Garage company

Steve Jobs ' adoptive parents' house with the garage where Apple was founded in 1976

A garage company is usually a young company whose first office, storage or workshop space is located in a garage .

Instead of a garage, sheds, cellars or your own living space can also be used for commercial purposes.

In the USA , the myth of the company that began its way in a garage to finally conquer the world market lives on to this day. Especially at the time of the “ Internet boom” at the end of the 20th century, “garage companies” were happy to be supported with venture capital .

Well-known examples of garage companies are:

• the Ford Motor Company founded in 1903 ,
• Harley-Davidson Inc. , founded in Milwaukee , Wisconsin ( USA ) in 1903 ,
• the Walt Disney company founded in the early 1920s ,
• Delta Airlines , founded in 1928 ,
• Hewlett-Packard , founded in 1939 by William Hewlett and David Packard ,
• the Barbie doll company Mattel , founded in 1945 ,
• the Apple computer company founded in 1976 ,
• Cisco , founded in 1984 by Sandy Lerner and Leonard Bosack ,
• Google Inc., founded in 1998 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin .

In Russia, the garage economy, which filled the gaps in the planned economy in Soviet times, experienced a heyday after perestroika in the mid-1990s. The workers from dormant factories continued to produce the products by hand in the garages. Many companies still existed after 20 years despite uncertainty regarding the legal status. In 2016, it was estimated that over a third of all workers in Russia worked in the shadow economy .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Putin fears the "Garaschniki" , Die Welt, August 4, 2016
2. ^ On the verge of legality: Russia's garage economy , RBTH, March 11, 2016
3. ↑ Garage management . In: д ekoder | DECODER | Journalism from Russia in German translation | . October 27, 2016 ( dekoder.org [accessed January 19, 2018]).
4. ↑ Russia's shadow economy is booming , dw, November 27, 2016