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The 100 Oldest Companies in the World
- tlrobinson 18y agoThey're missing the world's oldest restaurant, in Madrid: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sobrino_de_Botin http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sobrino_de_Botin (I ate there last year, it was excellent!)
- sdurkin 18y agoCatholic Church?
- gruseom 18y agoThe book Peopleware has a statement about an old company that stuck in my mind for years as it's such a haunting image: The few remaining employees of the Dutch East India Company (founded in 1651 and once the largest company in the world) now spend forty hours a week filling out paperwork... If this were true, they'd belong around #45 on the list. However, I once heard DeMarco and Lister (the authors) give a talk. Afterwards I went up to DeMarco and told him I'd always remembered that story and was wondering where they had gotten it, since they hadn't given a reference. He looked at me for a second and said, "Did we say that?" I assured him they did. He paused again and said, "Huh. Usually we only make stuff up for our talks, not our books!" (I don't have the book anymore, but the quote helpfully comes up in Google book search: http://books.google.com/books?q=peopleware+dutch+east http://books.google.com/books?q=peopleware+dutch+east. I had to add the last two words from memory, so they're just a paraphrase.)
- felixmar 18y agoThe Dutch East India Company was founded in 1602 and was the first to issue stock. The company ended in 1798 when the government took over the company after it went into decline predominantly due to wars with Britain and France.
- biohacker42 18y agoSpecialty niche and/or very high end products. So the only truly timeless business plan is luxury?
- pixcavator 18y agoNot Beretta.
- bjelkeman-again 18y agoThe (former) Swedish forestry company Stora Kopparberg would have been no. 5-9 on the list if they hadn't merged with a Finnish company in 1998. "Stora was, by one count, the oldest existing corporation or limited liability company in the world. Originally known as Stora Kopparberg, it was granted a charter from King Magnus IV of Sweden in 1347. The first share in the company is however dated already in 1288 and mining in the mountain had started possibly much earlier." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stora_Kopparberg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stora_Kopparberg
- cabalamat 18y agoWeihenstephan, the world's oldest brewery, was founded in 1040. Their beer's nice too.
- zandorg 18y ago15 UK companies, including one in my hometown. Quite a respectable showing.
- helveticaman 18y agoYes, quite.
- lacker 18y agoThe oldest one I had heard of was Zildjian (the cymbal maker) which dates from 1623. And they say Web 2.0 companies can't last with unpronounceable names!
- michaelneale 18y agoI always thought it was a turkish word.
- lacker 18y agoThis is a cool article but perhaps inaccurate data - the Wikipedia article on the oldest companies in the world has a many entries that this article is missing. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oldest_companies http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oldest_companies Wikipedia has 26 entries before 1300, the article only 6. Notably (the only one I'd heard of) Wikipedia claims the Affligem brewery started in 1074.
- DougBTX 18y agoApparently the author of the article did not read it before writing the title. It is a list of the 100 oldest family businesses. From the first paragraph: "Below there's a list of world's top 100 oldest companies that represent family business."
- ksvs 18y agoThis is not a very meaningful list. They just take these companies' word about when they were "founded." Often all that means is that there was someone in the same place doing the same thing. It doesn't imply any kind of organizational continuity.
- netcan 18y agoThere's something by Douglas Adams on matter & partical & energy & wave-particle functions and stuff. He reckoned that 'stuff' is overrated, that of all the atoms that made up ksvs 10 years ago, virtually none make him/her up now. Whatever it is that you think you are, it's not the stuff you're made of.
- hendler 18y agoNot to be confused with the oldest _professions_ in the world.
- mattmaroon 18y agoWhere's Yahoo? In internet time, they're roughly 328 years old.
- PieSquared 18y agoHow d'ya measure internet time? Dog years, or what?
- mattmaroon 18y agoDogs age more slowly than websites.
- danielh 18y agoSo if you want to make a lasting impression, get into real estate or liquors. If you fail, you have at least a roof over your head or a drink to keep you warm.
- RobGR 18y agoIt's a very interesting list. I would like to learn more about the old Japanese firms listed. As some of the comments accompanying that article noted, they did not mention the Hudson Bay Company, which was incorporated in 1670 and still operates. But they did claim to limit themselves to listing family firms. It would be interesting to know if Japanese, Chinese, or Korean businessman had joint stock companies or something similar before they came about in Europe. I think the Chinese first did paper money. I read somewhere that Koreans have some ancient and sophisticated "lending club" tradition that may be the oldest expression of the idea of interest -- it is some sort of scheme whereby each member pays in a small fee each week, and a certain member receives all the money each week, determined by some formula.