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The oldest company in almost every country (that is still in business)

businessfinancing.co.uk

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Re: The oldest company in almost every country (that is still in business)

#91

Post by ineedasername »

oh_sigh wrote: post #85
ineedasername wrote: post #59

Regardless of whether you believe in them, I think the longevity of religious organizations points the way towards how the human race can plan and advance with projects that cannot be completed in a single lifetime. Projects that require a vision beyond 10 years, much less 20, are exceedingly rare. Very, very few companies last more than a generation or two. This map in the article might make it seem like there are l…

> I think the longevity of religious organizations points the way towards how the human race can plan and advance with projects that cannot be completed in a single lifetime. But there is no indication of a continuity of aims among those organizations - they just continue to exist over long periods of time. There was a silly meme going around a while back about how the Catholic church "thinks in centuries, not decade…

Short term thinking can occur within the same institution that also fosters long term planning as well. Indeed, the fall the Catholic Church's influence within the developed Western world may be a failure to recognize long term trends that required more multi-generational plans for adaptation. Similarly, their treatment of abuse perpetrated by clergy represents a solution that maximized short term gains (they didn't have to deal with the issue for a while) over longer term massive loss in faith, trust, etc.

I'm not even saying these institutions were even very good at multi-human lifespan planning, I'm saying their longevity at least allowed for that possibility. And in the case of many religious institutions, they did indeed embark on projects that lasted hundred of years (some of the largest cathedrals and other religious buildings took many human lifetimes).

So, whether or not the longest lived organizations on earth have themselves executed multi-lifespan projects, their longevity nonetheless represents one of the necessary conditions for such projects, and in that respect they deserve some consideration for how they achieved their longevity.

Re: The oldest company in almost every country (that is still in business)

#92

Post by ldng »

ksec wrote: post #28
Steltek wrote: post #5

It's amusing to consider the common wisdom that restaurants are a tough, low margin business yet make up so many of the eldest companies. Even if you exceed some threshold to make it to maturity, you'd think the statistics on survival would catch up with you eventually.

>Restaurants are a tough, low margin business That is only common today when you have high rent. Most of the older business tends own the property ( Like early days McDonald ) and it will remain a competitive advantage. That is of coz assuming your food is good enough.

But those companies have been bought and resold over time and even possibly moved. Which probably imply mortgage on some buyers. Not sure land owning is such a big deal.

Re: The oldest company in almost every country (that is still in business)

#93

Post by starmftronajoll »

Slikey wrote: post #29

The oldest company in the world on this chart (Kongo Gumi in Japan) is not in Business anymore. It seized operations in 2006 due to bankruptcy.

From the linked article: “With mounting debts, the company was absorbed into a bigger construction conglomerate in 2006 – but continues to pair traditional temple building techniques with the latest technology.”

Re: The oldest company in almost every country (that is still in business)

#94

Post by ineedasername »

nitwit005 wrote: post #79
ineedasername wrote: post #59

Regardless of whether you believe in them, I think the longevity of religious organizations points the way towards how the human race can plan and advance with projects that cannot be completed in a single lifetime. Projects that require a vision beyond 10 years, much less 20, are exceedingly rare. Very, very few companies last more than a generation or two. This map in the article might make it seem like there are l…

If you had a convenient time machine and gathered up say, a group Catholics from today, a group from 100 years ago, and a group from 1000 years ago, you'd have three groups of people with radically different beliefs. They might even disagree with the idea they followed the same religion. Part of what makes religions last is bending to the changing times. A lot of the ones that didn't have faded away.

I don't have a "convenient" time machine, only an "inconvenient" one. It travels only in one direction, forward, and at much the same pace as everyone else seems to travel. There's always the example of Merlin though, whose time-machine-body traveled only in the opposite direction at roughly the same pace as everyone else's went forward. It has to be awkward for your first meeting with someone to be their last meeting with you. And you can't even warn them about their future when you meet them further in their past: Their future has already happened. A truly frustrating existence. No wonder King Arthur's court collapsed inward upon adulterous scandal and fanatical seeking of religious artifacts.

Re: The oldest company in almost every country (that is still in business)

#95

Post by alpha_squared »

hnewsshadowbans wrote: post #84
alpha_squared wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It didn't seriously change anything about the business of the parent company. It sort of did, though. Easier to define your own standards when you don't need consensus from peers, no? In either case, I think it's funny to consider the Roman Catholic Church as "the parent company". It's a little dismissive of all other Apostolic Sees and sort of rewrites history a bit to imply that Roman Catholicism was the root of…

The Bishop of Rome was considered the preeminent by all the other major sees. Its just whether he was first among equals or outright leader that was the controversy. So the RCC has a bit of a claim as the parent..

Any material you can recommend I can read more on that? As I understand it, the writings of Irenaeus get cited here to make that point except they're often taken out of context.

Re: The oldest company in almost every country (that is still in business)

#96

Post by stordoff »

dredmorbius wrote: post #68
krilly wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I were feeling pedantic I'd mention the universities of Oxford, St Andrews, Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Aberdeen... As well as a handful in Spain and Portugal ;)

Few of those are in the Americas.

They are in the Western Hemisphere though, hence the pedantry (presumably).

Re: The oldest company in almost every country (that is still in business)

#97

Post by stordoff »

gvjddbnvdrbv wrote: post #86
krilly wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I were feeling pedantic I'd mention the universities of Oxford, St Andrews, Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Aberdeen... As well as a handful in Spain and Portugal ;)

Cambridge is pretty old as well.

1209 (it celebrated its 800th while I was there, so the date has stuck with me).

It's not in the Western Hemisphere though - it's about 0.1E.

Re: The oldest company in almost every country (that is still in business)

#99

Post by [deleted] »

crooked-v wrote: post #73
manfredo wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the above commenter wrote that all of precolonial Africa had a single culture, only that precolonial cultures evidently did not have cultures with long standing businesses - at least as we understand businesses them today.

That's still attributing a single negative cultural trait to an entire continent, and using it to shallowly dismiss the effects of centuries of one-sided exploitation, enslavement, massacres, genocides, mass limb removal, debt slavery, literal slavery, etc etc. with "but what if it was their own fault?".

[deleted]

Re: The oldest company in almost every country (that is still in business)

#100

Post by jandrese »

crooked-v wrote: post #30
jandrese wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, the pre-colonial population maybe didn't have a culture of setting up long running businesses? Sure there would be family businesses, but they're be informal affairs. Also, in some cases there was no system of writing so no reliable records for determining the age of a business.

> the pre-colonial population maybe didn't have a culture of setting up long running businesses This assumption of an entire continent as having a single culture is something that I find cringy at best.

Are there any pre-colonial African nations you would like to name as a counter-example? One that had a tradition of setting up and documenting long running businesses?
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