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Curated category

Companies based in San Francisco

  • IGNIGN launched on the 29th of September 1996, born as a network of five separate websites covering gaming platforms that barely existed yet.
  • InstagramInstagram reached one billion registered users in June 2018 - a number that took Facebook four years longer to achieve. The platform launched for iOS in…
  • RedditReddit launched in June 2005 with a problem its founders could not admit to anyone: the site was empty. Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian, two roommates fresh…
  • DoorDashIn January 2013, four students from Stanford University walked into a Palo Alto office to launch their new venture. Tony Xu, Stanley Tang, Andy Fang, and…
  • Salon.comSalon.com launched in November 1995 with an unusual self-description: a "smart tabloid." Founder David Talbot, a former arts and features editor at the San…
  • Bleacher ReportBleacher Report began in 2005 as a conversation between four friends, the kind of sports talk that usually stays in someone's living room.
  • GoodreadsGoodreads launched in January 2007 with a deceptively simple premise: recreate the feeling of browsing a friend's bookshelf.
  • LucasfilmGeorge Lucas established Lucasfilm on the 10th of December 1971 in San Rafael, California. The company began with just five employees working out of a small…
  • AirbnbAirbnb began not with venture capital or a business school pitch, but with an air mattress on the floor of a San Francisco apartment.
  • Visa Inc.Visa Inc. processes more transactions in a single year than most people could count in a lifetime. In 2025, its global network handled 257.5 billion…
  • AnthropicIn 2021, seven former employees of OpenAI gathered in San Francisco to establish a new artificial intelligence company. Among them were siblings Daniela…
  • The AthleticAlex Mather and Adam Hansmann launched The Athletic in January 2016 as an independent subscription-based online sports magazine.
  • MasterClassDavid Rogier stood in a Stanford University classroom while still a student, sketching the idea for what would become Yanka Industries.
  • Business WireBusiness Wire began with sixteen media outlets in California and a man named Lorry I. Lokey who believed companies deserved a direct line to the world.