APPLE

In 1976, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak were building computers out of a garage in Los Altos, California. Wozniak was the engineering genius. Jobs was the visionary. Together they had something genuinely revolutionary — a personal computer that regular people could actually use.

What they didn't have was money.

Jobs tried to get a loan from the bank. Rejected. He went to Atari, where he used to work. They passed. He called Hewlett-Packard. They told Wozniak his computer idea was interesting but not something they wanted to pursue.

Apple was running on fumes.

Then a former Intel executive named Mike Markkula heard about what they were building and how they were surviving only on fumes. 

He visited the garage, saw the vision, and wrote a personal check for $250,000. 

That one funded moment changed everything. The Apple II launched. The Mac followed. Then the iPod, the iPhone, the iPad. Today Apple is worth over $3 trillion.

All of it traces back to one person saying yes, when everyone else said no.

The idea was always great. The talent was always there. Funding is what turned the garage into a global empire.