The Best Idea Yet

What do you get when you mix a passion for collecting bugs with an obsession for video games? For Satoshi Tajiri, the answer is the world's largest media franchise (over $92 billion revenue — more tha...

André and Édouard Michelin were desperately seeking a way to save their family rubber business, when a hapless cyclist with a flat came staggering into their workshop. The brothers saw an opportunity…...

What do you do for fun if you’re a bored college kid? For students across New England in the early 1900s, the answer was simple: toss around empty pie tins (obviously). Soon, shouts of “Frisbee!” echo...

In 2008, Lin-Manuel Miranda badly needed a vacation. He’d just won the Tony for his musical “In The Heights,” he’d been going nonstop. So he took a break, bringing a book with him for poolside loungin...

Born in a sweltering Texas drugstore in 1885 - this indescribable, 23 (secret) ingredient concoction broke the first rule of marketing: never sell something you can't explain. Behind this mystery brew...

Enzo Ferrari was 10 years old when he fell in love with racing… and soon, he would make it his life’s mission. After almost dying in an infirmary during WWI, Enzo schmoozed his way into the driving wo...

Beanie Babies — the unassuming critters with birthdates and bios — are designed to tug on your heartstrings (and your wallet). But for a moment in the late-90s, they burst out of gift shops and into i...

Tommy Bahama (spoiler) wasn’t founded by a man named Thomas with a Caribbean address. Rather, this classic lifestyle brand began with two longtime friends and coworkers at a failing apparel company. F...

When entrepreneur Henry J. Heinz went bankrupt after his first venture, he nearly lost it all—his farmland, his parents' home, and his own reputation. But then, he launched a stunning comeback that ch...

This sexy seltzer started out more than 40 years ago as a Wisconsin brewery’s quiet, nonalcoholic spinoff. Throughout the 80s and early 90s, LaCroix remained the low-key, low-cal fave of Midwestern Li...