Sunday, March 18, 2018

Dutch East India Company vs. Apple

Dutch East India Company, the first and last Trillionaire Transnational MegaCorporation.



Apple vs Dutch East India Company. BillionaireGambler.com





Dutch East India Company the $7.4 Trillion MegaCorporation. BillionaireGambler.com




Dutch East India Company the first Trillionaire Multinational MegaCorporation. BillionaireGambler.com


Chart: The Most Valuable Companies of All-Time

MODERN JUGGERNAUTS LIKE APPLE DON’T EVEN COME CLOSE

The Chart of the Week is a weekly Visual Capitalist feature on Fridays.
Before speculative bubbles could form around Dotcom companies (late-1990s) or housing prices (mid-2000s), some of the first financial bubbles formed from the prospect of trading with faraway lands.
Looking back, it’s pretty easy to see why.
Companies like the Dutch East India Company (known in Dutch as the VOC, or Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie) were granted monopolies on trade, and they engaged in daring voyages to mysterious and foreign places. They could acquire exotic goods, establish colonies, create military forces, and even initiate wars or conflicts around the world.
Of course, the very nature of these risky ventures made getting any accurate indication of intrinsic value nearly impossible, which meant there were no real benchmarks for what companies like thisshould be worth.

SPECULATIVE PEAK

The Dutch East India Company was established as a charter company in 1602, when it was granted a 21-year monopoly by the Dutch government for the spice trade in Asia. The company would eventually send over one million voyagers to Asia, which is more than the rest of Europe combined.
However, despite its 200-year run as Europe’s foremost trading juggernaut – the speculative peak of the company’s prospects coincided with Tulip Mania in Holland in 1637.
Widely considered the world’s first financial bubble, the history of Tulip Mania is a fantastic story in itself. During this frothy time, the Dutch East India Company was worth 78 million Dutch guilders, which translates to a whopping $7.9 trillion in modern dollars.
This is according to sources such as Alex Planes from The Motley Fool, who has conductedextensive research on the history of very large companies in history.

MODERN COMPARISONS

The peak value of the Dutch East India Company was so high, that it puts modern economies to shame.
In fact, at its height, the Dutch East India Company was worth roughly the same amount as the GDPs of modern-day Japan ($4.8T) and Germany ($3.4T) added together.
Even further, in today’s chart, we added the market caps of 20 of the world’s largest companies, such as Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, ExxonMobil, Berkshire Hathaway, Tencent, and Wells Fargo. All of them combined gets us to $7.9 trillion.
At the same time, the world’s most valuable company (Apple) only makes it to 11% of the peak value of the Dutch East India Company by itself.

HISTORIC HEAVYWEIGHTS

Despite the speculation that fueled the run-up of Dutch East India Company shares, the company was still successful in real terms. At one point, it even had 70,000 employees – a massive accomplishment for a company born over 400 years ago.
The same thing can’t be said for the other two most valuable companies in history – both of which were the subject of simultaneous bubbles occurring in France and Britain that popped in 1720.
In France, the wealth of Louisiana was exaggerated in a marketing scheme for the newly formed Mississippi Company, and its value temporarily soared to the equivalent of $6.5 trillion today. Meanwhile, a joint-stock company in Britain, known as the South Sea Company, was granted a monopoly to trade with South America. It was eventually worth $4.3 trillion in modern currency.
Interestingly, both would barely engage in any actual trade with the Americas.
The other historic heavyweights included in our chart?
  • Saudi Aramco, at $4.1 trillion, based on calculations by University of Texas finance professor Sheridan Titman in 2010, and adjusted for inflation.
  • PetroChina surpassed $1 trillion in market cap in 2007. Adjusted for inflation that’s $1.4 trillion today.
  • Standard Oil, before its famous breakup due to monopolistic reasons, was worth at least $1 trillion. Adjusted for inflation it would likely be more, but we kept this conservative.
  • Microsoft reached its peak valuation in 1999, at the top of the Dotcom Bubble. Today, that would be equal to $912 billion.


Wednesday, March 14, 2018

Jeff Bezos the first official CentiBillionaire & Amazon 14 Principles of Success

Jeff Bezos the first official CentiBillionaire.
Jeff Bezos the first official CentiBillionaire



As you may know Amazon Jeff Bezos officially became the first Centi-Billionaire with a $130.5 Billion net worth.

Right now, Jeff Bezos is making $231,000 a minute, $10 Billion a month.

http://time.com/money/5192998/jeff-bezos-net-worth-2018-worlds-richest-man/



As mentioned on Wikipedia, 

  • On July 27, 2017, Jeff Bezos briefly became the world's wealthiest person when he accumulated an estimated net worth of just over $90 Billion. 
  • On November 24, 2017, Jeff Bezos' wealth surpassed $100 Billion for the first time after Amazon's share price increased by more than 2.5%. 
  • On March 6, 2018, Jeff Bezos was formally designated the wealthiest person in the world with a registered net worth of $112 Billion by Forbes, becoming the first Centi-Billionaire.
  • As of March 14, 2018, Jeff Bezos has an estimated net worth of $130.5 Billion, and is contended to be on track to become the wealthiest person in contemporary history.


Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Bezos




Here below are the 14 Principles of Amazon.com taken directly from the Amazon website.
Read attentively since these 14 Principles are a Blueprint to $ucce$$.


Amazon.com 14 Principles of success

Our Leadership Principles

Our Leadership Principles aren't just a pretty inspirational wall hanging. These Principles work hard, just like we do. Amazonians use them, every day, whether they're discussing ideas for new projects, deciding on the best solution for a customer's problem, or interviewing candidates. It's just one of the things that makes Amazon peculiar.
  • Customer Obsession
  • Leaders start with the customer and work backwards. They work vigorously to earn and keep customer trust. Although leaders pay attention to competitors, they obsess over customers.
  • Ownership
  • Leaders are owners. They think long term and don't sacrifice long-term value for short-term results. They act on behalf of the entire company, beyond just their own team. They never say "that's not my job."
  • Invent and Simplify
  • Leaders expect and require innovation and invention from their teams and always find ways to simplify. They are externally aware, look for new ideas from everywhere, and are not limited by "not invented here." As we do new things, we accept that we may be misunderstood for long periods of time.
  • Are Right, A Lot
  • Leaders are right a lot. They have strong business judgment and good instincts. They seek diverse perspectives and work to disconfirm their beliefs.
  • Hire and Develop the Best
  • Leaders raise the performance bar with every hire and promotion. They recognize exceptional talent, and willingly move them throughout the organization. Leaders develop leaders and take seriously their role in coaching others. We work on behalf of our people to invent mechanisms for development like Career Choice.
  • Insist on the Highest Standards
  • Leaders have relentlessly high standards—many people may think these standards are unreasonably high. Leaders are continually raising the bar and driving their teams to deliver high-quality products, services, and processes. Leaders ensure that defects do not get sent down the line and that problems are fixed so they stay fixed.
  • Think Big
  • Thinking small is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Leaders create and communicate a bold direction that inspires results. They think differently and look around corners for ways to serve customers.
  • Bias for Action
  • Speed matters in business. Many decisions and actions are reversible and do not need extensive study. We value calculated risk taking.
  • Frugality
  • Accomplish more with less. Constraints breed resourcefulness, self-sufficiency and invention. There are no extra points for growing headcount, budget size, or fixed expense.
  • Learn and Be Curious
  • Leaders are never done learning and always seek to improve themselves. They are curious about new possibilities and act to explore them.
  • Earn Trust
  • Leaders listen attentively, speak candidly, and treat others respectfully. They are vocally self-critical, even when doing so is awkward or embarrassing. Leaders do not believe their or their team’s body odor smells of perfume. They benchmark themselves and their teams against the best.
  • Dive Deep
  • Leaders operate at all levels, stay connected to the details, audit frequently, and are skeptical when metrics and anecdote differ. No task is beneath them.
  • Have Backbone; Disagree and Commit
  • Leaders are obligated to respectfully challenge decisions when they disagree, even when doing so is uncomfortable or exhausting. Leaders have conviction and are tenacious. They do not compromise for the sake of social cohesion. Once a decision is determined, they commit wholly.
  • Deliver Results
  • Leaders focus on the key inputs for their business and deliver them with the right quality and in a timely fashion. Despite setbacks, they rise to the occasion and never settle.


    Customer obsession may be the most important of this bunch. In practice, it translates, as Bezos noted in a recent conference appearance, to three elements: 
    • low prices, 
    • convenient shipping, 
    • and unlimited selection.




    Other interesting sources:

    Monday, March 5, 2018

    ADAPT or DIE - Charles Darwin, management consultant

     “One general law, leading to the advancement of all organic beings, namely, multiply, vary, let the strongest live and the weakest die.” –Charles Darwin


    429 of the original Fortune 500 Companies (1955) are no longer in business today. Adapt or die.  BillionaireGambler.com


    “It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change.” –Charles Darwin


    “I think it inevitably follows, that as new species in the course of time are formed through natural selection, others will become rarer and rarer, and finally extinct. The forms which stand in closest competition with those undergoing modification and improvement will naturally suffer most.”–Charles Darwin


     “It is always advisable to perceive clearly our ignorance.”—Charles Darwin


    In the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too) those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed.”—Charles Darwin


    “We are always slow in admitting any great change of which we do not see the intermediate steps”—Charles Darwin


    Charles Darwin, management consultant
    Charles Darwin, management consultant