Questions Part I, 5/14

1. When were the following companies founded?:

(a) Google ~ September 27, 1998

(b) Microsoft ~ April 4, 1975

(c) Yahoo! ~ March 2, 1995

2. Who were the founders of each of those companies?:

(a) Google ~ Sergey Brin, and E. Page

(b) Microsoft ~ Bill Gates, and Paul Allen

(c) Yahoo! ~ Jerry Yang, and David Filo

3. Last year (2006), what did the following companies make in revenue?:

(a) Google ~ 10.604 Billion

(b) Microsoft ~ US $44.3 billion

(c) Yahoo! ~ $6.43 Billion

4. What is .NET?

an umbrella term that applies to a wide collection of products and technologies from Microsoft.

5. What is the Google Page Rank Algorithm? Basically, how are the placements of searches made?

a link analysis algorithm that assigns a numerical weighting to each element of a hyperlinked set of documents, such as the World Wide Web, with the purpose of "measuring" its relative importance within the set. The algorithm may be applied to any collection of entities with reciprocal quotations and references.

6. Which company purchased Flickr.com?

Yahoo!

7. Which company very recently purchased Chrysler?

Magna International

8. What is the difference between a private equity company and a public corporation?

private equity company ~ a broad term that commonly refers to any type of equity investment in an asset in which the equity is not freely tradeable on a public stock market.

public corporation ~ a company which is permitted to offer its securities (stock, bonds, etc.) for sale to the general public, typically through a stock exchange.

9. What is money coming in to a company? [Erase the incorrect answers.]

(d) Revenue.

10. What is a share of stock?

11. What does Alcoa do? [Erase the incorrect answers.]

(c) Mine aluminum

12. What does the abbreviation GE stand for?

General Electric

13. What does the CEO do in a company?

in charge of total management of a corporation, company, organization or agency.

14. What does the CFO do in a company?

a company or public agency is the corporate officer primarily responsible for managing the financial risks of the business or agency.

15. What is the NYSE? NASDAQ?

NYSE ~ a New York City-based stock exchange.

NASDAQ ~ an American electronic stock market.

16. What does the board of directors do in a corporation?

granting proxies to the board to vote their shares at general meetings and the large numbers of shareholders involved, the board can comprise a voting block that is difficult to overcome. However, there have been moves recently to try and increase shareholder activism amongst both institutional investors and individuals with small shareholdings.

17. What is an IPO?

the first sale of a corporation's common shares to investors on a public stock exchange.