Great Businesses Are Great Ideas.

• Edison: Thomas Edison grew up in Port Huron and was dubbed the greatest inventor of his century. His inventions lead to the creation of: the electric utilities industry, the recording industry, the motion picture industry and the founding of major companies like General Electric.
  Read more about Thomas Edison
• Google: Larry Page was born in East Lansing in 1973, attended the University of Michigan and came up with an idea for organizing the world’s information. His great idea changed the world and also brought jobs back to Michigan.
• Transportation Pioneers: Henry Ford developed (among other things) the assembly line, a car for the masses, the Ford Foundation. William Durant’s ideas included GM and Frigidaire refrigerators. Alfred Sloan’s ideas were the basis for the 20th century corporation. Al Thieme of Bridgeport, Michigan, got an idea for helping a relative with ALS get around and developed the Amigo scooter.
  Read more about Henry Ford
  Read more about Alfred Pritchard Sloan Jr.
  Readmore about William Crapo "Billy" Durant
• iPod: Tony Faddell, a Lebanese-American from Grosse Pointe and a U-M graduate, lead the team that developed the first iPod.
• Google Android phone: Karl Rosaen helped develop the Google Android phone, dubbed “Gadget of the Year’’ by Time Magazine, then chose to start a new business back home in Michigan.
• Breakfast reinvented: W.K. Kellogg nurtured an idea that forever changed breakfast, creating a national cereal industry in Battle Creek. Other Kellogg ideas: national ad campaigns with cute characters and a foundation that is now one of the nation’s largest.
  Read more about W.K. Kellogg
• Baby Einstein: As a young mother, Julie Aigner-Clark, who grew up in Grosse Pointe Woods, came up with an idea for educating and entertaining her kids: Baby Einstein.
• Motown: Berry Gordy’s great ideas led to the Motown sound, changing the music industry.
  Read more about Berry Gordy
• Great ideas in retailing: J.L. Hudson came up with the idea for what became the world’s largest department store (Target is an offspring of that company). He also invested in a car company (Hudson) that spun off into other car companies. S.S. Kresge started a dime store chain that later begat Kmart and the Kresge Foundation. Hank Meijer developed one of the first big box super stores.
• Great Michigan ideas for eating: Dominos and Little Caesars (two of the nation’s largest pizza chains), the Coney, Vernors, Faygo, Better Made.
• Drug ideas: Lipitor was developed in Ann Arbor; the AIDS drug AZT was developed at Wayne State University; Cisplatin, the anti-cancer drug that saved Lance Armstrong was developed at Michigan State University; William Upjohn got the idea for the “friable” more digest-able modern pill 125 years ago, H.H. Dow discovered rich supplies of bromine, a main ingredient in medicines near Midland, leading to idea for Dow Chemical.
• More inventors from Michigan: William R. Hewlett invented the Audio Oscillator and later started Hewlett-Packard, Donald Keck developed fiber optic wire, William Boeing, Boeing Aircraft, Frank Daniel Gerber, started the baby food industry and John Sheehan, Synthetic Penicillin.
• Breakthroughs: Dr. Ben Carson was at the bottom of his Detroit elementary school class “thinking I was stupid.’’ His mother, with only a 3rd grade education herself, pushed him to try harder. By1987, the U-M Med School grad became the 1st doctor to successfully separate a pair of Siamese twins joined at the head.