What are some stories about famous companies that are rarely talked about? I hav ...

On June 18, 1971, the founder and current CEO of FedEx, Frederick W. Smith founded the company Federal Express (FedEx) with his $4 million inheritance and raised an additional $91 million in venture capital such that it could potentially deliver packages overnight to anywhere in the world. This is something that, at that time, had never been done.Unfortunately, three years after the company began, because of the rapidly rising fuel costs, Federal Express was on the verge of bankruptcy, losing over $1 million a month, with no one willing to give them any additional loans nor any investors interested in contributing capital. Smith reached a point when the company’s account had only $5,000 and he couldn’t afford to refuel the planes that delivered FedEx’s shipments. Smith made a final pitch to General Dynamics for more funding, but was refused, leaving FedEx more or less dead on the ground when they would not be able to fuel their planes the following Monday.Still, Smith refused to surrender. He took the last $5,000 and flew to Las Vegas, placed the company’s remaining money on Black Jack bets over the weekend and won an additional $27,000 by Monday. It wasn’t a huge windfall, but the total $32,000 was enough to refuel the planes and keep the business running for a few more days. After a few days, Smith successfully managed to raise $11 million to keep the company afloat and, by 1976, Federal Express made its first profit of $3.6 million.An excerpt from the book, Changing How the World Does Business: Fedex's Incredible Journey to Success - The Inside Story by Roger Frock is given below:“I asked Fred where the funds had come from, and he responded, ‘The meeting with the General Dynamics board was a bust and I knew we needed money for Monday, so I took a plane to Las Vegas and won $27,000.’ I said, ‘You mean you took our last $5,000-- how could you do that?’ He shrugged his shoulders and said, ‘What difference does it make? Without the funds for the fuel companies, we couldn't have flown anyway.’ Fred's luck held again. It was not much, but it came at a critical time and kept us in business for another week."