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Airbnb

Airbnb – ‘Need to Succeed’ Story of Two Roommates.

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The rise of online services has eased down many things for people, from making payments online to buy food and getting new fashion clothes to booking hotels for vacations. Airbnb is a similar online service developed by two designers, Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia, struggling with finances. Airbnb is an online platform, where people are offered services like renting hotels, lodges, homestays, spare rooms in a house as well as various activities for vacations. The platform has been loved for its simplicity and flexible services and is operational in most tourist destinations across the world.

A Brief Introduction of Airbnb

Airbnb is a 12 years old company founded in San Francisco, California by two designers Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia. Being a millennial product, the service is available on both websites and mobile. The idea behind Airbnb is to make a profit with commissions. People use the Airbnb website or app to rent their property for few days for people who want a comfortable yet cheap stay during their vacations. People rent and book accommodation on Airbnb, and the latter charges a minimal fee from them.

Airbnb
Image Source: designindaba.com

As per 2019 records, around 6000 people are working for the company, and it made an annual revenue of $3.378 billion in 2020. The subsidiary companies of Airbnb include Luxury Retreats, International Inc., Tilt.com, Accomable, Aibiying, Trooly, Inc., Deco Software Inc., Trip4real Experiences, Airbnb UK Limited, and HotelTonight.

The Back story

Airbnb started as AirBed & Breakfast, when two roommates, Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia, rented their room with three air mattresses to earn some money in 2007. Nathan Blecharczyk dived in as the third founder of the company in February 2008 and held the position of Chief Technology Officer. To expand their business, the three built a website with the domain airbedandbreakfast.com. The website allowed people to book for quarters having air mattresses along with breakfast service for their stay.

The Industrial Design Conference during the summer of 2008 brought the first customers for the company as these customers were unable to find places to stay. The founders of the company then attended the training sessions at Y Combinator in January 2009 to understand better ‘how to run a startup’. Going to the training at Y Combinator also brought the founders their first big venture funding worth $20,000, which they used to market their website across America. In just two months after their training session, Airbnb had registered 10,000 users. Meanwhile, the name of the company was also changed to Airbnb. The company also moved from only renting the air mattresses to renting rooms, apartments, and even a whole house on their platform.

Airbnb got its next big investor the Sequoia Capital and raised $7.2 million in a Series A round in 2010. The next year, it became the winner of the “app” award. The company started to expand overseas, and in October 2011, it opened its first international office in London, followed by the establishment of offices in Paris, Milan, Moscow, Berlin, Barcelona, etc., in the next few years. In the following years, Airbnb established its European headquarters in Dublin. The company also entered Asia after it opened an office in Singapore in December 2012.

Airbnb
Image Source: adage.com

By 2013, the company had registered around 250,000 properties to its platform. Airbnb revamped the website, mobile app, and the logo of the company in 2014, to make bookings, even more, easier for people. Due to the simple and useful concept of Airbnb, it was growing too fast, raising billions of dollars from the biggest investors in the world, including Andreessen Horowitz, Google Capital, and Technology Crossover Ventures, etc. In 2016, the revenues generated by the company were 80% more than the previous year. The company announced two new features on the platform, Airbnb Plus, which listed the collection of best places service/rating wise, and Beyond by Airbnb, a service that offered luxury vacation rentals. As per the 2019 records, two million people had registered to Airbnb globally.

The CEO: Brian Joseph Chesky

Brian Joseph Chesky is one of the founders and the current CEO of Airbnb. He was born on 29 August 1981 in Niskayuna, New York, U.S. Chesky completed his high school education from Rhode Island School of Design and got a bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts in industrial design in 2004. Soon after he got his degree, he moved to San Francisco, where he founded Airbnb with his roommate Joe Gebbia as a result of ongoing financial issues.

Keysight Technologies

Keysight Technologies – The Spun-off Electronics Division of HP, Making Big in the Industry.

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Keysight Technologies can be cited as the spun-off company of Hewlett-Packard, as it was one of the electronic test and measurement divisions of the latter before Keysight could be called an independent company. First, Keysight was a division at HP and then was taken over by Agilent Technologies (another division of HP).

The company came into being in 2014 and has made its separate identity in the world of electronics. Keysight Technologies, after getting separated from Hewlett-Packard, continued to manufacture and supply the electronics test and measurement equipment and added software development to one of its specializations.

About the Company

Though Keysight is a seven years old company, still with the experience of being a part of two big names Hewlett-Packard and Agilent Technologies, it was able to make its mark in the industry quite smoothly. Today the company has its own several divisions, including PathWave Design and PathWave Test oscilloscopes, etc., and over 14000 people are working for the company. Other than America, Keysight Technologies is operational in countries like UK and Australia. As of 2019, the company made an annual revenue worth US$4.3 billion.

A Brief History Keysight Technologies

The founders of Hewlett-Packard, Dave Packard, and Bill Hewlett, who were also good friends from their graduation from Stanford University, founding HP from a garage in Palo Alto, California, in 1939, today known as the Silicon Valley. The two started the company after they discovered their passion for innovation while camping in the Colorado mountains.

If we look at the beginning of HP, it started as an oscillator and electronic measurement manufacturing company. As time went by, HP excelled in its field and also added many other divisions, like the manufacturing of computers and printers, to its business. In 1999, the company separated its test and measurement components business and the computer-printer manufacturing business. The former went under the control of Agilent Technologies, the Medical Products and Instrument Group formed by HP.

Keysight Technologies
Image Source: keysight.com

For about fifteen years, Agilent handled the operations of Keysight Technologies, but on November 1, 2014, Keysight officially became a separate electronic measurement company through the spinning off of Agilent Technologies. Since then, the company has only stepped towards success. It also made some major acquisitions in the past seven years, which include Anite PLC (2015), Electroservices Enterprises UK Ltd (2015), Ixia (2017), Thales Calibration Services (2018), Eggplant (2020), and Quantum Benchmark (2021).

Keysight Technologies has established its headquarter in Santa Rosa, California, U.S., and trades on the New York Stock Exchange as KEYS.

Products by Keysight Technologies

Keysight Technologies, being a part of HP in the past, have similar values attached to its work. The major fields Keysight is focussing today include 5G, automotive, Internet of Things, network security, etc. and manufactures software and hardware products for benchtop, modular, and field instruments. Oscilloscopes, in-circuit testers, logic analyzers, signal generators, vector network analyzers, atomic force microscopes (AFM), automated optical inspection, automated X-ray inspection (5DX), power supplies, tunable lasers, optical power meters, wavelength-meters, optical modulation analyzers, etc. are the major products manufactured and shipped by Keysight Technologies.

The CEO: Ronald S. Nersesian

Ronald S. Nersesian is the president and the CEO of Keysight Technologies. Nersesian has got a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Lehigh University and has completed an MBA from NYU Stern School of Business.

Nersesian started his career with Computer Sciences Corporation as a systems engineer for satellite communications systems in 1982. After working for two years at the company, he joined Hewlett-Packard in 1984 and continued to work at the company till 1996, when he joined LeCroy Corporation. In 2002 Nersesian joined Agilent Technologies as the vice president and general manager of the Design Validation Division of the company. Till 2014, he managed various roles at Agilent Technologies, like the executive vice president and COO of the company. In 2014, Nersesian was appointed as the chairman, president, and CEO of Keysight Technologies.

Ciena

Ciena – The Pioneers of Optical Connectivity.

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Ciena is an American telecommunications networking company that has ruled the telecom industry. The company is one of the largest equipment and software services providers and has its headquarter located in Hanover, Maryland, United States. The company is around 30 years old and has been leading the game of networking ever since.

According to the 2019 records of the company, Ciena made $3.57 billion in revenues that year and around 7000 people are working for it, including 2700+ R&D specialists. Ciena has a strong client base, AT&T, Verizon Communications, Korea Telecom, and Sprint Corporation being some of them. The company operates in 35 countries having 60 offices globally.

The Founding Story of Ciena

Ciena started its journey as HydraLite in 1992. David R. Huber founded the company with a plan of applying fiber-optic technology to cable television. The company received its initial funding of $40 million from Sevin Rosen Funds, Charles River Ventures, Japan Associated Finance Co., and other local investors. Huber changed the name of the company to Ciena and established an office in Dallas in February 1994. Ciena launched its very first products in 1996, Sprint Corporation being the first client of the company.

After selling its first products, the company made an annual revenue of $195 million. By the year 1997, the company started to make new clients and established its headquarter in Maryland. The same year, in February, it went public on NASDAQ and valued at $3.4 billion, the largest for a startup at that time.

Ciena
Image Source: ciena.com

In the year 2001, Ciena was the second-largest manufacturer of fiber optic networking equipment in the US. But since due to the telecom crash, the technology shift took place, and the companies suffered huge pressure of serving the growing demand, Ciena too had to face some losses. Ciena leaders knew that with time they had to bring change to the company technology, so they changed the business strategy for the company. The company started to invest in other companies with diverse services. It acquired around five network companies between 2001 and 2005.

Ciena, by this time, had also started to strengthen its R&D department and built the first converged packet-optical platform that reduced the requirement of the amount of equipment to set up a network. In 2009, Ciena made $39 million in profits after making sales worth $902 million. In the next ten years, the company had a raised manpower to 5,345 people. Reportedly, the company revenue for the year 2017 was approximately $2.8 billion. Ciena also appeared on the Fortune 1000 list a few times.

Products and Services

Ciena is the producer and supplier of network equipment, software, and services for the telecommunication department. The company also provides assistance to cloud service firms as well as companies offering voice and data traffic on communications networks. Optical switches, routing platforms, and equipment for undersea cable networks are some of Ciena’s major products. Ciena has also developed machine-learning algorithm-based software programs like Blue Planet that help companies program their communication networks.

Acquisitions by the Company

Ciena
Image Source: mergr.com

Ciena started to expand its operations by acquiring other companies starting from 1997. The major acquisitions by Ciena included AstraCom Inc. (1997), ATI Telecom International Ltd. (1998), Terabit Technology Inc. (1998), Omnia Communications Inc. (1999), Cyras Corp.(2000), ONI Systems (2002), WaveSmith Networks Inc. (2003), Akara Corp. (2003), Catena Networks (2004) and Internet Photonics (2004), World Wide Packets Inc. (2008), Nortel’s optical technology and Carrier Ethernet division (2009), Cyan (2015), TeraXion Inc.(2016), Packet Design (2016), and DonRiver (2018), etc.

The CEO: Gary B. Smith

Gary B. Smith is the CEO of Ciena Corporation. He belongs to the British ethnicity and has been working in the American telecom industry for many years. He was born and brought up in Birmingham, United Kingdom, and holds an MBA degree from Ashridge Management College.

Smith has been working at executive positions in many companies. He was the vice president of the sales and marketing department at Cray Communications, Inc. and Intelsat for a few years. Smith then joined Ciena in 1997 as the vice president of worldwide sales and was promoted to be the CEO and president of the company in 2001.

Altice Europe

Altice Europe – The Journey of the Famous French Cable and Telecommunication Company.

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Altice Europe is a France-based telecommunication company with a market capitalization of $4.8B. The company is the second-largest telecommunication and mass media company in France after Orange. A French-Israeli billionaire named Patrick Drahi founded Altice in 2001 as a cable television company. Today, apart from the TV service, Altice is a leader in internet and telephone subscription service.

The major countries of services for Altice include Western Europe, Israel, and the Caribbean. The company has also been providing its services in the US as one of the most used telephone and cable services. But in 2019, the company discontinued its operations in the US as a result of the spinning off of the company via an IPO in 2019.

A Brief Introduction

The company headquarters of Altice Europe lies in Woerden, Netherlands, and was founded in 2001 by Patrick Drahi. Cable television, Direct-broadcast satellite, broadcasting, broadband and telephony services, mass media are some of the fields Altice excels in and has its branches in several parts of the world. As of the records from 2017, the company is generating around €2,54 billion annual revenues and has over 47000 people working for it. Altice Dominicana S.A., Altice Portugal, Altice France (SFR), and Hot are some of its subsidiary companies. In the past 20 years, the company has seen many ups and downs, but still stands as one of the largest telecom networks in the world.

Altice Europe
Image Source: altice.net

The Founding Story of Altice Europe

The founder of Altice Europe, Patrick Drahi, was already working in the field of cable television. He left his position from his earlier cable TV business and sold his share in the UPC for approximately 40 million Euros. He then started another cable company with the name Altice ATCE.AS in Amsterdam. The company started its operation by buying several European cable companies. In the years between 2002 to 2007, he was able to merge multiple regional companies into one and established Numericable.

By 2009, Altice was also expanding to other countries by acquiring their regional cable companies, Hot from Israel being one of them. The company also acquired the operations of Orange Dominicana of Orange for $1.4 billion in 2013. The next year, Altice went on to overtake the subsidiary company of Vivendi, SFR. During the same time, Numericable also bought the operations of Virgin Mobile France.

Altice also acquired the 70% stakes in Suddenlink Communications that helped Altice to grow in the US, and in Portugal, the company bought Portugal Telecom. In March 2017, Altice also acquired Teads, a video ad-tech firm. The same year, Altice also rebranded the company logo, and the slogan, for both Altice Europe and Altice USA to unify the telecommunication operations of Altice under one name. The slogan was “Together Has No Limits”.

In June 2019, Altice had an IPO and spun off the USA division of the Altice group to become a self-governing entity. The resultant company has the same logo and is also chaired by Patrick Drahi but operates as an independent company.

The Founder: Patrick Drahi

Patrick Drahi was born on 20 August 1963 in Casablanca, Morocco. He belonged to a Jewish family, which moved to Montpellier, France, when Drahi was 15 years old. After completing his high school education, Drahi joined the École Polytechnique University in Paris, where he received an engineering degree and a post-graduate degree in optics and electronics.

Altice Europe Founder
Image Source: capacitymedia.com

Drahi started his career by establishing a cable business in France in collaboration with an American company. After selling his post at the company, he then founded Altice Europe in 2001.

Other than Altice, Drahi founded Numericable as well as an international news channel, named i24news which operates in French, Arabic, and English languages. He also owns the Israeli cable television company HOT. Drahi has been named the third-richest person in France by Forbes in 2015, and till 2016, he was the richest person in Israel. In 2021, he was at the 248th rank on the Billionaires 2020 list of Forbes.

swisscom

Swisscom, One of the most efficient Telecommunications providers in Switzerland.

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Swisscom is Switzerland’s leading provider of communication, information technology, and entertainment. Swisscom employs over 19,000 people and is one of Switzerland’s most innovative and sustainable companies. Operating the simplest mobile network and largest fiber-optic network in Switzerland, Swisscom offers maximum bandwidths nationwide. The Company network is fast, sustainable, secure, and prepared for anything.

The Backstory of Swisscom

At the beginning of 1852, Switzerland started the first telecommunications service between St. Gallen and Zurich. Alexander Graham Bell’s invention of the telephone in 1876 gave the field new impetus. In 1917, Zurich-Gottingen started the operation of the first half-automatic telephone switchboard. By 1959, Switzerland’s telephone system became the world’s first completely automated network, there were 1 million subscribers. In 1962, Telstar was launched in space, the first telecommunications satellite. The first exchange to allow direct international dialing was unveiled at the Expo 1964 in Lausanne.

Swisscom
Image Source: web24.news

In 1974, in the canton of Wallis, the Earth satellite station of Leuk was operational. In 1975, PTT-Betreibe (Postal and Telecommunications Services of Switzerland) decided to introduce a mobile telephone network for vehicles (NATEL). The first NATO A network, followed by NATEL B in 1983 and NATEL C in 1987, was established three years later. Between Berne and Neuchâtel the first fiber optic cable was placed in 1985. The first Swiss digital telecommunications network Telecom PTT was introduced in 1988.

In 1992, under the name NATEL D, the mobile phone network was digitized. In 1996, the internet portal “Blue Windows” of Telecom PTT became the market leader soon. Telecom PTT was converted to Swisscom on 1 October 1997. Swisscom Ltd was bought on the stock exchange on 5 October 1998. Swisscom became a part of the television industry in 2007 and led the digital television market with 791,000 subscribers by the end of 2012. In 2009, the fiber-optic network expansion in Switzerland was pushed forward by Swisscom.

Products And Services:

For Residential Customers:-

Surf with Internet Security more safely. The company’s security and anti-viruses protect your devices against viruses, hackers, and spyware. Since 2002 Swisscom has offered free internet access to all Swiss schools. It is in the interests of more than 6000 schools. In Swiss education systems, they are much more concerned with sustainable and efficient ICT.

For Businesses:-

Double Robotics is a modern telepresence system, and an entirely different step towards interactions with staff, customers and business partners. For companies with multiple locations and/or operating internationally, Double Robotics is ideal. Double robotics is also suited for companies offering flexible working models to their employees. It allows you to move around the room in freedom, unlike classic video conferencing in which you can only see a screen. The totally mobile Double allows physical presence from around the world in the workplace.

Digital signing is legally and securely possible with electronic signatures. It is therefore a core digitization element and enables any type of contract to be concluded. No printing, no letter sending, no scanning – with an electronic signature everything is completely digital. Client Hardware Service provides you with access to advanced, efficient devices, ideal for flexibility and environmental impact reduction.

Conextrade helps you throughout the entire digital process chain whether with e-procurement or e-invoicing. Swisscom managed services link companies and suppliers with all the current technologies and support the entire procurement-to-paid and order-to-cash process from e-invoicing. CuraMED is the web-based information system for the next-generation medical practice for electronic documentation and process optimization. Configured to the highest security standards, this software-as-a-service solution features an extensive and modern medical information system that is suited to your individual needs.

Urs Schaeppi, The Genius behind Swisscom

Since 2013, Urs Schaeppi has served as Head of Swisscom (Switzerland) Ltd and Chief Executive Officer of Swisscom. He graduated from the Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich with a degree in engineering and the University of St. Gallen with a degree in business administration. His professional career began in R&D at Iveco, followed by marketing at Ascom. In addition, he was promoted to Operations Manager at Papierfabrik Biberist.

In 1998, he joined the Mobile division as Head of Commercial Business after the formation of Swisscom. He was appointed CEO of Swisscom Solutions in 2006 and soon after became Head of the Enterprise Customers division. He sits on the boards of several economic and educational organizations.

wayfair

Wayfair – The Journey of American E-Commerce Company.

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Wayfair is a furniture and home goods retailer based in the United States. The company was founded in 2002 and was previously known as CSN Stores. Wayfair grew into the behemoth it is today as a result of the dot-com crash in the early 2000s, the evolving nature of internet shopping, and an increasingly global supply chain. It has emerged as a pioneer of its peers. 

The online marketplace features 14 million products from over 11,000 international suppliers. It also has 80 “house brands,” which aren’t actually brands but are used to categorize and merchandise products based on certain decorating aesthetics. The company does not manufacture any of the products it sells and instead operates on a drop-ship basis. When a customer places an order, Wayfair purchases the item from one of its suppliers, who then ships it to the customer in a variety of ways. Wayfair has 12 fulfillment centers and over 12 million square feet of warehouse space in Europe and North America. 

The Wayfair Brand And Its “Lifestyle Brands”

Wayfair is more than just Wayfair.com, Joss & Main, AllModern, Perigold, and Birch Lane are also owned by the company. Wayfair.com is the company’s main hub, where you can find everything from furniture to appliances that went viral. AllModern constitutes modern and chic furniture, whereas Joss & Main and Birch Lane are nearly identical and lean towards traditional furniture.

Perigold, the newest site, is high-end, but it appears to be designed specifically for someone who owns a mansion or a villa. The company refers to these sites as “lifestyle brands.” Beyond the “lifestyle brands,” the products are further subdivided into one of Wayfair’s 80 “house brands”, which are only available on Wayfair.com.

The Establishment of Wayfair

Wayfair, formerly known as CSN Stores, began with the website racksandstands.com, selling media stands and warehouse furniture. In 2003, Wayfair expanded to include patio and garden goods suppliers, three online stores, and more than a dozen employees and relocated its headquarters to Newbury Street in Boston. Over the next two years, the company expanded its offering to include home décor, institutional, office, kitchen and dining furniture and materials, as well as home improvement goods, luggage, and lighting, as well as bed and bath materials. The company made $100 million in sales in 2006. Within the next four years, the company expanded in both domestic and international markets.

Wayfair
Image Source: digital.hbs.edu

CSN Stores opened an office in London in 2008 and began exporting to Canada and selling in the United Kingdom. The company relocated its headquarters to 177 Huntington Avenue in 2010. The company launched Joss & Main, a members-only private sales online store, at the end of that year. CSN Stores had over 200 online stores by 2011. Battery Ventures, Great Hill Partners, HarbourVest Partners, and Spark Capital provided $165 million in funding to the company in June 2011. Wayfair.com went live on September 1, 2011. Wayfair had incorporated all of its niche websites, with the exception of Joss & Main and AllModern, into Wayfair.com as of July 2012. 

Wayfair’s Response to an Emergency

Wayfair responds to crisis situations in the broader community where they have the resources and ability to assist on an emergency basis. The company worked with Habitat for Humanity International in February 2013 to directly assist the communities affected by Hurricane Sandy. Wayfair delivered over $50,000 in home furnishings to Habitat ReStore resale stores in Coastal New Jersey. Product sales funds directly supported disaster response efforts and home rebuilding in the region.

Wayfair responded to the terrorist attack at the Boston Marathon in April 2013 by donating $50,000 to Technology Underwriting Greater Good (TUGG) in collaboration with the company’s founders to directly assist victims of the bombing. Wayfair employees also raised $8,000 for One Fund Boston, which will be used to assist those most affected by the tragedy.

Stepping into the Future

Wayfair recently opened its first permanent store in Natick, Massachusetts, following a series of pop-ups over the years. The company provides hundreds of smaller items that customers can take home with them, as well as an in-person taste of what its digital services are like. Customers can collaborate with designers to design rooms and touch fabrics used in a furniture customization program.

The Founders

Niraj Shah co-founded Wayfair with Steve Conine in 2002, and the pair quickly expanded the company to become the largest online retailer of home furnishings, housewares, and home improvement products in the United States, with $15.3 billion in net sales for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2021. Wayfair employs over 16,200 employees and has large operations in the United States and Europe.

Niraj worked as the CEO and co-founder of Simplify Mobile, the Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Greylock Partners, the COO and a member of the board of iXL, and the CEO and co-founder of Spinners, which was sold to iXL in 1998. Niraj is a member of the Massachusetts Competitive Partnership and the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce boards of directors. Niraj graduated from Cornell University with a B.S. in engineering and currently resides in Boston, Massachusetts, with his wife and two children.