Leo Fender, inventor of one of the most popular electric guitar brands in the world, Fender Guitars, never knew how to play guitar. In addition to that, he actually was an accountant before losing his job in the Great Depression. When he lost his job, he decided to turn his hobby of tinkering with electronics, radios, amplifiers, and the like, into a business, “Fender Radio and Record Shop”, which eventually led to what is now known as the “Fender Musical Instruments Corporation” and the creation of his now famous guitars and amplifiers.
Despite designing the first commercially successful solid-body electric guitar, the Telecaster, and the most influential of all electric guitars, the Stratocaster, and inventing the solid-body electric bass guitar, the Precision bass, Clarence Leonidas “Leo” Fender was an engineer, not a musician and he couldn’t himself play the guitar! As such, he had to bring in musicians to properly test out the prototypes of his guitars.
Fender’s fascination with electronics started when he was 14 years old. His uncle had built a radio from spare parts and the loud music coming from the speaker impressed Leo. Later, repairing radios became a hobby for Fender. The company created by Leo Fender was purchased by CBS in 1965 for $13 million. The company was later bought from CBS by the employees of the company in 1985 at which point it was renamed the Fender Musical Instruments Corporation, which today is the world’s number one manufacturer of stringed instruments with annual sales of around $200 million.
Reference: Wikipedia
