The World’s First Business Computer was Built for Payroll

In 1951, a British tea shop company called J. Lyons & Co. (basically the Starbucks of its time) realized they couldn’t keep up with their manual payroll. They didn’t just buy a computer—they built one. The LEO (Lyons Electronic Office) became the first computer ever used for commercial business, and its very first task was processing the company’s massive payroll.