The 50 Software & IT companies that produced the most founders (2026)

A founder factory is a company whose people leave to start companies of their own. This ranks every company in the graph by how many of its alumni — people who founded it or worked there — went on to found at least one company, counting only ventures started no earlier than the company itself.

Refreshed 2026-09-13 · updates nightly

#	Company	Sector	HQ	Founded	Founders	Companies started
1	Google	Software & IT	Mountain View, USA	1998	149	185
2	Yahoo	Software & IT	Sunnyvale, USA	1994	23	29
3	Palantir	Software & IT	Denver, USA	2003	14	27
4	Netscape	Software & IT	Mountain View, USA	1994	11	12
5	IBM	Software & IT	United States	1911	8	10
6	Meta Platforms	Software & IT	United States	2004	8	9
7	Diem	Software & IT	Menlo Park, USA	2019	8	6
8	Dell	Software & IT	United States	1984	6	11
9	Skype	Software & IT	Luxembourg, Luxembourg	2003	5	7
10	SAP	Software & IT	Germany	1972	5	6
11	G2	Software & IT	—	—	5	2
12	Terra	Software & IT	Brazil	1999	4	4
13	Abra AI	Software & IT	—	2021	4	2
14	Exalead	Software & IT	France	2000	4	2
15	Rancher Labs	Software & IT	United States	2014	4	2
16	Shopr.TV	Software & IT	—	—	4	1
17	Bomis	Software & IT	San Diego, USA	1996	3	19
18	Wikipedia	Software & IT	San Francisco, USA	2001	3	17
19	Wikia	Software & IT	San Francisco, USA	2004	3	10
20	Baidu	Software & IT	People's Republic of China	2000	3	8
21	Zenefits	Software & IT	San Francisco, USA	2013	3	7
22	Adapt	Software & IT	—	—	3	4
23	LoveFilm	Software & IT	Germany	2003	3	4
24	Beyond	Software & IT	—	—	3	3
25	Fixie	Software & IT	—	—	3	2
26	Breadcrumbs	Software & IT	United States	2020	3	1
27	Gateway Group of Companies	Software & IT	India	1997	3	1
28	Snap Inc.	Software & IT	Los Angeles, United States	2011	3	1
29	Tailscale Inc.	Software & IT	Canada	2019	3	1
30	Zip2	Software & IT	Palo Alto, USA	1996	2	14
31	FinStack	Software & IT	South Korea	—	2	11
32	Dialog	Software & IT	United States	2006	2	7
33	Jump	Software & IT	—	—	2	7
34	AVOS Systems	Software & IT	San Mateo, USA	2011	2	6
35	Apple Inc.	Software & IT	United States	1976	2	6
36	Novell	Software & IT	—	1980	2	6
37	MixBit	Software & IT	—	2013	2	5
38	MixerLabs	Software & IT	San Francisco, USA	2008	2	5
39	Employment Hero	Software & IT	—	—	2	4
40	Glitch, Inc.	Software & IT	—	2000	2	4
41	Ludicorp	Software & IT	Vancouver, Canada	2002	2	4
42	Oracle Corporation	Software & IT	United States	1977	2	4
43	Wellfound	Software & IT	United States	—	2	4
44	Alphabet Inc.	Software & IT	United States	2015	2	3
45	Automattic	Software & IT	San Francisco, USA	2005	2	3
46	IDT Media	Software & IT	United States	2013	2	3
47	Linktree	Software & IT	—	—	2	3
48	Outlier	Software & IT	United States	2015	2	3
49	Parallels	Software & IT	United States	1999	2	3
50	Reality Labs	Software & IT	United States	2020	2	3

How this is counted. A person counts as an alumnus of a company if they founded it or worked there. They count towards the company’s score if they went on to found at least one other company that was started no earlier than the company itself. Universities and other non-commercial organisations are pruned from the graph where we can identify them. Data is community-corrected — fix something.