It’s Monday, so it’s time to take a break from the monotony of the working week with some facts about business.

As it turns out there are plenty of little-known facts that you probably didn’t know about this thing called business 

 here are just 15 of them! They’re all quite interesting and all easily learned, so go ahead and read on!

 The original name for Coca-Cola was “Pepsi-Cola” which was changed in 1886 because people thought it sounded too similar to another word. 

 The world’s richest man has a net worth of over $100 billion. His name is Bill Gates and he founded Microsoft. 

 He initially started up the company because his girlfriend at the time was crazy about computers and crazy about music. 

They went on to buy up hundreds of thousands of computer software licences and, boom, overnight Microsoft became a gigantic business.

 The world’s oldest company is Scotland-based Royal Dutch Shell (est: 1661).  And it has been in business for nearly 300 years!

 The number one secret to success in business is good luck; not good management or cleverness. 

 Steve Jobs reportedly won the “Pepsi Challenge” by blindfolding his taste-testers and getting them to pick the Pepsi and then the Coke. 

 And that’s how he started his career with Apple!

 You can measure a company’s success by looking at their parking lots… the bigger they are, the more money they make.

 The United States of America has a population of 311 million people (about one third of the world’s population). 

 And about 85% of all adults live in developed countries (an amazing stat!). 

But the USA is only the 4th most populous country in the world, behind Indonesia, Brazil and China.

 There are 2 billion people living in Europe, about 10% of the world’s population – that’s like having a group of 10 people every single day!

A powerful business executive once said: “My children don’t see me as their father; they see me as the man who owns this company!”  

And on average, business owners spend more time on their work than on their family.

 The fastest-growing country in the world is China (estimated population: 1.3 billion). 

 And a lot of that growth is thanks to the Chinese government’s encouragement of small business 

 not because people are getting richer or anything.

 Instead of going to college, many ambitious young people find working for a start-up business as their first job is far more interesting and rewarding.

  In fact, 40% of all college students now work for a start-up company!

 The most valuable type of business stock is an “S” stock – it’s one with billions in value (e.g. Google). 

 Growth stocks are often very cheap, so you can still make money investing in them if the company either gets bigger or collapses (see point 12).

The biggest bankruptcy in history was the collapse of the giant Enron Corporation.

 It was valued at over $70 billion before it “collapsed” in 2001.  It’s funny how it collapsed, though 

one day its stock value dropped by over 30% and it just collapsed.  And the next day, it had dropped even further!

 A study has shown that business women are more effective than men – they have an average of 38% higher productivity than average male workers.

 The most valuable stock on Earth is Apple’s stock (with a current valuation over $700 billion).

 Purchasing power has increased 50-fold since 1950.  

So if you had $100 today, you could buy the equivalent of $25,000 worth of goods if you bought everything 50 years ago.

 If there were no business in the world, then the average person would have to work 25 days a month to make enough money to live on.  

That means they would have to work 6 days a week (and do all their shopping and everything else on the other 5).

 Some of the most successful and wealthy people in the world like Bill Gates, Jack Welch and Warren Buffett write down their goals in order to see them through. 

 They write down what they want to accomplish and what steps they need to take in order to get there. 

 And one of their rules is: “If you set a goal, make sure you will measure its progress or failure”.

 You can make your money grow very quickly if you buy low and sell high; Obese Tuber

 i.e. buy stock when it’s relatively cheap and expensive when its value goes up.

  If you can do that, then you’re going to make a lot of money!

 One of the problems faced by big business is a lot of weighty paperwork. 

 And for every 5 pages of paperwork, about 2 sheets could be scrapped out and thrown away!