10 Companies that Changed the World
8. McDonald’s
The McDonald’s Corporation is the world’s largest chain of hamburger fast food restaurants, serving around 68 million customers daily in 119 countries across 35,000 outlets. The company began in 1940, as a barbecue restaurant operated by Richard and Maurice McDonald. In 1948, they reorganized their business as a hamburger stand using production line principles. Ray Kroc later purchased the McDonald brothers’ equity in the company and led its worldwide expansion. In 2012, the company had annual revenues of $27.5 billion and profits of $5.5 billion. McDonald’s is the world’s second largest private employer—behind Walmart—with 1.9 million employees.
McDonald’s changed the way America and the rest of the world eats out. In 1948, they invented the “Speedee Service System” and advanced the principles of the fast food restaurant. In 1961, the company invented the “Drive in Restaurant Service” known today as the Drive-Thru. The company’s trademark logo on an overlapping, double-arched “M” symbol became famous worldwide with the international expansion of McDonald’s.
With the expansion of McDonald’s into many international markets, the company has become a symbol of globalization and the spread of the American way of life. Before McDonald’s, eating out was a time consuming and expensive adventure, not affordable for the many people in the working class. Today, the fast food culture rules supreme, and affects the way the business and leisure worlds operate.
