7 CEOs who founded their Fortune 500 companies

Moneycontrol News June 5, 2024

Mark Zuckerberg created social media website Facebook alongside several of his peers while studying computer science at Harvard University in 2004. Since then, he has rebranded the company as Meta, and branched off into new ventures from virtual reality to AI.

1. Mark Zuckerberg, Meta

Elon Musk joined Tesla in 2003 as a venture capital backer and cofounder in 2003. The company spent several years dominating the electronic vehicle (EV) market but has recently lost ground to rivals.

2. Elon Musk, Tesla

Michael Dell created a startup called PC Limited while he was a 19-year-old college student at the University of Texas to sell computers to IBM. Since 1985, the company has sold computers directly to consumers. The company was renamed Dell Technologies in 1987.

3. Michael S. Dell, Dell

Jensen Huang, who graduated with two electrical engineering degrees, thought of launching Nvidia after after meeting with two colleagues dineout. The company is now a top manufacturer of GPUs which are electronic units that process large amounts of data quickly, which are critical to AI.

4. Jensen Huang, Nvidia

Former investment banker Marc Rowan created asset management company Apollo Global Management with his former colleagues from Drexel Burnham Lambert after the firm he was working for in 1990 collapsed.

5. Marc Rowan,  Apollo Global Management

Niraj Shah created Wayfair in 2002 with a friend operating out of a spare bedroom in his co-founder’s house. He set out to create a user-friendly online marketplace and now the home goods retail giant has over 250 niche e-commerce sites that sell furniture.

6. Niraj Shah, Wayfair

Brian Chesky came up with the idea for the online homestay marketplace in 2007 after he couldn’t pay a month’s worth of rent upfront. He eventually turned that spark of an idea into the larger Airbnb business.

7. Brian Chesky, Airbnb