Founded in 1976 by Steve Jobs , Steve Wozniak , and Ronald Wayne , Apple has become synonymous with innovation from Macintosh computers to the iPhone , iPad , and its latest Vision Pro extended reality headset .

Under the leadership of CEO Tim Cook , Apple continues to shape the future of technology with its relentless pursuit of excellence and industry-leading advancements . With its headquarters in Cupertino , California , Apple has more than 100,000 employees worldwide . As of 2022 it is the world ' s largest technology company by revenue , at US $ 394.3bn .

Headquartered in Redmond , Washington and led by CEO Satya Nadella , Microsoft was founded in 1975 by Bill Gates and Paul Allen .

Microsoft ’ s mission is to empower every person and every organisation to achieve more . The company believes technology can and should be a force for good and that meaningful innovation contributes to a brighter world in the future and today .

Its diverse product portfolio includes the Windows operating system , productivity software like Microsoft Office and cloud services with Azure . The company has also invested heavily into OpenAI : utilising GPT-4 into its Bing search engine . 166 August 2023