Samaira also loves to play guitar and archery. She is a supporter of girls education and wants to make people of every age fall in love with coding and programming.

Bruce McLaren : The Kiwi Motorsport Ace From New Zealand

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The great racer who not only raced the cars, also designed and engineered the best racing cars for the world of the car race. At an early age, Mclaren founded the Bruce McLaren Motor Racing Ltd. He was not just a racer but his extraordinary, but short life left a legacy behind him. The Kiwi motorsport icon Bruce McLaren lived his life devoted entirely to his passion.

Early Life

Bruce McLaren was born on August 30 1937, as Bruce Leslie McLaren, Auckland, New Zealand. His father, Les McLaren, was an engineer and motor car man. His father along with his wife Ruth McLaren ran a service station and workshop. Bruce completed his primary education from Meadowbank Primary School, Auckland. Suffering from the Perthes disease, at the age of nine, his left leg remained shorter than his right leg. Due to the disease, he spent the next two years of his life, in the Wilson Home in Takapuna, on a Bradford Frame for treatment and had to leave the school. After two years, he came back to his family and started correspondence classes with a tutor. After completing his high school education, he graduated in engineering from the Seddon Technical Memorial College.

Bruce’s father, being a motor car man, loved cars and car racing. In fact, before the birth of Bruce, he used to participate in the motorcycle racing. Due to some injury, during one of his races, he had to leave motorcycle racing. But, he continued car racing, even after the accident. As Bruce had spent most of his childhood among motors and racing enthusiasts, he also grew a passion for automobiles and racing.

Career in Racing

Bruce was 14 when his father brought an old Austin Ulster to their workshop. His father wanted to repair the car so that he could take part in a car race. The car needed repair and took almost a year, to get back onto the roads. Bruce and his father even skipped meals to get the car done. After getting a driver’s license, at the age of 16, Bruce entered the first race of his life, a hill climb, about 25 miles outside Auckland.

mclaren
Image Source: grandprixhistory.org

For his first real race, he drove the Ford 10 special, and later, moved to the Austin-Healey and an F2 Cooper-Climax sports. In March 1958, he participated in the New Zealand International Grand Prix and was the first runner-up. In the competition, he won the “Driver to Europe” scholarship and became first New Zealander to do so. On 15th March, Bruce left for England, where he drove for John Cooper of Cooper Cars, starting in the very first year in England.

In late 1958, he participated in the German Grand Prix, a combined F1 and F2 race, where he earned his name among the people of England. The next year, in 1959, he joined the Cooper factory F1 team, alongside Jack Brabham, and at the age 22, Bruce won the United States Grand Prix, becoming the youngest ever GP winner of that time. Brabham was the Australian car race driver, who was also in the NZIGP Association’s selection committee. After this win, he won the Argentine Grand Prix (1960), Monaco Grand Prix (1962), and New Zealand GP (1964).

In 1963, Bruce founded the Bruce McLaren Motor Racing Ltd, along with an American sponsor Teddy Mayer, and continued racing, winning many Cooper races. In 1965, he announced his own GP team. Like his father, in the same year, he also invested in a service station. The station was established in his hometown Aukland and was named as Bruce McLaren Motors. He worked with Cooper for 7 long years, and left it, to develop his own Formula One race car, winning the team’s first Grand Prix in 1968. In the same year, he won the 24 hours of Le Mans in a 7-litre Ford Mark IIA, and in 1969, the 12 hours of Sebring in a Ford Mark IV.

Personal Life

Bruce married his wife, Patricia Broad, on 9 December 1961. The couple had a daughter named Amanda. On 2 June 1970, while testing his new M8D, at the Goodwood Circuit in England, his car crashed on the Lavant Straight, just before Woodcote corner and he died in the accident, at the age of 32.

The racing team founded by Bruce continued participating in Formula One races and won 8 Constructors’ Championships and 12 Drivers’ Championships. He has got the Taupo Motorsport Park, in New Zealand, renamed Bruce McLaren Motorsport Park in 2015. His name is inducted in the New Zealand Sports Hall of Fame, International Motorsports Hall of Fame and the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America.

Jon Stephenson von Tetzchner : The Founder & Former CEO of Opera Software

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Jon Stephenson von Tetzchner is one of the early pioneers of mobile web browser development. The Icelandic entrepreneur had always wanted to create browsers that fulfil the specific needs of the users. The man behind Opera, the much in demand, mobile web browser, and the former CEO of Opera Software is a browser Visionary. The values, that this 6’5” businessman holds, has led the two of his browsers to become the most loved browsers of all.

Early Life

Jon Stephenson von Tetzchner was born on 29 August 1967, in Reykjavík, Iceland. His father Stephen von Tetzchner is of Norwegian ethnicity and worked as a professor of psychology. His mother Elsa Jónsdóttir belongs to the Icelands. Tetzchner spent most of his childhood in Seltjarnarnes with his grandparents. He completed his education from Menntaskólinn í Reykjavík School and later, moved to Norway, to pursue a master’s degree in computer science from the University of Oslo.

Founding Opera

In 1991, after graduating with a master’s degree from the University of Oslo, Tetzchner started working at the Norwegian state phone company, that was later, renamed as Telenor. Tetzchner was a member of a research team of the company, where he met Geir Ivarsøy. Tetzchner and Geir, with the team, developed a browsing software called MultiTorg Opera. Due to some reasons, Telenor abandoned the project. Tetzchner and Geir were familiar with the potential of the project, hence acquired the rights related to it. In 1995, both Tetzchner and Geir, left the company to establish their own software development firm, named as Opera Software, Tetzchner becoming the CEO, and Geir the lead programmer of the company. The two kept on working on and improving the Opera browser to make it more user-friendly.

Tetzchner Jon
Image Source: www.tu.no

In 1998, the two started working on the different platform compatibility of Opera Browser, and in 2000, launched Opera 4.0, a multi-platform compatible browser. The first four of the versions of the browser that Opera launched, were all paid, providing the user one month trial period. But, after Opera’s fifth version came, all of the Opera versions were free to use. The new versions of Opera browser received sponsorship from displaying ads on it.

On 21 April 2005, the company launched Opera 8. At the launch meeting, Tetzchner announced that he would swim in the Atlantic Ocean from Norway to the United States if the new Opera 8 will get one million downloads, within four days. He made the statement and had to complete the challenge only after two days of its launch, as the downloads for Opera 8 reached 1,050,000 by 23 April. Though he could not complete the challenge and fail in no time.

As soon as Opera Software launched the Opera 8.5, the ads were removed from the browser, and Opera received a sponsorship from Google, making Google its default search engine.

As the CEO of the company, Tetzchner led Opera Software successfully, making it global, and established its offices in 13 different countries, including Poland, China, South Korea, Japan, Australia, US, Iceland and Singapore.

In January 2010, Tetzchner left the post of the CEO of Opera, and in June 2011, he officially left Opera, to found Vivaldi Technologies. At the time he was the CEO of Opera Software, the Opera browser had reached 350 million users. Now, Opera Software is a Chinese company.

Tetzchner, in December 2013, started a new venture Vivaldi Technologies, and launched its new web browser Vivaldi 1.0 version, in April 2016. Tetzchner serves as the CEO of the company. Vivaldi Technologies is a self-funded company, in which the employees hold the equity.

Paul Allen : Self-made Billionaire & the Co-founder of Microsoft

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A business magnate, investor, philanthropist and also a cancer survivor, the computer enthusiast, Paul Allen, was the one, who persuaded Bill Gates to drop out of his college and start a software company, that later, became the multi-billion Microsoft. He was the 46-richest person of the world, at the time of his death and comprising of 100 million Microsoft shares. The self-made billionaire also founded another multibillion-dollar company,  Vulcan Inc., which managed his various business and philanthropic efforts.

Early Life

Paul Allen was born and brought up in Seattle, Washington, U.S. He was born on 21 January 1953, to Kenneth Sam Allen and Edna Faye Allen. His father worked as the associate director of the University of Washington Libraries. Paul completed his schooling from a local private school named as Lakeside School. This was the place, where he met his two years younger friend, Bill Gates. The two shared a common interest- Computers. Both of them started learning programming languages and improvising their skills. They also sneakingly used the laboratory of the Computer Science Department of the University of Washington, to carry out their experiments. As they were not the students of the university, they got banned from the University campus, in 1971, after they got caught by the university authority. Later, Paul got a 1600 SAT score and got proper admission to the Washington State University, as a student.

Founding Microsoft

Allen decided to leave the college only after two years of his enrollment, to join a job as a programmer, for Honeywell in Boston, near Harvard University. Gates was an alumnus at the Harvard University. After working for a small time at the Honeywell, Allen convinced Gates to drop out of the university and start Microsoft with him.

Paul Allen
Image Source: geekwire.com

Allen and Gates together, built software for the first microcomputers on BASIC. They started marketing for their software, and in 1980, they bagged a contract from IBM. According to the contract, they had to develop a Disk Operating System (DOS) for the IBM PCs. The two were not able to complete the order, hence Allen made a deal with Tim Paterson, and purchased his QDOS (Quick and Dirty Operating System) software to complete the contract. The deal was a success, and Microsoft emerged as a leading software development company.

In 1982, Allen was diagnosed with Hodgkin disease, and hence, resigned from his post of Microsoft’s chief technologist. It led the parting of Microsoft shares between the two partners in 60:40 ratio, Allen having 40 per cent shares in the company.

Allen served as the member of the board of Microsft until 9 November 2000 and remained as a senior strategy advisor to the company’s executives.

Other Ventures

After leaving Microsoft in 1982, Allen invested in other businesses. Allen with his sister Jody Lynn, co-founded Vulcan Inc., in 1986. Under Vulcan Inc., Allen made various investments in different fields, including America Online, SureFind, Starwave, hardware, software, and wireless communications. He also founded the Vulcan Capital under Vulcan Inc.

Allen and Judy had also started a film production company named Vulcan Productions, and produced films like We The Economy, Far from Heaven, Hard Candy, Where God Left His Shoes, Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial, Racing Extinction and Body Team.

Allen was also into philanthropy and contributed more than $2 billion towards the advancement of science, technology, education, wildlife conservation, the arts, and community services in his lifetime. A trust named as Paul G. Allen Family Foundation was also founded by Allen, that had donated $494 million to over 1,500 nonprofits.

Allen also launched institutes like The Allen Institute for Brain Science (2003) and Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence (2014), that carry out the scientific researches.

Personal Life

Allen stayed single whole his life. He was assumed to be reclusive. Allen was a pro guitarist and got his first guitar at the age of sixteen. Even Sony had released his major label with the name Everywhere at Once by Paul Allen.

Allen also owned two professional sports teams, the Seattle Seahawks of the National Football League and the Portland Trail Blazers of the NBA.

In 1982, after receiving radiation therapy for his Stage 1-A Hodgkin’s lymphoma, Allen had recovered from the disease. But, in 2009, he was again tested positive with non-Hodgkin lymphoma. It was also cured after treating Allen for a long time. Although cancer returned back and Allen died on 15 October 2018.