Thinking of Companies in Human Years

How to change the timescale you think on

It’s really easy to go on companies market cap and look at the large valuations these command. Their market caps, stock prices and origins are all clear. However what I find interesting is that their ages aren’t often studied that often.

Let’s go down the list and find out how old each of these companies are:

1. Apple: 47 years (1976)

2. Microsoft: 48 years (1975)

3. Saudi Aramco: 90 years (1933)

4. Alphabet: 24 years (1998)

5. Amazon: 28 years (1994)

6. Nvidia: 30 years (1993)

7. Tesla: 19 years (2003)

8. Berkshire Hathway: 184 years (1839)

9. Facebook: 19 years (2004)

10. TSMC: 36 years (1987)

Pretty surprising huh! The level of excellence that these companies exhibit, quite literally take decades at the earliest but sometimes hundreds of years! What's neat is that within technology, within a lifetime you can create something that can reach the pinnacles of capital markets. However, most people get scared when you think about even spending 5 years working on a company! It actually wouldn’t feel that scary if you took the assumption you’d be spending close to 50 years and 5 years represent 10% of your time there!

On another track though, as soon as you put an age on these companies they feel far more “human”? You can imagine the maturity and preparedness of a 19 year old versus a 184 year old easily! In fact, you respect the 19 year old for being so close to the 184 year old in the first place. The question remains whether they can maintain it but to reach there is a great feat in itself!

Life is long, yet short. However, the bounds of what you can do in one lifetime are often underestimated and what you can do in a year overestimated.