Key facts in 20 seconds
- Medtronic started on April 29, 1949 as a two-man repair shop in a garage in northeast Minneapolis. Its first month brought in eight dollars.
- Hewlett-Packard began in a one-car garage in Palo Alto that is now a California historical landmark called the “Birthplace of Silicon Valley”.
- Disney (1923), Apple (1976), Amazon (1994) and Google (1998) all trace their first address to a garage.
- What those garages had in common: they were dry, warm enough to work in, and the door closed. That part is my job.
I spend my days inside other people’s garages. Most hold a car, a snowblower and a shelf of paint cans. But every so often I think about what else has come out of a garage, because some of the biggest companies in the world started behind a door just like the ones I fix. One of them started a short drive from my own driveway in St. Louis Park.
Medtronic: a garage in northeast Minneapolis, 1949
This is the Minnesota one, and it is my favorite. Earl Bakken was an electrical engineering graduate student who fixed lab equipment for a Minneapolis hospital on the side. On April 29, 1949 he and his brother-in-law, Palmer Hermundslie, turned that side work into a company and set up in a garage at the Hermundslie family home in northeast Minneapolis. The company’s own history says the “garage” was really two old railroad boxcars joined together, and that the first employees called themselves the “garage gang”.
It was not an overnight success. According to the Minnesota Historical Society’s MNopedia, the first month’s income was eight dollars, for repairing one centrifuge. A few years later, in that same garage, Bakken built the first wearable, battery-powered pacemaker. Medtronic is now one of the largest medical device companies in the world, and Minnesota marks April 29 as Medtronic Day.
Sources: Medtronic News; MNopedia, Minnesota Historical Society; Star Tribune.
Hewlett-Packard: the garage with a landmark plaque, 1938-39
Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard worked in a one-car garage behind a rented house at 367 Addison Avenue in Palo Alto, California. Their first products came out of it. Decades later the State of California registered that garage as Historical Landmark No. 976 and named it the “Birthplace of Silicon Valley”. HP bought the property in 2000 and restored the garage in 2005 to look the way it did in 1939. You can see it from the sidewalk; there are no tours.
Sources: Hewlett Packard Enterprise history; HP Garage timeline.
Disney: an uncle’s garage in Los Angeles, 1923
In 1923 a young Walt Disney moved in with his uncle Robert in Los Angeles and used the small garage behind the house to make his first short films there, the Alice comedies. The Walt Disney Company counts that garage as its first studio.
Apple, Amazon and Google: three more garages
- Apple, 1976. The story everyone knows is the garage of Steve Jobs’ parents in Los Altos, California. How much of the first computer was really built there is argued about to this day, which is what makes it a legend.
- Amazon, 1994. Jeff Bezos left a finance job in New York, rented a house in Bellevue, Washington, and started an online bookstore in its garage.
- Google, 1998. Larry Page and Sergey Brin rented a garage in Menlo Park, California from a friend, Susan Wojcicki, for $1,700 a month. It was Google’s first office.
What makes a garage good enough to start something in
None of those founders needed a fancy building. They needed a space that was dry, not freezing, reasonably quiet and theirs. In Minnesota that comes down to four things I work on every week:
- A door that seals. A worn bottom seal lets in water, cold and mice. See my guide to bottom seal types.
- Insulation. An insulated door is the difference between a workshop and a walk-in freezer in January. Here is my insulation and R-value guide.
- A quiet opener. If you are working, or someone is sleeping above the garage, a belt-drive or wall-mount LiftMaster opener changes the room.
- A door you can trust. Balanced springs, good cables, working safety sensors. Not sure how old yours is? Try the Garage Door Age Check, or test yourself with Garage Door Myth or Fact.
I cannot promise the next Medtronic will come out of your garage. I can make sure the door is not the reason it does not. (763) 265-7671.
