Biology of Business

N

51 companies

Nintendo

Gaming & Entertainment

Nintendo is 135 years old. The company started making playing cards in 1889, pivoted to toys in the 1970s, and has survived every gaming industry cycl...

16 mentions

Netflix

Entertainment / Streaming

Netflix has died and been reborn three times - DVD rental (1997-2007), streaming service (2007-2013), global content studio (2013-present). Most compa...

15 mentions sp500, nasdaq100

Nokia

Mobile Phones / Telecommunications

Nokia understood the iPhone's significance immediately in 2007 - and collapsed anyway. That's the lesson. The company held 40.4% global market share,...

3 mentions

Novo Nordisk

Pharmaceuticals

Novo Nordisk did one thing for 100 years: diabetes. Not cancer, not cardiovascular, not general pharma. Just metabolic disease. In the 1960s-1970s, as...

3 mentions

Nissan

Automotive

Japanese automaker that was near bankruptcy in 1999 with $20B in debt and -3.5% operating margins before forming an alliance with Renault. Rather than...

2 mentions

Nikon

Photography & Imaging

Nikon is mentioned alongside Sony and Canon as competitors that captured the digital photography market while Kodak failed to act. Nikon's ability to...

1 mention

NTT

Telecommunications

Japan's NTT, founded in 1952 as a state-owned monopoly, built the world's most reliable telecommunications network by treating acoustic communication...

1 mention

Nvidia Corporation

Semiconductors / AI Hardware

Nvidia briefly touched $4 trillion market capitalization in July 2025—the first company ever to reach this threshold—before settling at $4.4 trillion...

1 mention sp500, nasdaq100

Nash Motors

Automotive

Nash's 1954 merger with Hudson created American Motors, ending Nash independence after pioneering unitized construction and compact cars. The Nash Ram...

Defunct

Naspers

Technology & Media

Naspers is corporate biology's clearest example of obligate mutualism. The company's $32 million investment in Tencent in 2001 has ballooned to over $...

jsetop40

Nasty Gal

E-commerce

Nasty Gal's November 2016 bankruptcy collapsed Sophia Amoruso's fashion e-commerce success story. The company that started on eBay selling vintage clo...

Defunct

National Airlines (2002)

Aviation

National Airlines' 2002 closure ended a Las Vegas-based carrier that had grown quickly after 1999 launch. The company targeted transcontinental leisur...

Defunct

National Australia Bank

Banking & Financial Services

National Australia Bank's identity as "Australia's business bank" demonstrates niche specialization that creates competitive moats through expertise a...

asx

National Brewing Company

Beverages

National Brewing's 1979 closure ended Baltimore's last brewery after Carling acquired then abandoned it. The company that made National Bohemian ('Nat...

Defunct

National Century Financial

Healthcare Finance

National Century's 2002 collapse represents healthcare's Enron—a $3 billion fraud that devastated thousands of healthcare providers. The company advan...

Defunct

National Grid

Utilities

National Grid submitted a £35 billion business plan to Ofgem for 2026-2031, the largest transmission grid overhaul in generations. This is not increme...

ftse100

National Indemnity

Insurance

Jack Ringwalt's insurance company generated $19 million in float when Buffett acquired it in 1967 for $8.6 million. That $19 million float—premiums co...

National Semiconductor

Semiconductors

Semiconductor company that emerged from Fairchild's spinout wave, founded by Pierre Lamond. Part of the monocarpic flowering event that seeded Silicon...

Natura & Co

Consumer Goods

In 2024, Natura & Co executed one of retail's most dramatic examples of controlled decomposition. The company recorded an R$8.9 billion net loss, driv...

bovespa

NatWest

Banking

NatWest Group is executing financial metamorphosis: transitioning from government-owned rescue case to private-sector competitor. The UK Treasury's st...

ftse100

Naver Corporation

Internet & Technology

Naver crossed KRW 10 trillion in annual revenue in 2024 (KRW 10.7377 trillion, $7.7 billion)—the first Korean internet platform to reach that mileston...

kospi

Nedbank Group

Banking & Financial Services

Nedbank Group occupies the uncomfortable middle position in South Africa's banking oligopoly - neither the largest (Standard Bank), nor the fastest-gr...

jse

Neiman Marcus

Department Store

Neiman Marcus's 2020 bankruptcy forced a luxury department store institution into restructuring after 113 years of operation. The company that had def...

Private, Bankrupt

Neiman Marcus (2020)

Retail

Neiman Marcus's May 2020 bankruptcy ended the luxury retailer's independence after a disastrous $6 billion leveraged buyout in 2013. Ares Management a...

Defunct

Neste Corporation

Renewable Energy

Neste achieved the rarest corporate transformation: metabolic conversion from fossil fuel refiner to renewable fuel leader without extinction event. T...

omx25

Nestlé

Food & Beverage

Nestlé's $99 billion revenue empire (CHF 91.4B, 2024) spans 2,000+ brands across 187 countries, but its biological secret is redundancy layered across...

private

Nestle India

FMCG

₹242 billion net sales in 2024, 59% instant noodles market share, presence in 50% of Indian homes—Nestle India functions as a dominant species across...

nifty50, bse sensex

NetEase

Technology

NetEase is one of China's leading internet and gaming companies, known for developing popular online games and mobile titles, with partnerships with m...

hangseng

New Century Financial

Financial Services

New Century Financial's 2007 bankruptcy made it the largest subprime lender failure, a preview of the broader crisis to come. The company had grown fr...

Defunct

Newman's Own

Food & Beverage

Food company founded by Paul Newman in 1982 that operated polycarpically for 26 years, donating 100% of profits ($550M+) to charity. However, after Ne...

Newmont Corporation

Mining & Materials

Newmont operates as apex predator in the gold mining ecosystem. At 6+ million ounces of annual production across four continents, the company occupies...

sp500

Newsweek (Decline)

Magazine

Newsweek's fall from Time rival to $1 sale demonstrates how news magazines faced extinction when the internet eliminated the weekly news cycle. The ma...

Declining

Next

Retail

Next is a leading UK clothing, footwear, and home products retailer. The company operates stores and a highly successful online and catalogue business...

ftse250

NextEra Energy

Utilities & Renewable Energy

NextEra Energy placed 8.7 gigawatts of new renewable and storage projects into service in 2024, the third consecutive year of record origination. The...

sp500

Nike

Apparel & Footwear

Nike's digital sales fell 15% year-over-year in Q3 fiscal 2025, the fifth consecutive quarter of decline. Direct-to-consumer revenue dropped 12% to $4...

sp500

Nikola

Automotive

Nikola represents the costliest lesson in corporate biology: fraudulent signaling eventually faces detection, and punishment destroys not just the che...

Nikola Corporation

Automotive - Electric

Nikola's 2020 fraud revelation showed the electric truck company had faked demonstrations, including rolling a truck downhill to simulate driving. Fou...

NASDAQ:NKLA

NIO Inc.

Automotive & Electric Vehicles

NIO is a premium electric vehicle manufacturer often called the 'Tesla of China,' known for innovative battery swap technology and smart EVs. The comp...

csi300, nyse

NN Group

Insurance & Asset Management

NN Group demonstrates insurance-hypothesis mechanism at institutional scale. The Dutch financial services company manages €300+ billion in assets unde...

aex

Nokia (Handset Division)

Consumer Electronics

Nokia's 2014 sale of phone division to Microsoft for $7.2 billion—from $250 billion peak—represents the most dramatic destruction of mobile industry d...

Division sold

Nokia Mobile Phones

Technology

Nokia's mobile phone division sale to Microsoft in 2013 for $7.2 billion ended the world's largest phone manufacturer. Nokia had 40% global market sha...

Defunct

Nokia-Siemens Networks

Telecommunications

Nokia Siemens Networks' struggles demonstrate how telecom equipment faces brutal consolidation. The joint venture merged two struggling businesses but...

Restructured

Nord Pool

Energy Markets

Europe's largest electricity market, operating the integrated Nordic energy grid connecting Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Denmark. Nord Pool functions...

Nortel Networks

Telecommunications Equipment

Nortel's 2009 bankruptcy ended a Canadian technology giant that had once been worth $398 billion—the most valuable company in Canadian history. The co...

Defunct

Northvolt

Energy Storage

Swedish battery manufacturer building European battery production capacity for electric vehicles. Partnerships with major automakers including VW and...

private

Northwest Airlines

Aviation

Northwest Airlines' 2005 bankruptcy and 2008 merger with Delta ended a carrier with 82 years of history. The airline had been leveraged-buyout target,...

Defunct

Norwegian Air (Restructuring)

Aviation

Norwegian Air's 2020 restructuring demonstrates how ambitious long-haul low-cost models face destruction during crises. The carrier that challenged le...

OSE

Notion Labs

Software/Productivity

Notion demonstrates both startup-scale predator-prey dynamics and good genes signaling through design. Launching its all-in-one workspace in 2016, the...

Novozymes (now Novonesis)

Industrial Biotechnology

On January 29, 2024, Novozymes and Chr. Hansen completed Denmark's largest-ever merger, creating Novonesis: a EUR 3.7 billion biosolutions specialist...

NPC International (Bankruptcy)

Restaurant

NPC International's 2020 bankruptcy demonstrates how franchise operators face unique leverage risks. The largest Pizza Hut and Wendy's franchisee coul...

Bankrupt

NTPC Limited

Energy

83 GW installed capacity (17% of India's total), 438.6 billion units generated in FY25 (3.88% growth), 60 GW renewable target by 2032—NTPC Limited ope...

nifty50, bse sensex