Corporate American history is teeming with tales of friendship. As in the case of Apple, Microsoft and Facebook, the journeys of co-founders who were also friends didn’t play out so well. Yet, all those companies, and the examples below, definitely suggest that friendship lends itself to business brilliance. 

Whole Foods Market: 
The first Whole Foods Market opened in September 1980 in Austin, Texas. It was a result of friends John Mackey and Rene Lawson Hardy—who ran a small natural foods store called SaferWay since 1978— partnering with Craig Weller and Mark Skiles to merge their Clarksville Natural Grocery store with SaferWay.  

Hewlett Packard:
Classmates in their electrical engineering course at Stanford University, Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard, became close friends during a camping trip. They founded HP in 1939, and flipped a coin to decide whether the company would be called Hewlett-Packard, or Packard-Hewlett.

Ben & Jerry’s: 
Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield grew up in Long Island, USA. They first met in junior high school, where they struck up a lasting friendship. Unsure of what to do in their early youth, they started an ice cream shop, and split the cost of a $5 correspondence course on ice cream-making from Penn State University. Ben & Jerry’s officially opened for business in May 1978.

Harley-Davidson: 
William Sylvester Harley’s family lived on the same block as Arthur Davidson’s family in Milwaukee, USA. Their lifelong friendship, and successful business relationship grew from their childhood bond. They founded the company in 1903. William Davidson, and Walter Davidson, Arthur’s brothers, also joined the company in its early days. Henry Meyer, a schoolyard pal of William S. Harley and Arthur Davidson, bought one of the 1903 models directly from the founders.