AI Sector Overviews Articles and Reports

The company that would become eBay was founded as a sole proprietorship under the name AuctionWeb in September 1995 by Pierre Omidyar. The company changed its name to eBay in September 1997. The company reports selling just over $7 million in goods before being a California-registered corporation in May 1996.

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The Allstate Corporation, or simply ‘Allstate,’ was founded by Sears, Roebuck & Co., then-president General Robert E. Wood in 1931. Auto liability insurance began as the company’s flagship product and remains so today. The company added various coverage types throughout the 50s and 60s, including commercial, health, life, and personal liability insurance. 

Verizon is the second-largest telecommunications company by revenue and the largest by market capitalization. The company is also the largest wireless provider in the United States with a reported 143 million subscriptions. In its 2021 annual  report, the company reported revenues of $126.3 billion. Verizon is traded on the NYSE with a market cap of approximately $194.5 billion. The company employs over 118,000.

Per Alibaba’s annual report, its revenue in 2021 exceeded 717 billion yuan (approximately 109 billion U.S. dollars), while its active yearly customers reached nearly 1.3 billion people. As of March 2022, Alibaba trades on the NYSE and has an approximate market cap of $225 billion.

This article was originally written as part of a PDF report sponsored by Daitan, and was written, edited and published in alignment with our transparent Emerj sponsored content guidelines.

The company that would become PayPal Holdings first entered the electronic payments space in 1999, a year after being founded as Confinity. Confinity merged with Elon Musk’s x.com in 2000 and was renamed PayPal the following year. The company went public in 2002 shortly before its acquisition by eBay, through which it became “the site’s official payments provider.” eBay spun off PayPal as an independent company in 2015.

Dick and Mac McDonald opened the first McDonald’s restaurant in San Bernardino, California in 1940. By the end of the decade, the restaurant added its now-famous French fries. Ray Kroc joined the growing organization in 1954, purchased it in 1961, and served as its CEO into the early 1970s. Over the next decades, the restaurant chain grew, adding its drive-thru concept, Hamburger University, and iconic menu items like its Filet-O-Fish, Big Mac, and Quarter Pounder sandwiches.