Back in the early days of Apple, Steve Jobs often found himself on site visits at Sony’s headquarters in Japan. Jobs was fascinated with everything Sony and often took inspiration from the Japanese-tech giant, says journalist Nobuyuki Hayashi whose closely covered Sony for several decades.

Hayashi tells me, even Jobs’ now trademark black turtleneck, jeans, and sneakers are said to have been inspired by Sony’s assembly-line uniform.

At the pinnacle of its success, Sony was in many ways the inspiration for up and comer Apple.