Throughout this book, we tell the stories of various blitzscalers. This appendix includes brief profiles that provide basic context for the curious reader.
Airbnb is an online marketplace and hospitality service, enabling people to lease or rent short-term lodging including vacation rentals, apartment rentals, homestays, hostel beds, or hotel rooms. Founded August 2008, San Francisco, CA
The Alibaba Group is an e-commerce, retail, and technology conglomerate that provides consumer-to-consumer, business-to-consumer, and business-to-business services including electronic payments and cloud computing. Founded April 1999, Hangzhou, China
Amazon is an e-commerce company that also produces consumer electronics like the Kindle and Echo and is the world’s largest provider of cloud computing services. Founded July 1994, Seattle, WA
Apple designs, develops, and sells consumer electronics, computer software, and online services, such as the iPhone, iOS operating system, and Mac personal computers. Founded April 1976, Los Altos, CA
Charity: Water is a not-for-profit organization that provides clean and safe drinking water to people in developing nations. Founded Summer 2006, New York, NY
Chesapeake Energy is a petroleum and natural gas exploration and production company. Founded May 1989, Oklahoma City, OK
ClassPass offers a flat-rate monthly subscription service that allows subscribers to attend participating fitness classes around the world. Founded June 2013, New York, NY
Dress for Success is a not-for-profit organization that provides a network of support, professional attire, and the development tools to help women thrive in work and in life. Founded 1997, New York, NY
Dropbox is a file hosting service that offers cloud storage, file synchronization, personal cloud, and client software. Founded 2007, Mountain View, CA
Facebook provides products such as Facebook, Instagram, and Whatsapp that enable people to connect, share, discover, and communicate with each other. Founded February 2004, Cambridge, MA
Flipkart is an e-commerce company that focuses on serving the India market. Founded October 2007, Bangalore, India
Alphabet Inc. is a holding company that includes Google (the company’s core internet businesses), as well as other non-internet companies such as Calico, Verily, Waymo, X, and Nest Labs. In this book, we refer to the company as Google, both because it is the name by which most people know the company, and because we focus on the company’s Internet businesses. Founded September 1998, Palo Alto, CA
Groupon is an e-commerce marketplace that connects its subscribers with offers from local merchants. Its primary focus areas are activities, travel, goods, and services. Founded January 2008, Chicago, IL
Khan Academy’s mission is to provide a free, world-class education for anyone, anywhere. It does this by offering online practice exercises and instructional videos. Founded October 2006, Mountain View, CA
LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network and seeks to connect the world’s professionals to make them more productive and successful. Founded December 2002, Mountain View, CA
MercadoLibre provides solutions to individuals and companies buying, selling, advertising, and paying for goods online. Founded May 1999, Buenos Aires, Argentina/Stanford, CA
Microsoft develops, manufactures, licenses, supports, and sells computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and services. Based on revenue, it is the world’s largest computer software maker. Founded April 1975, Albuquerque, NM
M-Pesa is a mobile phone-based money transfer, financing, and microfinancing service that launched in Kenya but serves markets around the world. Founded March 2007, Nairobi, Kenya
Netflix is an Internet entertainment service that offers its members TV shows and movies, including original series, documentaries, and feature films. Members can watch as much as they want, anytime, anywhere, with no commercial interruptions. Founded August 1997, Scotts Valley, CA
PayPal operates a worldwide online payments system that supports online money transfers and serves as an electronic alternative to traditional paper methods like checks and money orders. Founded December 1998, Palo Alto, CA
Priceline provides online travel and related services to consumers and local partners. Its primary brands are Booking.com, priceline.com, agoda.com, KAYAK, Rentalcars.com, and OpenTable. Founded 1997, Stamford, CT
Through the Rocket Mortgage website or mobile app, users can upload financial details and get a mortgage loan decision in minutes. Quicken Loans launched Rocket Mortgage in November 2015, Detroit, MI
Salesforce.com provides cloud-based applications for sales, service, and marketing, as well as enabling partners to offer and run their own solutions on the Salesforce Platform. Founded February 1999, San Francisco, CA
Slack provides cloud-based collaboration tools and services that connect teams with the apps, services, and resources they need to get work done. Founded 2009, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Spotify is a music and podcast streaming service that allows users to create and listen to playlists as well as individual tracks. Founded April 2006, Stockholm, Sweden
Stripe helps businesses accept payments online and in mobile apps. Founded 2010, Palo Alto, CA
Tencent is a holding company whose subsidiaries provide various Internet-related services, products, and technology both in China and globally. Its major services include QQ and WeChat. Founded November 1998, Shenzhen, China
Tesla is an automaker, energy storage company, and solar panel manufacturer. Founded July 2003, San Carlos, CA
Twitter is an online news and social networking service where users post and interact with messages called “tweets.” Founded March 2006, San Francisco, CA
Uber is a transportation technology company. It develops, markets, and operates the Uber car transportation and food delivery mobile apps. Founded March 2009, San Francisco, CA
Xiaomi is a electronics and software company that designs, develops, and sells smartphones, mobile apps, laptops, and related consumer electronics. Founded April 2010, Beijing, China
Zara (and its holding company, Inditex) is the world’s largest clothing and fashion retailer. Founded May 1974, Arteixo, Spain