Autodesk was founded on January 30, 1982, at a kitchen table in California, with a simple but bold idea: make powerful design software accessible on personal computers.
More than four decades later, the company has seen plenty of highs and lows , from the rise of AutoCAD and industry dominance, to painful transitions like the shift to subscriptions, platform rewrites, reorganizations, and layoffs. Along the way, Autodesk has repeatedly reinvented itself, moving from desktop CAD to cloud platforms, data-driven construction, and now AI-assisted design and automation.
The tools, pricing models, and strategies have changed, sometimes uncomfortably, but the core mission has stayed intact: helping people imagine, design, and build the world around us.
