Corning Incorporated is 174 years old, founded in 1851 and long known as Corning Glass Works, specializing in glass, ceramics and related materials. For much of the twentieth century, most people who had heard of Corning knew it through their own kitchen: CorningWare, Visions Pyroceram cookware, Corelle tableware and Pyrex bakeware were all Corning products.
In 1998 the company divested those consumer lines entirely. What it kept, and built further, were the industrial and technology divisions: display technologies, environmental technologies, life sciences, optical communications and specialty materials. One product of that industrial side is Gorilla Glass, now widely used in smartphone screens, and Corning has been one of the main suppliers to Apple Inc. since working with Steve Jobs in 2007 to develop the iPhone. The same company that once sold bakeware to millions of households now makes the glass that millions of people touch every day without ever seeing the Corning name on it.