Successful partnerships: Co-founders who set up multi-million dollar businesses

Bill Gates and Paul Allen | Microsoft | The co-founders of arguably the biggest tech company in the world were childhood friends while growing up in Seattle, Washington. Their shared obsession with computers and a knack for entrepreneurship inspired them to take a plunge and create Microsoft in 1975. Allen played a quintessential role in the early days of the company but effectively left Microsoft in 1982 due to serious illness. Their friendship turned bitter, after Allen, in his 2011 memoir, Ideal Man, alleged that Gates cheated him out of shares in the company, and he didn't get enough credit for Microsoft's success. However, all seem to be well now after the two friends squashed the beef in 2013. (Image: Reuters)

Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield | Ben & Jerry's | Like Paul Allen and Bill Gates, Cohen and Greenfield were childhood friends. The two were so close that they even went on double dates. Their love for food and a correspondence course in ice-cream making in 1977, helped the pair turn their friendship into a successful business venture. The pair has been bringing smiles to faces across the globe since 1978, and their idea of giving back to the community resonates with their staunch customer base. (Image: Reuters)

Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard | Hewlett-Packard | Hewlett and Packard first met during an engineering program conducted by Stanford. Following the culmination of the program, the two envisaged on a two-week campaign trip in the woods. Spending two weeks in complete seclusion with the same person would drive most of us insane, but the two came out virtually inseparable. They soon opened what today has become a multi-billion dollar business empire. (Image: Reuters)

Evan Williams and Biz Stone | Twitter | Their partnership started when Williams hired Stone for Google. Over the few years, the two developed a strong friendship and when Williams left (Google for Odeo.com), Stone decided to follow him. The pair was approached by Jack Dorsey, who at that time was an engineer at Odeo. Dorsey pitched them an idea and Twitter was born. According to All Things Digital, Williams realised Twitter's potential and entrusted Stone with the micro-blogging site as a side project. If their partnership was a movie, it would be about ambition, camaraderie and mutual respect. (Image: Reuters)

Gordon Moore and Bob Noyce | Intel | The two worked for Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory but left the company together to open their own company, Intel. While Noyce was the visionary, Moore was an astute technician. When their individual talents were juxtaposed, a laid-back company built on cutting-edge innovation was born. (Image: Reuters)

Larry Page and Sergey Brin | Google | The two met at Stanford’s PhD program in 1995. However, their first interaction didn't go as many would have imagined. During a campus organised tour, Brin was Page’s guide and the two argued the entire time. But their hatred for each other soon turned into mutual respect once they started working on a research paper, “The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine.” This paper, not only laid the foundation of their life-long friendship but also became the basis for Google. Brin and Page might have been born on opposite sides of the world (Page from Michigan and Brin from Russia), but their passion for data mining and love for computers has made the company what it is today. (Image: Reuters)

Jerry Yang and David Filo | Yahoo! | Yang and Filo, like Larry Page and Sergey Brin, met at Stanford’s PhD programme in 1994. They worked together on a project to design computer chips. The duo was apparently bored with the coursework and regularly skipped classes to surf the web. They started keeping tabs of their favourite websites and organised them under different topics, which ultimately transformed into Yahoo!. The university eventually booted them out as their lists were constantly crashing the campus’ system. However, the duo did not take their exile from Stanford to heart.. Their passion for the internet, and funding from Sequoia Capital helped them stick together and grow a successful business. (Image: Reuters)

Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak | Apple | The two Steves first met at a summer job in 1970. Their partnership was so successful as their work, in spite of being complementary, rarely intertwined. Wozniak was good at building computers and Jobs knew how to sell them. Wozniak even admitted that he never once thought of selling his creations and it was all Jobs. Wozniak's technical skills and Job's business foresight were the ingredients that made the iconic tech company a great success. Apple is now a trillion-dollar entity. (Image: Reuters)

William Procter and James Gamble | P&G | The largest consumer goods company in the world was founded by migrants much before the phrase, the American Dream, gained currency. The brand was established by Englishman Procter and Irishman Gamble, who immigrated to the US in 1832 and 1819, respectively. Eventually, Procter married Olivia Norris and Gamble married Ann Norris, the daughters of prominent Cincinnati candle maker Alexander Norris. Alexander noted that his sons-in-law were competing for the same raw materials, as Procter was also in the candle business and Gamble was in the soap making business. He suggested that the two enter into a joint venture, which the duo ultimately agreed to in 1837. Procter and Gamble helped each other produce mass quantities of their products and gradually entered into a deal with the US army, which helped their business take off in a big way. (Image: Reuters)