Medtronic's founding story is medical-device legend: in 1949, electrical engineer Earl Bakken started repairing medical equipment in a Minneapolis garage, and in 1957 — after a power outage disabled a hospital's bulky external pacemaker and a child died — he built the first battery-powered, wearable pacemaker using metronome circuits. That device launched the modern medical device industry, and the company he co-founded is now the world's largest.
The product range spans nearly every medical specialty: cardiac devices (pacemakers, defibrillators, and the LINQ insertable monitors), diabetes management (insulin pumps and continuous glucose monitors), surgical robotics (the Hugo system), spinal and orthopedic implants, and minimally invasive surgical instruments. Medtronic's devices are used in virtually every hospital in the developed world, and its R&D budget of over US$2.5 billion a year keeps the pipeline full.
Legally headquartered in Dublin (with operational headquarters in Minneapolis), Medtronic employs about 95,000 people and generates annual revenue near US$32 billion. Its scale makes it both the industry's benchmark and its consolidator — dozens of innovative startups have been absorbed into Medtronic's portfolio, a pattern that defines how medical technology reaches patients at scale.
