The Most Powerful Companies Ever, Vs What We Have Now
Once upon a time, companies ruled the world like actual emperors. The East India Company didn’t just sell spices; it ran entire countries with armies and laws that suited them. Standard Oil could crush competitors with a flick of a pen, and rail barons controlled the flow of entire economies without anyone batting an eye.
Fast forward to today, and the corporate landscape feels exactly like a board game for overpaid millennials. Tech startups rise and fall before lunch, and social media platforms constantly argue over who owns your data.
It is comforting to see that even in 2025, nothing has really changed.
1602: VOC, A Company That Was a Country
The Dutch East India Company could declare wars, mint coins, and govern territories like a business with a small army.
$10.15T Pepper Peak
In 1637, VOC was worth more than Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, and Alphabet combined, all thanks to tiny spice seeds.
1637 Tulip Bubble
Tulip mania inflated VOC’s value, proving that people will always gamble on shiny plants.
Mississippi Company Ponzi, 1720
Valued $8.35T, France sold gold promises in Louisiana, and investors clutched receipts like lottery tickets.
South Sea Company: Debt as Gold
Hit $5.52T by managing government debt, pure speculation, pure chaos.
1720 Crash: Reality Hits
Both bubbles collapsed, wrecking fortunes and economies, because fake value always bites back.
19th Century Railroad Barons
Union Pacific controlled the only way to move the country, the original “streaming service” of America.
Standard Oil: Monopoly Crush
Rockefeller owned everything from extraction to sale, snapping out competition like a bored god.
Apple: Digital Empire
$3.15B. Doesn’t need armies; the App Store is your digital kingdom, and you pay the tribute willingly.
Microsoft: $3.79T Cloud Control
From PCs to Azure, Microsoft is the plumber controlling every corporate data pipe.
Amazon: 21st Century VOC
$2.40B. The warehouse delivers stuff while AWS hosts a third of the Internet, making it omnipresent.
Alphabet: Attention Guardian
$2.25B. Controls search and YouTube, showing exactly what Google wants you to see.
Meta: Human Attention Monopoly
$1.77B. Controls billions of daily attention hours, less valuable than VOC, but it holds your brain hostage.
NVIDIA: New Black Gold
$4.20B. If oil moved the 20th century, NVIDIA chips drive AI, making them the ultimate bottleneck king.
2025 Irony: History Repeats
Yesterday, they sold spices with armies; today, they sell distractions with algorithms, but private power never quits.
