Apple’s story is the stuff of Silicon Valley legend. In 1976, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak set up shop in Jobs’ parents' garage in Los Altos, California. With a vision to make computers personal and user-friendly, they built the first Apple I by hand. It famously sold for $666.66, almost $3,800 (£2.8k) in today's money. In 1980, Apple went public and raised over $100 million ($390m/£289m today), making it one of the biggest IPOs of its time.

Then came the Macintosh in 1984, the iMac in 1998, and the iPhone in 2007. The latter turned Apple from a cool tech company into a global lifestyle icon. By 2023, Apple was raking in $383 billion (£282bn) annually, with a net income of $97 billion (£71bn). It's in nearly every country on Earth and boasts over 1.5 billion active devices. Oh, and it was the first US company to hit a $3 trillion (£2.2tn) market cap.

20 global businesses that started out TINY