Behind the Curtain: 35 Startling Facts About Tech Companies

In 2014, black taxi cab drivers of London brought parts of the city to a standstill, protesting against Uber. This led to an 850% increase in downloads of Uber.

2. In 2018, Samsung accidentally issued 2,000 employees 1,000 shares of stock for 37 minutes before realizing the error. About 16 employees sold their shares during that time for approx. $9,000,000 each.

3. In 2012, the CEO of Lenovo received a $3 million bonus as a reward for record profits which he in-turn redistributed to about 10,000 employees of Lenovo. He did this again in 2013.

4. In 1994, IBM released a cell phone named IBM Simon that had a touch screen and e-mail capabilities. It could also send and receive faxes, work as a pager, and was considered the world's first smartphone due to its features and capabilities.

5. In 2009, Amazon sold diapers at a $100 million loss to scare Diapers.com into selling them their business or face running into the ground.

A Brazilian electronics company is legally allowed to call their phone ‘iPhone’ because they trademarked the word in 2000, 7 years prior to Apple’s iPhone. Their phone runs on Android.

7. When PayPal was started they gave $20 to everyone who made an account and $20 for every person they referred. This cost them 60-70 million dollars but they had 100,000 customers in the month PayPal went online.

8. The guy who snagged windows2000.com happened to be named Bob and Microsoft just happened to own Bob.com. They came to an agreement to trade one for the other.

9. In 2001, a South African company named Naspers decided to purchase a 46.5% stake into an up-and-coming Chinese tech company. This initial investment of $32 million into what would become Tencent has now ballooned to over $175 billion, making it one of the most successful investments in history.

10. In some European markets, Netflix monitors illegal downloads to decide which shows to purchase.

After the 2012 security breaches, Sony changed Play Station user agreement to require users to agree not to sue Sony over any future security breach.

12. In April 2011, two competing algorithms on Amazon.com each kept altering the price that they were selling a book about flies for, based on how much the other was charging. After ten days of price warring, the price of the book had climbed to $23.7 million.

13. Lenovo Computers is partially owned by the Chinese government and their computers come pre-loaded with secret back door access. As a result MI6, the CIA and other spy agencies have banned their use.

14. Sony has a patent on making viewers yell product names out loud to end TV ads.

15. Instagram started as a Whiskey meetup app. After analyzing how people used it, they relaunched it as Instagram and sold it for $1 billion 2 years later.

In 2002, Fujitsu made a device called the “iPad,” and Apple had to pay over $4 million to Fujitsu to buy the trademark rights.

17. Samsung originally sold noodles. It wasn't until 1970 that they started selling electronics.

18. The term “iOS” does not belong to Apple but is instead licensed from Cisco, who owns the trademark.

19. Microsoft tried to monopolize the early web browser market by making it difficult to install other web browsers and slowing down Windows if Internet Explorer was uninstalled.

20. Snapchat was originally marketed as an app to send nude pictures called Picaboo.

In 1973, IBM offered its UPC bar code proposal to the grocery industry for free. The industry accepted a very close standard to their proposal. However, IBM also made the first technology capable of reading the bar codes and made tons of money selling the equipment to grocery stores.

22. In 2010, Microsoft held a funeral to mark the death of the iPhone when it launched its own line of phones.

23. There is an extremely rare camera lens manufactured by Canon. It has 1200mm focal length and it costs roughly $90,000.

24. Facebook acquired Onavo VPN to track user's full online activity and app usage details. With this, they could tell that Instagram’s Stories crippled Snapchat Stories even before Snapchat made it public.

25. In 2005, Apple, Google, Intel, Adobe, Intuit, and Pixar started a coordinated effort to push down their workers’ wages.