Skip to content
Curated playlist

Corporate spin-offs

  • Marriott InternationalMarriott International began as a root beer stand in Washington, D.C. in 1927.
  • Mondelez InternationalMondelez International takes its name from two scraps of language. One is the Latin word mundus, meaning world. The other is delez, a shortened echo of the word delicious. The company writes its name with a macron over the second e, and it…
  • Universal Music GroupUniversal Music Group traces back to a film studio, Carl Laemmle's Universal Pictures.
  • ValvolineValvoline began in a doctor's bag, not a garage. Dr. John Ellis went looking for medical uses for crude oil.
  • BakktIn July 2025, Bakkt sold its loyalty points business for $11 million. The crypto payments company kept one focus.
  • Wyndham Hotels & ResortsA journalist said a Dallas developer named the Wyndham hotel brand after her. Trammell Crow launched it in 1981.
  • Yum! BrandsIn 2016, Yum! Brands counted 43,617 restaurants spread across 135 nations and territories. Only 2,859 of them were owned by the company itself. The other 40,758 were run by franchisees. That makes Yum! one of the largest fast food…
  • DARPATechnology research and development agency of the U.S. Department of Defense
  • Constellation EnergyConstellation Energy's stock lost more than half its value in one day in 2008.
  • Chipotle Mexican GrillChipotle Mexican Grill started with an $85,000 loan from the founder's father and a very specific break-even target. Steve Ells and his father calculated that the first store needed to sell 107 burritos a day to turn a profit. After one…
  • Denny'sDenny's had a peculiar problem at Christmas in 1988. That year, all but six of its restaurants closed for the holiday, which had never happened before. Many of the buildings had gone up without locks, so there was nothing to turn. Others…
  • PayPalPayPal sold itself to eBay for $1.5 billion in eBay stock on the 3rd of October 2002, only months after its own stock market debut. By 2022 the company operated in 202 markets and counted 426 million active, registered accounts. Customers…

Queue