10 companies that changed our world
Many tech startups aim to ‘change the world.’ But disrupting, say, the taxi business is one thing — these pioneers of industry forever transformed the way we live.
Business is the instrument that mankind has settled on to propagate change. Take a long step back and what do you see? A world of invention and unintended consequences.
Other things make the world go round as well — love, principally, and coffee — but there is nothing quite like the study of business to illuminate where we have been and where we are going. The poet Archibald MacLeish, when he was a staff writer at Fortune, described his job as to “report the world of business as an expression — a peculiarly enlightening expression — of the Republic, of the changing world.”
It has become a bit of a catchphrase among tech people to say that one’s company is going to “change the world.” Many companies do, in small ways. But disrupting, say, the taxi business is not going to set future historians atwitter (though Twitter (TWTR) conceivably might).
We surveyed Fortune’s brain trust to come up with a ranking of the 27 companies that have done the most to alter the way we live. (Then, of course, we couldn’t stop, so check out our two companion pieces: ‘11 quirky companies that blew your mind‘ and ‘20 companies that changed the world — in fiction.’)
Click through this slideshow to read about the top 10 companies that changed our world, then visit Fortune.com to see the entire list.
Dream up something outlandish. Make it ubiquitous. Repeat. That’s been Google’s (GOOG) formula since day one, as it embarked on an ambitious mission to organize the world’s information.
Tame the web? Check. Build a computer that fits in your pocket? Check. Photograph every street to make it navigable from afar? Check. Digitize the planet’s books? Check. Build a polyglot translator in software? Check. Think of Google as a factory for major innovations, from self-driving cars to wearable computers to technology for extending the lifespan of humans. —Miguel Helft
Rayon. Nylon. Cellophane. Orlon. Dacron. Lucite. Neoprene. Mylar. Freon. Lycra. Teflon. Kevlar. Corian. Tyvek. You could tell the story of the developed world through the materials that DuPont (DD) invented or commercialized.
The Delaware company, 212 years old, spent its first century as a gunpowder maker, supplying the U.S. in 1812, and the Union in the Civil War. It diversified into materials for everything from pantyhose to parachutes, countertops to bulletproof vests, food wrappers to air-conditioning. It was the main contractor for plutonium on the Manhattan Project.
Today huge numbers of corporations call Delaware their official home largely because of state laws influenced (or written) by DuPont (the company) or DuPonts (the family). —Nicholas Varchaver
GE (GE) changed the world in not one, or two, but three big ways. Guided by Thomas Edison, founder of the predecessor company Edison General Electric, it brought electricity and light bulbs to America and the world.
That alone would be enough to put GE high up on our list, but there’s more. Transformation No. 2 was creating America’s first research lab. No. 3 was building an elaborate system of management development, a new idea at the advent of the giant corporation, that has guided companies around the world for over a hundred years. —Geoff Colvin
Ivar Kreuger (pictured), a Swedish industrialist who built an empire founded on the safety match, was perhaps the most brilliant swindler of all time. After he put a bullet through his heart in a Paris hotel room in 1932, his many frauds were uncovered and thousands of investors lost their savings. The “Kreuger Crash” that shook Wall Street prompted the U.S. Congress to pass the Securities Act of 1933 regulating the offer and sale of securities. —Tim Smith
The Dutch had their East India Company, considered by many the first true multinational, which rampaged across Asia using military force to pursue the spice trade. But the British East India Company, founded in 1600, was the real imperial colossus: It ruled much of India, sparked the Opium Wars with China and grew to account for half the world’s trade. —Tim Smith
During a period of unparalleled innovation early in the 20th century, Ford Motor (F) developed the moving assembly line, raised the wages of the workers who manned it to $5 a day, and made the Model T affordable to millions of buyers, thereby giving birth to the automobile age.
By constantly refining its mass-production methods, Ford brought the price of the “T” down to $240, and the car became so popular it required no advertising. The “T” was also built in 12 foreign countries, making it the first global car. Today, Ford is still the world’s fifth-largest automaker, controlled by the descendants of Henry Ford, the inventor who founded it 111 years ago. —Alex Taylor III
The men who ran Searle initially didn’t think there would be a market for a drug that had to be taken every day and neither treated nor prevented disease. Boy were they surprised after they introduced Enovid, the first birth control pill, in 1957. —Tim Smith
Farmers reportedly laughed when they saw Cyrus McCormick’s horse-drawn mechanical reaper in the 1830s. With a whirling reel of wooden bars and a sharp blade, it looked simultaneously dangerous and ridiculous. But it instantly raised farm productivity by a factor of six (and much more after later improvements), with profound effects.
In America and then globally, superfluous farm hands became an army of industrial workers. Food prices dropped, giving consumers better health and more disposable income. McCormick’s reaper faced plenty of competitors, but through superior marketing and management it swept the field. —Geoff Colvin
The company would belong on this list just for providing ubiquitous phone service, a major step up from telegraphy and letters. But its most significant and game-changing contribution may have been its role in the development of the transistor, that key building block of all computing and electronic devices.
Scientists at AT&T’s (T) Bell Labs are credited with inventing the transistor in 1947. Crucially, the company did not patent this new technology, out of fear of antagonizing the Justice Department over the monopolistic nature of its business. (The government did, of course, break up Ma Bell in 1982.) That decision opened the gate to the information technology and gadget-saturated world we live in today. —Stephanie Mehta
John D. Rockefeller established a monopoly on the most precious commodity in the world. By the time his trust — which included some 40 corporations — was broken up in 1911, petroleum products were on the way to being indispensable for transportation, agriculture, industry, warfare and, in many places, even light.
The story of petroleum was the story of the 20th century, and with the changes in climate, it could become the story of the 21st as well. —Tim Smith
http://money.msn.com/investing/10-companies-that-changed-our-world
Categories: Food for Thought