FX.co ★ Co-founders of today’s hottest tech companies

Steve Wozniak (Apple)

Fans of Apple know Steve Jobs very well, but few people know Steve Wozniak, Jobs' closest associate and co-founder of the tech giant.

Steve Wozniak, known as "Woz", began his career at Hewlett-Packard (HP) as a calculator engineer. Back in 1975, Wozniak tried to persuade HP to release a PC designed by him alone. HP did not agree, but Jobs immediately appreciated the potential of his friend and offered to set up a business to create the product together.

After finalizing the original model in 1976, Apple I, the first PC in the history of the newly formed company, was made.

Just 4 years later, Apple began to enjoy a great popularity in the market. And the owners of the garage company Jobs and Wozniak became millionaires. With Wozniak's knowledge of electronics and Jobs' marketings skills, the two were well-suited to do business together.

After finally leaving Apple 1987, Steve Wozniak opened several high-tech companies, was engaged in charity and published his autobiography, iWoz. Today he is still part of Apple and is the owner of the company's shares. Wozniak travels and takes part in conferences worldwide.

Eduardo Saverin (Facebook)

Facebook, the world's most popular social network, was originally created by four friends who studied at the same university and dreamed of getting a universal means for communicating with their peers. Today, most of those who are familiar with Facebook, will tell that its founder is Mark Zuckerberg. And very few people know that at the first stages of the company one of the key roles was played by Eduardo Saverin.

In 2004, a group of students, including Zuckerberg and Saverin, began the work on creation of Facebook. Saverin invested a significant part of his funds and became a financial director. Zuckerberg and the others were directly involved in the development of the site. Due to financial conflicts, Saverin had to leave, just at the time when Facebook began to gain popularity among students.

Today Saverin has a 5% stake at the company. He became a Singapore resident after renouncing his US citizenship in 2012. He is the island-nation's richest person with net worth of $10 billion.

Paul Allen (Microsoft)

Microsoft is primarily associated with Bill Gates, the richest man on the planet and CEO of the world's largest tech company. But, as in the case of Apple, the company owes its origin to several people.

An important role was played by Paul Allen, with whom Gates has been familiar from school. Allen created the most popular operating system in the world. Gates and Allen worked together in MITS, where they got all the necessary programming skills, They both created Microsoft. A large order from IBM for PC's operating system in 1980 was a pivot point for the company.

But three years later, in 1983, when entrepreneurs were already millionaires, Allen sold all his Microsoft shares and left the company. He was seriously ill and had disagreements with his partner.

Now Paul Allen is a major investor and philanthropist who has invested more than $2 billion in charity. In addition, he owns two professional sports teams, the Seattle Seahawks and the Portland Trail Blazers.

Paul Allen has been passionate about music. Popular music producer Quincy Jones said in an interview that Allen can sing and play guitar "just like" rock legend Jimi Hendrix.

Garrett Camp (Uber)

Uber, on-demand car service, is now present in many countries. Despite the fact that the ride-hailing app is often associated with notorious CEO Travis Kalanick, the idea was offered by Garrett Camp, who co-founded the UberCab start-up.

Garrett initially founded Uber in early 2009, and introduced Kalanick to his idea after a while. Subsequently, Travis became the adviser to Garrett and was given the position of CEO. This development is related to Camp's approach to his projects: only after having long cherished his idea and being convinced of its attractiveness, he invites investors.

In 2010, following the appointment of Kalanick to the post of chief executive, Camp gradually takes a back seat and no longer appears in the press. It should be noted that Camp did not lose his stake in this very successful start-up and in the period from 2010 to the present time, he managed to work on several projects. Expa, the company that assists new start-ups from the development stage to the release of the finished product, is among his projects.

Moreover, in March this year, Camp announced his plans to launch his own crypto currency, Eco.

Sergey Brin (Google)

There are millions of Google requests every day from all corners of the world. The search engine belongs to Alphabet, which today is one of the most powerful and influential tech firms. There were two friends at the origins of Google: Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Friends met at the university and, quickly found common ground.

In 1997, they registered “Google.com” as a domain. Despite the fact that the system initially searched the university's materials, the very idea was revolutionary for those years as without knowing the exact web page, it was simply impossible to find it.

Over time, due to differences in approaches and characters, the relationship between the two founders worsened. And Brin decided to quit.

In 2004, Forbes placed Page and Brin on equal positions in the list of the world's five most influential people. Currently, Sergey Brin is Alphabet's president. Until 2015, he was married to Anne Wojcicki, whose sister Susan is YouTube's CEO.