November 18, 2013
Boston Dynamics is an engineering and robotics company spun off from MIT in 1992 that is best known for the development of ‘BigDog,’ a quadruped robot designed for the US military with funding from Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), and ‘DI-Guy,’ software for realistic human simulation.
Early in the company’s history, it worked with the American Systems Corporation under a contract from the Naval Air Warfare Center Training Systems Division to replace naval training videos for aircraft launch operations with interactive 3D computer simulations.
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October 25, 2013
Wiki-PR is a public relations firm that markets its ability to edit Wikipedia. Its practices have contradicted Wikipedia practices, including those on sockpuppetry (using an online identity for purposes of deception) and conflict-of-interest editing, leading to hundreds of blocked accounts.
Wiki-PR was created in 2010 by Darius Fisher, its current COO, and Jordan French, its current CEO. Clients have included Viacom and Priceline. The firm claimed having administrator access enabling it to manage the Wikipedia presence of more than 12,000 clients. Wiki-PR uses aggressive email marketing to acquire new customers.
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October 22, 2013
SCS Software is a Czech video game development company. It primarily produces simulation games, including the ’18 Wheels of Steel’ (based on truck driving in North America) and ‘Euro Truck Simulator’ series. Other titles include ‘Bus Driver,’ ‘Scania Truck Driving Simulator,’ as well as the ‘Hunting Unlimited’ series. SCS Software has also published several screensavers.
In 2013, SCS Software announced ‘World of Trucks’ with its official motto: ‘One Trucking Game to Rule them All.’ The expected map will feature over 150 countries and more than 600 cities, more than 20 truck brands, more than 70 cargo types, and more than 50 fictional or real companies.
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July 29, 2013
Pagani is an Italian manufacturer of sports cars and carbon fiber components. The company was founded in 1992 by Horacio Pagani and is based in San Cesario sul Panaro, near Modena, Italy.
Horacio Pagani, who formerly managed Lamborghini’s composites department, founded Pagani Composite Research in 1988. This new company worked with Lamborghini on numerous projects, including the restyling of the 25th Anniversary Countach, the Lamborghini LM002, the Lamborghini P140 design concept, and the Diablo. In the late 1980s, Pagani began designing his own car, then referred to as the ‘C8 Project.’
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June 7, 2013
Really Big Coloring Books, Inc (RBCB) is an American publisher based in St. Louis, Missouri. The company develops, publishes and distributes children’s coloring and activity books, many of which are over two feet tall. Some of their products have been controversial due to their political content.
The company was established in 1981 by publisher Wayne Bell. The company is best known for its politically themed coloring books, covering subjects such as Barack Obama, the Tea Party Movement, and Occupy Wall Street.
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June 4, 2013
Intellectual Ventures is a private company notable for being one of the top-five owners of U.S. patents, as of 2011. Its business model has a focus on buying patents and aggregating them into a large patent portfolio and licensing this ‘IV’ portfolio to companies.
Publicly, it states that a major goal is to assist small inventors against corporations. In practice, the vast majority of IV’s revenue comes from buying patents, aggregating them into a large portfolio and licensing this portfolio to other companies or filing lawsuits for infringement of patents, a controversial practice known as patent trolling.
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May 25, 2013
Toy2R (‘Toy to Raymond’) is a designer toy company based in Hong Kong that was founded by Raymond Choy in 1995. Choy spent 10 years as an employee of an American footwear company. After much research and planning, he opened a toy store in 1995. Four years later, Choy observed a trend in collectible toys, now known as designer toys, specifically the ‘urban vinyl’ movement of toy design. He decided to put all his funds into the development of a vinyl figure, intended more as art than as a plaything.
He called this figure the ‘Toyer’; the design, which resembles a simplified human form with a head that resembles a cartoon skull, became his first trademark. The commercial response to this figure led to support from artists and designers all over the world, and enabled his next endeavor, the ‘Qee’ figure.
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March 4, 2013
Berkshire Hathaway Inc. is an American multinational conglomerate holding company headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska that oversees and manages a number of partially and wholly owned subsidiary companies. The company owns Geico, Dairy Queen, Fruit of the Loom, Helzberg Diamonds, NetJets, and Heinz and has significant minority holdings in American Express, M&T Bank, Coca-Cola, Kraft Foods, Proctor & Gamble, and IBM. Berkshire Hathaway averaged an annual growth in book value of 20.3% to its shareholders for the last 44 years, while employing large amounts of capital, and minimal debt.
Berkshire Hathaway stock produced a total return of 76% from 2000–2010 versus a negative 11.3% return for the S&P 500. Warren Buffett owns 32.4% aggregate voting power of Berkshire’s shares outstanding, and vice-chairman Charlie Munger holds a stake big enough to make him a billionaire (early investments in Berkshire by David Gottesman and Franklin Otis Booth, Jr. resulted in their becoming billionaires as well). Bill Gates’ Cascade Investments LLC is the second largest shareholder of Berkshire and owns more than 5% of class B shares.
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November 30, 2012
The South Butt, LLC was a clothing and accessories company founded in 2007 by Jimmy Winkelmann, a then 16-year-old student at Chaminade College Preparatory School. The company dissolved in 2011.
Winkelmann claimed the company was a parody of the The North Face, an American outdoor product company.
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September 12, 2012
Luaka Bop is a world music-oriented record label established by David Byrne, former guitarist, singer-songwriter and producer of the art rock-new wave band Talking Heads. It has been a wholly independent label since leaving Universal Music Group’s V2 in 2006. Luaka Bop has been responsible for compilations representing sounds from around the world as well as the release of full length albums, EPs, and singles from individual artists and bands.
‘Brazil Classics’ kicked off the label and a set of seven albums surveying eras and artists ranging from Samba to Tropicália. Ventures into Afro-Peruvian and AfroPean musics unearthed the talents of Susana Baca and Zap Mama, respectively. ‘World Psychedelic Classics’ is made up of three albums and includes artists such as Shuggie Otis, Os Mutantes, as well as West African artists of the late 1960s. Additionally, the label has released ‘Cuba’ and ‘Asia Classics.’
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September 10, 2012
LifeLock Inc., founded in 2005, is an American identity theft protection company based in Arizona. The company charges $10 a month for the LifeLock identity theft protection system intended to detect fraudulent applications for some forms of credit and non-credit related services.
LifeLock’s CEO Todd Davis was the victim of identity theft 13 times during 2007 and 2008, after he publicly posted his Social Security number on billboards and in TV commercials as part of a campaign to promote the company’s identity theft protection services.
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September 9, 2012
Uber (formerly UberCab) is a venture-funded startup company based in San Francisco that makes a mobile application that connects passengers with drivers of luxury vehicles (e.g. Lincoln, Cadillac, BMW) for hire.
The company arranges pickups in the San Francisco Bay Area, New York City, Los Angeles, Seattle, Chicago, Boston, Washington, D.C., Vancouver, Toronto, Paris, and Philadelphia. Cars are reserved by sending a text message or by using a mobile app. Using the apps, customers can track their reserved car’s location.
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