Slick interfaces and bundling helped solidify Excel as the corporate planning tool

Microsoft Excel is used by over a billion people worldwide

The upstart computer software company Microsoft launched its columns-and-rows spreadsheet program in 1985, enabling users to sort information, create charts, and perform calculations with minimal friction. It would be coupled with Microsoft Word and PowerPoint in 1990 as part of the Microsoft Office for Windows.

VisiCalc was the first electronic spreadsheet, released with Apple II's personal computer in 1979

Before 1979, managers were essentially information processors working off paper ledgers. Scenario modeling was slow, manual, and expensive. Companies were understood as organizations that built things with financial analysis as secondary. VisiCalc made calculation so cheap that you could work iteratively, setting out forecasts and tweaking assumptions until you got the answer you wanted. Oks argues It created a new way of seeing the world.

Japanese artist Tatsuo Horiuchi creates masterpieces using Microsoft Excel

Upon retiring, he wanted to get into art, but found the materials to be expensive. Since 2000, he has created art pieces using the line tool and other features the software provides before printing and taping together various spreadsheets that make up a completed work.

From 1986 to 2024, Microsoft has acquired at least 277 companies

Some of these acquisitions helped the company expand into enterprise software and services, including Visio, which integrated diagramming software into Microsoft Office, and Hotmail, which provided an email platform to customers. Recent acquisitions of Mojang and Activision Blizzard underscore an increasing emphasis on the video game industry.

Google's early focus on simplicity and user experience drove its future successes

Google Search revolutionized information retrieval in 1998, but additional web-based products, including Gmail, Maps, Docs, and YouTube reinforced the company's core ad business while allowing it to aggregate the world's information. Forming Alphabet protected this business from riskier moonshot projects.

Microsoft's initial successes came from promising products that did not yet exist

In discussions with teams responsible for MITS's Altair 8800 and IBM's PC, Bill Gates and Paul Allen claimed to have created ready-to-use software. Code for the former was not completed until Paul Allen's flight to MITS' headquarters, where the software was successfully tested for the first time.

Office Assistants, including Clippy, were digitally edited with Macintosh computers

The animated characters served as intelligent user interfaces for Microsoft Office and were sketched by hand before being scanned. Clippy was selected as the default assistant after social psychologists at Stanford University identified it as the most trustworthy, likable, and humorous character based on public testing.

View an illustrated history of Microsoft Solitaire

Included in Windows 3.0 in 1990, to help first-time computer users become familiar with using a mouse, the game featured a dozen unique card back designs. The Windows XP library of preinstalled games added Spider Solitaire, which became the most-played game on Windows PCs by 2005.

AI excels at assisting with structured tasks involving logistics and planning

Tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity can help organize chaotic calendars, troubleshoot bedtime routines, and assist with salary planning and moving. However, specific quotes, like insurance, and local cost comparisons can be flawed since AI draws from nonlocalized datasets.

Visualizing decades of stock market performance

Stock markets and the indexes that track their biggest companies tend to ebb and flow, with long growth periods punctuated by shorter recessions. Track the 60-year history of one of the most common stock market indexes, the S&P 500, with this data visualization. The chart highlights the long-term durability of markets despite appearance of short-term volatility.

The pandemic saw Zoom overtake Skype as the default video conferencing tool

When millions of people needed to become work-from-home experts overnight, ease of use for video conferencing tools became especially important. Zoom's success was partly because the company made it easier to join meetings than Skype did—with Zoom, users only needed a URL to join a meeting, rather than downloading a fully separate app as they did on Skype. (Some users may experience a paywall.)

Explore an online gallery highlighting the importance of graphical user interfaces

Before the Macintosh, computers were primarily used in offices and required users to type complex commands to perform tasks. Apple followed the device with the LaserWriter printer, bringing graphic production to at-home artists and designers.

Charting the most popular email providers since 1997

The email is the most stable feature of the Internet; a rare digital product that changed little over the decades. Nonetheless, the major email service providers have vastly shifted. Watch this time-based chart which shows the number of users of the top 10 email providers since 1997, and see how totally nonexistent Gmail skyrockets to dominance by today.

Upgrade cost and compatibility issues have kept Microsoft's legacy systems alive

As of 2025, Windows XP and Windows NT continue to power ATMs and transit systems, while Deutsche Bahn's trains use Windows 3.11 for display systems. Microsoft's continued support for these operating systems helps it maintain its dominance in the business sector.

The iPhone's impact in 10 charts

It's been almost 20 years since Steve Jobs first unveiled the iPhone, the device that would come to define Apple for years and change not just the smartphone industry but the world at large. 10 examples of the iPhone's impact include its all-screen touch interface and the way it led to the rise of app culture.

Generate a powerpoint filled with 'consulting slop' for your business

Created by the consulting company NOBL, this AI generator mimics and mocks the vague and impersonal presentations sometimes shared by consulting firms.

Walt Disney's 1957 corporate strategy document

From TV to music to amusement parks, Disney is widely regarded as one of the most successful American companies of all time. That's partly because Walt Disney was carefully building a corporate strategy from day one that accounted for the company's publications, merchandise licensing, comic strips, and more. See his 1957 corporate strategy document for yourself (spoiler alert, it's covered in Mickey Mouse illustrations).

The 'Big Three' and 'Big Four' consulting firms have grown more similar in recent years

The “Big Three” consulting firms—McKinsey & Company, Boston Consulting Group, and Bain & Company—and the “Big Four”—Deloitte, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), KPMG, and EY—actually have a lot in common these days. But it wasn’t always that way.

Moore's Law came from observing exponential computing growth in the 1960s

In 1965, Gordon Moore, cofounder of Intel Corporation, observed a four-year trend of constant growth rate in computing power. Hypothesizing the trend would continue, his observation became the benchmark that the computing industry has worked to maintain for 60 years.

Modern workplaces were engineered for efficiency, not work-life balance

Modern work organization traces back to 19th-century scientific management, an approach that optimized output by viewing workers as machine components. That logic still persists today and contributes to burnout, stress, and disengagement. Researchers propose a "circular work" model that combines effort with recovery, learning, and renewal, suggesting productivity and well-being should align rather than compete.

Computer scientists first started trying to optimize dating using computers in the 1950s

Although early dating sites like Match.com weren't launched until the 1990s, the history of dating apps dates arguably back to the mid-1900s when computer scientists used IBM computers to solve matchmaking and compatibility problems.

Bluesky is gaining momentum by offering users full control over their experience

Controversial changes made by Elon Musk to X have inspired an exodus from that platform and growth in Bluesky. The latter's open-source model gives users customizable feeds, portability between services, and a "billionaire-proof" design that prevents corporate takeover.

How the checking account has evolved into a platform of features rather than a product

The accounts act as an anchor for customer relationships that banks need to retain said customers. As fintech companies unbundle the checking account without technically being chartered banks, traditional banks face pressure to innovate the checking account experience.

See the evolution of Super Bowl logos and how the NFL refined its visual identity over time

Tracing Super Bowl logos from early, varied designs to today’s standardized look shows how the NFL adapted to shifting design trends, television demands, and brand strategy.

Smart tips for making the most of your 401(k)

There’s a lot of advice about handling a 401(k), but it can be mired in disclaimers and legalese. Come prepared to your financial advisor or accountant by watching this informative take on how to properly use a 401(k), from consolidating plans to some of the most common errors.

A century of Billboard issues documenting the evolution of popular music.

In 2025, four executives from large tech companies were given positions in the US Army Reserves—including Palantir Chief Technology Officer Shyam Sankar, which reinforced Palantir's ties with the US military and its role as a leading defense partner.

While the first exchange-traded fund (a 'basket' of different assets that can be bought and sold on a stock exchange) in the US only launched in 1993, the global ETF market has grown to more than $10T in the short time since.

How Amazon operates a 'flywheel' business model, a self-reinforcing cycle that drives continuous growth

Dozens of S&P 500 stocks, including Coca-Cola and Walmart—known as the dividend aristocrats—have increased dividends every year for 25 years

Use this tool to calculate the dollar value of your parental mental load, from meal planning to coordinating after-school care, then see resources that help generate solutions.

Legendary architect Frank Lloyd Wright designed the SC Johnson headquarters in Wisconsin, aiming to make a cathedral-like workplace

SpaceX's S-1 or 'prospectus' revealed many previously unknown details about the company, including its unprofitability despite doing $18.7B in revenue in 2025, exactly how many voting shares Elon Musk will have in the company (roughly 85%), and more.

Mid-century modern graphic designers, known for their bright colors and bold lines in advertising, also found success with children's books.

Gerrymandering works through two techniques: cracking opposing voters across districts to dilute their power, and packing them into a few to waste their votes in lopsided majorities.

This site reaches millions of visitors who are tired of AI chatbots and seeking human connection. Pretend to be an AI chatbot and ask questions, provide answers, and draw for people in real time.

A Yale student wrote a profound essay about the consulting industry's influence on elite college students that was published in a book of her writing after she died in a post-graduation car accident.

Telehealth demand for GLP-1s for weight loss is booming as consumers seek easier access.

As of 2025, the most cited papers in science include a review of graphene, methods to improve image recognition, streamlining electron density calculations, and optimizing protein studies.

The first line of 'immortal' human cells, which can divide indefinitely and are used in scientific research, was nonconsensually taken from a Black woman.

In its famous catalog, Sears sold $600 DIY house kits from 1908 through the 1940s, resulting in an estimated 100,000 'Sears and Roebuck homes.'

Long before Major League Baseball began allowing instant replay for balls and strikes, an umpire reluctantly used the technology to determine whether a hit was a home run, a move that inadvertently ushered in a new era for the sport.

Elk Cloner, the first computer virus to spread in public, was written as a practical joke by Richard Skrenta, a Pittsburgh high school student.

Visualize the path of every solar eclipse from 1900 to 2099 and see what each looks like when observed from different locations on Earth.

Sony set the standard for cylinder-shaped batteries when it repurposed manufacturing equipment used to make rolls of magnetic recording tape.

The term 'algorithm' originated from the Latinized name of al-Khwārizmī, a 9th-century mathematician whose works introduced Arabic numerals and the decimal-based numeral system to Europe and whose treatise 'Al-Jabr' gave algebra its name.

Power lines are dotted with large, brightly colored balls to improve the visibility of these thin wires to helicopters and small planes and help prevent potential crashes.

The animatronic shark from Steven Spielberg's 'Jaws,' the first modern blockbuster, was a complex underwater apparatus called 'Bruce.'

See a 3D reconstruction of Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital that was home to an estimated population of 200,000 to 400,000.