View source for Lars Magnus Ericsson

== Career ==
Upon his return to Sweden in 1876, he founded a small mechanical workshop together with his friend Carl Johan Andersson who had also worked at ''Öllers & Co.''. This workshop was actually a former kitchen of some 13&nbsp;m<sup>2</sup> situated at Drottninggatan 15 in the most central part of Stockholm. Here, he started a [[telephone]] company by analyzing Bell company and Siemens telephones and creating his own copies in their image. It was not until they started cooperating with Henrik Tore Cedergren in 1883 that the company would start to grow into the [[Ericsson]] corporation.

In the year 1900 Lars Magnus retired from Ericsson at the age of 54.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Reinius |first1=Katarina |title=Lars Magnus Ericsson, 1876-1900 |url=https://www.ericsson.com/en/about-us/history/people/presidents/lars-magnus-ericsson-1876-1900 |website=Ericsson.com © Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson and Centre for Business History |accessdate=18 September 2023 |date= }}</ref> He kept his shares in the company until 1905 and then sold them all.

He is said to have been a demanding person, and disliked any direct publicity about his personality and did not wish to be idolized. He was, however, deeply respected by his employees. He was always a skeptic and cautious in business. He was also somewhat opposed to [[patent]]s, as many of the products he made would not have been possible to do if the patent legislation had been overly effective. When his phones were copied by Norwegian companies he did not care, as his phones had in turn been largely copied from Siemens. He initially did not believe in a [[mass market]] for telephones, and saw it as a toy for the leisure class.