Live Companies

2327 active companies explored through the lens of biology

Most Mentioned in Books

All Live Companies

0-9

17 companies

3M

Diversified Technology/Manufacturing

On April 1, 2024, 3M completed the spinoff of Solventum, its $8 billion healthcare business. Shareholders received one S...

100 Thieves

Esports

This esports organization behaves like peacocks displaying elaborate plumage—investing heavily in branded apparel and co...

10x Genomics

Biotechnology

Like a microscope that finally revealed cells, 10x Genomics tools let researchers see individual cells within tissues. T...

1520

Quick Commerce

Like a peregrine falcon diving at prey, 1520 compresses delivery time to 15-20 minutes through pre-positioned micro-ware...

15Five

Technology

Performance management software that mimics the continuous feedback loops in immune systems—constant small adjustments p...

20th Century Fox

Entertainment

Film studio that purchased X-Men rights from Marvel for $2.6M (1994) and Fantastic Four rights (1986). Like Sony with Sp...

23andMe

Healthcare Services

Built a genetic database of 12 million people by offering ancestral mirrors—showing customers their past to harvest thei...

2U

EdTech - Higher Education

Partners with universities like remora fish attached to sharks—using institutional brands for credibility while handling...

+ 9 more

&

1 companies

&pizza

Food & Beverage

Like a coral polyp building its reef one pizza at a time, &pizza grows through replication of standardized units while a...

A

381 companies

Apple

Consumer Electronics / Technology

Apple defied every Silicon Valley orthodoxy - and captured 80% of smartphone industry profits with 25% market share. The...

Amazon

E-commerce & Cloud Computing

Amazon mastered what kills most companies: strategic reallocation across time horizons. From 1997-2000, Jeff Bezos execu...

Airbnb

Travel & Hospitality Technology

Airbnb's origin story reads like a case study in biological stress response. In September 2008, three founders had $5,00...

Alibaba

E-commerce / Technology

Alibaba is a study in strategic symbiosis and territorial limits. When Jack Ma launched Taobao in 2003 to compete with e...

Airbus

Aerospace

Airbus proved that four weak players can beat one dominant incumbent - if the coalition is architected correctly. When t...

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Cloud Infrastructure

AWS is invisible infrastructure that makes the internet possible. The company provides compute (EC2), storage (S3), and...

A.P. Moller-Maersk

Shipping & Logistics

The shipping giant that moves 20% of global trade without a central brain - proving that planetary-scale coordination do...

AB InBev

Beverages/Brewing

AB InBev is the world's largest brewer, controlling roughly 30% of global beer volume after acquiring Anheuser-Busch in...

+ 373 more

B

272 companies

BlackBerry

Mobile Phones & Software

In 2008, BlackBerry had an $84 billion market cap and 20% of the global smartphone market. By 2016, less than 1% market...

Boeing

Aerospace Manufacturing

Boeing held 80% of the commercial aviation market in 1970. By 2024, it had surrendered half that share to Airbus while t...

Berkshire Hathaway

Conglomerate / Insurance / Investments

Warren Buffett's genius isn't picking stocks—it's designing ecosystems. Berkshire Hathaway comprises 60+ wholly owned bu...

Best Buy

Retail Electronics

The electronics retailer that survived where Circuit City died - then learned that distributing power isn't the same as...

BHP Group

Mining & Resources

At 42,000 employees and $146 billion market cap, BHP operates like a superorganism coordinating resource extraction acro...

Bombardier

Aerospace

Canadian aerospace company that developed the C Series aircraft program before selling it to Airbus in 2018 for effectiv...

British East India Company

Trading & Colonial Enterprise

The British East India Company represents extreme organizational longevity through adaptive sensing - 274 years of conti...

Basecamp

Software / Project Management

Basecamp has operated with voluntary caloric restriction for 25 years. The company maintains 50-60 employees while servi...

+ 264 more

C

403 companies

Carrefour Brazil

Retail

Carrefour Brazil illustrates the Red Queen hypothesis: you must adapt just to survive, not to win. The French hypermarke...

Chipotle Mexican Grill

Fast-casual Restaurant

Chipotle marketed 'Food with Integrity' while deferring $2.3 million in annual food safety investments. The 2015-2016 E....

Circuit City

Retail / Electronics

Circuit City was the second-largest electronics retailer in the United States with capital, infrastructure, and brand re...

Corning Glass

Materials Science / Glass Technology

A 170-year-old glass technology company that exemplifies institutional knowledge preservation. Corning's ability to acce...

Canon

Photography & Imaging

When Kodak invented digital photography in 1975, it faced a classic signal transduction failure: detecting environmental...

Catholic Church

Religious Organization

With 1.3 billion members globally, the Catholic Church operates the oldest continuously functioning fractal organization...

China Evergrande Group

Real Estate Development

Once China's largest property developer by sales with peak assets of 2.3 trillion RMB ($358 billion), Evergrande collaps...

Chouinard Equipment

Climbing Equipment

Predecessor to Patagonia, founded by Yvon Chouinard to manufacture climbing gear. The company's 1972 decision to discont...

+ 395 more

D

170 companies

Disney

Entertainment & Media

Disney's $4 billion acquisition of Marvel Entertainment in 2009 looked expensive at the time. Marvel was a bankrupt comi...

Danone

Food & Beverage

Danone operates €27 billion revenue across 100,000 employees in 140+ countries through four divisions: dairy (Activia, A...

DoorDash

Food Delivery

DoorDash processed $80 billion in gross order value across 2.6 billion orders in 2024, generating $10.72 billion in reve...

D2L

EdTech - LMS

D2L's Brightspace learning platform adapts like neural plasticity - reshaping educational pathways based on how students...

Dabur India

FMCG

Dabur packages Ayurvedic medicine like plants encoding chemical defenses in compounds. Its consumer products extract tra...

Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering

Shipbuilding

Daewoo builds vessels like coral polyps secreting calcium carbonate shells - slow accretion of steel plates welded into...

Dahua Technology

Security & Surveillance

Dahua's surveillance cameras watch cities like compound eyes scanning for movement. Its AI detection systems filter visu...

Dai-ichi Life Holdings, Inc.

Insurance

Dai-ichi Life pools mortality risk like schools of fish confusing predators. Its actuarial tables spread individual deat...

+ 162 more

E

155 companies

eBay

E-commerce / Online Marketplace

How do you get millions of strangers to trust each other enough to exchange money for goods they can't see? eBay solved...

Enron

Energy Trading

Enron didn't fail because of accounting fraud. It failed because it built a despotic culture that made fraud inevitable....

E-Mart

Retail

South Korean retail giant competing with e-commerce—hypermarket format blending grocery and general merchandise like omn...

e.l.f. Beauty

Cosmetics

e.l.f. Beauty is a cosmetics brand offering affordable, high-quality makeup, skincare, and beauty tools. The company mar...

E.ON

Energy

After energy generation and distribution separated through regulatory unbundling, E.ON became Europe's circulatory syste...

E2open

Supply Chain Software

Supply chain software connecting manufacturers to suppliers—mycelial networks transmitting signals across industrial eco...

Eagle Bancorp

Regional Banking

Eagle Bancorp is the holding company for EagleBank, which provides commercial and consumer banking services in the Washi...

Eagle Materials Inc.

Mining & Materials

Cement and gypsum producer tied to construction cycles—heavy, low-value materials requiring local production like barnac...

+ 147 more

É

1 companies

Électricité de France (EDF)

Energy/Utilities

Électricité de France (EDF) is France's dominant electric utility and one of the world's largest electricity generators,...

F

123 companies

Ford Motor Company

Automotive Manufacturing

Ford invented the modern assembly line - and spent a century learning its limitations. From 1900-1970, Ford exemplified...

Fairfax Financial

Financial Services

Fairfax Financial acquired BlackBerry in 2016 after the company's failed attempt to compete in the smartphone market. Th...

Fairphone

Consumer Electronics

Fairphone is mentioned as an example of a company that designed modular smartphones for repairability at the seed stage,...

FedEx

Logistics/Delivery

FedEx built a billion-dollar business on costly signaling you can see from your window. Founded by Frederick Smith in 19...

Flipkart

E-commerce

Flipkart commands 48% of India's e-commerce market by gross merchandise value as of mid-2025, outpacing Amazon India's 3...

Freshworks

SaaS / Enterprise Software

Freshworks represents the climax stage of Bangalore's ecological succession - Indian SaaS unicorns selling globally from...

F5 Networks

Network Technology

Balances web traffic across server clusters to prevent overload, distributing computational demand like heart muscles th...

Fabrinet

Electronic Components

Contract manufacturer assembling optical components for telecom networks, routing photonic signals through precision-eng...

+ 115 more

G

46 companies

General Electric (GE)

Conglomerate / Industrial

GE was the world's most valuable company in 2000 - $500 billion market cap, Jack Welch on magazine covers, diversified a...

Google

Technology / Search / Advertising

Google's dominance didn't come from better algorithms alone - it came from organizational innovations that maintained br...

General Motors (GM)

Automotive Manufacturing

General Motors produced 189,000 battery electric vehicles in North America during 2024 yet simultaneously shut down its...

Grab

Technology/Transportation/Fintech

The ride-hailing startup that beat Uber by recognizing what multinational tech giants always miss: local markets aren't...

Groupon

E-commerce / Daily Deals

Groupon reached $1 billion in revenue faster than any company in history - 2.5 years. Forbes called it the fastest-growi...

General Motors

Automotive Manufacturing

General Motors held the #1 global automaker position for 77 years - until it didn't. The company that defined industrial...

GitHub

Software Development/Technology

GitHub is the code hosting platform where 100+ million developers store 420+ million repositories. The company demonstra...

Glencore

Commodity Trading/Mining

One of the world's largest commodity trading and mining companies, founded in 1974 and headquartered in Switzerland. Gle...

+ 38 more

H

56 companies

Hindustan Unilever Limited (HUL)

Consumer Goods (FMCG)

HUL demonstrates adaptive radiation identical to Darwin's finches, with one critical enhancement: the ability to rapidly...

Hermès

Luxury Goods

Hermès spent its first 100 years on a single Paris street perfecting saddles and harnesses for horses. When the automobi...

Haier Group

Consumer Electronics / Home Appliances

China's largest appliance manufacturer ($55.9B revenue) that killed the org chart and replaced it with 4,000 competing m...

Hanseatic League

Trade Confederation (Historical)

The Hanseatic League, a 13th-century commercial confederation of German merchant guilds, demonstrates that symbiotic mes...

Hollywood Video

Video Rental

Hollywood Video is mentioned as one of Blockbuster's traditional competitors. Blockbuster's selective membrane served th...

HP

Technology & Printing

HP is mentioned briefly as the company that dominated the printer market when Kodak attempted a late pivot from photogra...

Huawei

Telecommunications / Consumer Electronics

CNY862.1 billion revenue in 2024—up 22.4%, approaching the 2020 pre-sanctions record—proves hormesis: sub-lethal stress...

H&M

Fashion Retail

H&M pioneered fast fashion through vertical integration that compressed trend-to-store cycles from months to weeks, but...

+ 48 more

I

41 companies

IBM

Enterprise Technology & Cloud Computing

IBM has survived 113 years by mastering what most companies can't stomach: killing its own businesses before they become...

Intel

Semiconductor Manufacturing

Intel created the x86 architecture in 1978 and spent four decades running the Red Queen's race - investing $15-20 billio...

IKEA

Retail / Furniture

IKEA demonstrates 80 years of phototropic discipline - systematically bending toward resource gradients while maintainin...

IDEO

Design Consulting

IDEO doesn't just design products - it operates as a brokerage topology that generates innovation through structural hol...

Infosys

IT Services

With 320,000 employees and $19.3 billion in FY25 revenue, Infosys demonstrates how pioneer species create conditions tha...

Instacart

Grocery Delivery / Gig Economy

Apoorva Mehta's 21st startup idea succeeded where his previous 20 failed because of germination timing, not a better ide...

Instagram

Social Media / Photo Sharing

Instagram launched in October 2010, six months after Color Labs raised $41 million in pre-launch funding for photo shari...

Interface Inc.

Manufacturing - Flooring

Interface Inc. is a US-based modular carpet manufacturer with $1.32 billion revenue (2024) that has pursued radical circ...

+ 33 more

J

16 companies

Jumia

E-commerce

Jumia proves that 'best practices' from one environment can be lethal DNA in another. Launched in 2012 as 'the Amazon of...

JAFCO

Venture Capital

JAFCO is Japan's institutional memory of venture capital—founded in 1973, it has witnessed and survived every boom-bust...

Janus Henderson Group

Financial Services

Janus Henderson Group is a global asset management company offering investment solutions including equities, fixed incom...

Japan Airlines (2010)

Aviation

Japan Airlines' 2010 bankruptcy was the largest non-financial corporate failure in Japanese history - ¥2.3 trillion ($25...

JBS

Food Processing

JBS operates at a scale that would be biologically impossible without industrial agriculture: $77.2 billion revenue in 2...

JCPenney

Retail

American department store chain that serves as a cautionary tale about phototropism failure. In November 2011, JCPenney...

JD Sports Fashion

Retail

JD Sports is a leading retailer of sports fashion and outdoor brands. The company operates over 3,000 stores globally, s...

JD.com

E-commerce

JD.com is one of China's largest e-commerce companies, known for high-quality products and industry-leading logistics ne...

+ 8 more

K

119 companies

Kodak

Photography / Technology

In 1976, Steve Sasson demonstrated the world's first digital camera to Kodak executives. Thirty-six years later, the com...

Kickstarter

Technology / Crowdfunding

The crowdfunding platform that proved two biological insights: humans need recovery time, and commitment requires thresh...

Kadant

Industrial Machinery

Industrial termite colonies - machinery that breaks down wood fiber into paper pulp, separates waste from recyclables, a...

Kahoot

EdTech - K-12

Hijacks dopamine pathways like young dolphins learning through play - timed competition triggers cortisol spikes that bu...

Kaiser Aluminum Corporation

Aluminum

Mimics bird bone architecture - aluminum extruded into hollow tubes and rolled into sheets with strength-to-weight ratio...

Kajima Corporation

Construction

Builds like termite mounds rising from Japanese soil - coordinated teams assembling towers and tunnels from modular comp...

Kakao Bank

Digital Banking

Spreads through South Korea like E. coli in rich broth - 20 million users in five years, doubling every eighteen months....

Kakao Corporation

Internet & Technology

KakaoTalk reached 48.9 million monthly active users in Q3 2024—97% of South Korea's internet users—creating network effe...

+ 111 more

L

70 companies

Lenovo

Computer Hardware & Technology

US$69.1 billion in revenue for fiscal 2024/25—a 21% leap and the second-highest in company history—validates Lenovo's sc...

Professional Networking / Social Media

LinkedIn's success came from understanding germination timing: launching early in the right environment beats launching...

Louis Vuitton

Luxury Fashion

LVMH reported €84.7 billion revenue in 2024 despite 2% year-over-year decline, with Louis Vuitton maintaining alpha stat...

LVMH

Luxury Goods

In 1984, Bernard Arnault bought Christian Dior and began building what would become the world's largest luxury goods com...

Lilium

Aerospace / Urban Air Mobility

German electric jet company that filed for bankruptcy twice - first in October 2024, then again in February 2025 after a...

L.E.K. Consulting

Management Consulting

Provides strategy consulting through pattern recognition across industries, identifying successful adaptations in one se...

L'Oréal

Consumer Goods

L'Oréal achieved €43.48 billion revenue in 2024 (up 5.6% like-for-like) with record 20% operating margin, outperforming...

L3Harris Technologies, Inc.

Aerospace & Defense

Integrates communication, sensing, and electronic warfare systems across air, sea, space, and cyber domains like nervous...

+ 62 more

M

58 companies

Microsoft

Software & Cloud Computing

Microsoft's transformation under Satya Nadella represents one of the most successful metabolic pathway shifts in busines...

Marvel Entertainment

Entertainment & Media

Marvel filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy in December 1996 with $700 million in debt after the comic book market collapsed. Inv...

McDonald's

Quick Service Restaurants

McDonald's represents the most successful example of asexual reproduction in business history. When Ray Kroc encountered...

Maersk Line

Shipping & Logistics

The world's largest container shipping company, headquartered in Denmark with 17% global market share and 700+ vessels....

Mercado Libre

E-commerce / Fintech

Mercado Libre ('Free Market'), founded by Marcos Galperin in 1999, became Latin America's e-commerce leader by solving t...

Meta/Facebook

Technology/Social Media

Social media and technology company that demonstrates effective decomposition through open-sourcing. When Facebook reduc...

Microsoft Japan

Technology

Japanese subsidiary of Microsoft that conducted a landmark 4-day workweek experiment in August 2019. By closing offices...

Mitsubishi Motors

Automotive

Japanese automaker added to the Renault-Nissan Alliance in 2016, transforming the two-party coalition into a three-party...

+ 50 more

N

39 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 survi...

Netflix

Entertainment / Streaming

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

Nokia

Mobile Phones / Telecommunications

Nokia understood the iPhone's significance immediately in 2007 - and collapsed anyway. That's the lesson. The company he...

Novo Nordisk

Pharmaceuticals

Novo Nordisk did one thing for 100 years: diabetes. Not cancer, not cardiovascular, not general pharma. Just metabolic d...

Nissan

Automotive

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

Nikon

Photography & Imaging

Nikon is mentioned alongside Sony and Canon as competitors that captured the digital photography market while Kodak fail...

NTT

Telecommunications

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

Nvidia Corporation

Semiconductors / AI Hardware

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

+ 31 more

O

14 companies

OPEC

Energy/Oil

Intergovernmental organization of oil-exporting nations formed in 1960 that demonstrates both coalition power and coalit...

Ocado Group

Retail & Technology

Ocado is a technology-focused online grocery retailer and solutions provider. The company operates automated warehouses...

Occidental Petroleum

Oil & Gas

The largest Permian Basin acreage holder produces 800,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day from the formation alone—ter...

Ogilvy & Mather

Advertising

One of the world's largest advertising firms, founded 1850 with modern form established by David Ogilvy in 1948. Ogilvy'...

Okta

Identity Management

Okta provides identity and access management with first-mover advantage in cloud-native identity. Platform economics thr...

Ola (ANI Technologies Pvt. Ltd.)

Mobility & Technology

Ola is India's largest ride-hailing platform, competing with Uber in the Indian market and expanding internationally. Th...

Olympus Corporation (2011 Scandal)

Electronics/Medical

Olympus's 2011 fraud revelation showed the camera maker had hidden $1.7 billion in investment losses for 20 years. CEO M...

OpenAI

Artificial Intelligence

OpenAI demonstrates that Pacific Salmon strategy - grow at all costs, die trying - is correct in exactly 20% of situatio...

+ 6 more

Ø

1 companies

Ørsted

Energy / Renewable

Danish energy company (formerly DONG Energy) that constructed the offshore wind market from scratch. In 2014, CEO Henrik...

P

57 companies

Patagonia

Apparel - Outdoor

Patagonia proves that refusing to grow can be the most radical business strategy of all. Since 1973, founder Yvon Chouin...

Pfizer

Pharmaceuticals

Pfizer achieved the impossible in 2020—partnering with BioNTech in January, investing $2 billion at-risk before approval...

Pixar

Animation & Entertainment

Pixar proves that creativity and structure aren't enemies - they're symbiotic. The most valuable animation studio in his...

PayPal

Financial Technology / Payments

PayPal's story is about strategic focus under pressure. During the 2000 dot-com crash, the company demonstrated what bio...

Philips

Health Technology

Philips transforms through controlled autophagy. The Dutch health technology company generates €18 billion in annual rev...

Pinduoduo

E-commerce

Pinduoduo mastered what Amazon discovered: the same organism can run fundamentally different metabolisms in separate env...

PPG Industries

Materials / Coatings

Glass and coatings company that serves as a cautionary example of knowledge preservation failure. PPG researched chemica...

Procter & Gamble

Consumer Goods

In fiscal 2025, Procter & Gamble generated $84.28 billion in revenue—a 0.29% increase from 2024—and net income of $15.68...

+ 49 more

Q

3 companies

Quibi

Streaming / Entertainment

Quibi raised $1.75 billion - the largest pre-launch funding for a media startup - with Hollywood royalty (Jeffrey Katzen...

Qualcomm

Semiconductors

When mobile phones consumed too much power for x86 chips, Qualcomm's ARM-based processors filled an ecological niche Int...

Qualtrics

Enterprise Software/Experience Management

Ryan Smith and his co-founders built Qualtrics from 2002, creating the 'experience management' category. SAP acquired it...

R

35 companies

Renault

Automotive

French automaker that formed the groundbreaking Renault-Nissan alliance in 1999, investing $5.4B for a 36.8% stake in ne...

Royal FloraHolland

Agriculture / Floriculture

Royal FloraHolland exemplifies niche partitioning and cooperative infrastructure. The world's largest flower auction, ho...

Ratner's Group

Retail/Jewelry

Gerald Ratner destroyed £500 million in shareholder value in April 1991 with a single sentence. Speaking to 6,000 Instit...

Reliance Industries

Conglomerate (Energy, Petrochemicals, Retail, Telecom)

India's largest conglomerate with ₹9 trillion (~$110 billion) revenue demonstrates vertical integration as fractal depth...

Roche Holding AG

Pharmaceuticals/Diagnostics

Roche's $68.3 billion revenue (2024) flows from a mutualistic integration unmatched in pharma: pharmaceuticals ($46.2B)...

Rakuten, Inc.

E-commerce & Technology

Rakuten achieved 2.3 trillion yen consolidated revenue in FY2024 (+10.0% year-over-year, 28th consecutive year of growth...

Reckitt

Consumer Goods

Reckitt mastered corporate autophagy in 2024-2025, executing what most consumer goods companies talk about but rarely de...

Red Bull

Beverages

Red Bull sold 12.7 billion cans in 2024 generating €11.2 billion revenue ($11.7B USD), growth slowing to 4.4% volume and...

+ 27 more

S

102 companies

Spotify

Music Streaming / Technology

When Daniel Ek launched Spotify in Sweden in 2006, record labels viewed streaming as legalized piracy - micro-payments d...

Samsung

Conglomerate (Electronics, Shipbuilding, Insurance, Theme Parks)

Samsung is a $240 billion conglomerate spanning electronics, shipbuilding, life insurance, theme parks, and hotels - 270...

Stripe

Financial Technology / Payments

Stripe made payment integration take seven lines of code instead of six months and $100,000. But that simplicity require...

Shopify

E-commerce Platform & Technology

Shopify started when Tobias Lütke wanted to sell snowboards online and found every platform inadequate. So he built his...

Safaricom / M-Pesa

Mobile Financial Services

Safaricom, Kenya's largest mobile operator, launched M-Pesa ('mobile money') in 2007, creating one of the most successfu...

SAP

Enterprise Software

A €34.18 billion enterprise software organism operates as ecosystem engineer at global scale, where 77% of transaction r...

Sony

Consumer Electronics & Gaming

Sony is a study in contrasts: brilliant at sensing market shifts, vulnerable to breaches of trust. When Kodak failed to...

Starbucks

Coffee Retail

Starbucks' Australian failure represents the definitive case study of the Phenotype Fallacy - copying the visible expres...

+ 94 more

T

49 companies

Toyota

Automotive Manufacturing

Toyota didn't invent the automobile - it built the most imitated operating system in business history. The Toyota Produc...

Taiwan Semiconductor (TSMC)

Semiconductor Manufacturing

TSMC didn't invent semiconductors - it invented trust at scale. When Morris Chang proposed a pure-play foundry in 1987,...

Texas Instruments

Semiconductors

Texas Instruments made a decade-long bet on 300mm wafer manufacturing when competitors hesitated, investing $5-7 billion...

Theranos

Healthcare Technology/Biotech

Theranos raised $700 million, reached a $9 billion valuation, and partnered with Walgreens - all without working technol...

Trattoria Bella Vista

Restaurant

Chicago restaurant that exemplifies catastrophic knowledge transfer failure. Founded 1952, survived 63 years across thre...

Twitter

Social Media

Twitter accidentally built the most powerful positive feedback engine in media history. What started as 'SMS of the inte...

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS)

Technology Services

Tata Consultancy Services crossed $30 billion in revenue for fiscal year 2025 while employing 607,000 consultants across...

Tesla

Automotive / Electric Vehicles

Tesla went all-in on battery electric vehicles in 2008 when every other automaker was hedging. That single strategic bet...

+ 41 more

U

13 companies

Unilever

Consumer Goods & FMCG

Unilever generated €60.8 billion revenue in 2024 ($65.7B USD), up 1.9% with 4.2% underlying sales growth driven by 2.9%...

United Airlines

Aviation

United Airlines solved the hardest communication problem in business - then forgot the lesson when it mattered most. On...

UBS Group AG

Banking

UBS absorbed rival Credit Suisse for CHF 3 billion (March 2023) in a state-brokered rescue, instantly creating a financi...

Ulta Beauty

Beauty Retail

Ulta Beauty's 2024-2025 performance demonstrates resource partitioning mastery—occupying the niche between Sephora's pre...

Under Armour

Athletic Apparel

Under Armour generated $5.7 billion revenue in fiscal 2024, down 3% as the brand retreated from mass-market competition...

UniCredit

Financial Services

UniCredit is an Italian global banking group serving 25 million clients across Europe. The company provides commercial b...

Union Pacific Railroad

Railroad Transportation

Union Pacific operates largest North American railroad network with network effects from route density. Economies of sca...

Uniswap

Cryptocurrency / DeFi

Uniswap v4 launched in late 2024 and processed over $110 billion in trading volume within its first 177 days, achieving...

+ 5 more

V

26 companies

Visa Inc.

Payment Networks / Financial Services

Visa isn't the biggest company in global commerce - it's the mechanism that makes global commerce work. Processing $14 t...

Volkswagen

Automotive

Volkswagen's Dieselgate scandal - 11 million vehicles with emissions-cheating software, $33 billion in fines - wasn't a...

Volocopter

Aerospace / Urban Air Mobility

German electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) developer that filed for insolvency in December 2024, becoming the...

Vale

Mining

Vale is a Brazilian multinational mining corporation and joint venture partner with BHP in the Samarco iron ore mine in...

Veolia Environnement

Environmental Services

Veolia Environnement is a French multinational operating water, waste, and energy services globally. With revenues of €4...

Valeant Pharmaceuticals (Crisis)

Pharmaceuticals

Valeant's 2015 crisis from drug price gouging and distribution fraud demonstrates how financial engineering in pharma cr...

Valero Energy

Refining

Fifteen refineries spanning the United States, Canada, and United Kingdom process 3.2 million barrels per day—metabolic...

Valve Corporation

Gaming

Valve operates Steam gaming platform with first-mover advantage in digital distribution. Platform economics with 120+ mi...

+ 18 more

W

33 companies

Walmart

Retail

Walmart built the most efficient distribution system in retail history, then discovered efficiency has limits. From 38 s...

WeChat

Technology/Social Media/Fintech

The messaging app that ate China - and reorganized an entire economy around its platform. Launched in 2011 by Tencent a...

Warner-Lambert

Pharmaceuticals

Pharmaceutical company acquired by Pfizer in 2000 for $90B. Warner-Lambert had its own established hierarchy with market...

Western Union

Financial Services

Western Union generated $4.1 billion in revenue for 2024 (up 1% on reported basis), but the headline figure masks metabo...

Whole Foods

Organic Grocery Retail

Whole Foods serves as the case study for sexual reproduction in business - specifically, genetic recombination through M...

Wipro Limited

IT Services

Under CEO Srini Pallia since April 2024, Wipro embodies regeneration after prolonged stress. The company spent five year...

Walgreens

Retail Pharmacy

Walgreens' partnership with Theranos reveals how visual credibility signals can override due diligence - with catastroph...

Walt Disney

Entertainment & Media

Disney's combined streaming business turned profitable in Q3 2024, a quarter earlier than projected, after losing more t...

+ 25 more

X

3 companies

Xiaomi

Consumer Electronics

Revenue of RMB365.9 billion in 2024—a 35% surge—caps Xiaomi's metamorphosis from smartphone disruptor to multi-domain ad...

Xero Limited

Software

Xero operates as mycorrhizal network for small business metabolism, connecting 4.2 million subscribers across 180 countr...

Xerox PARC Inventions

Technology

Xerox PARC invented the graphical user interface, mouse, ethernet, and laser printing - then watched others commercializ...

Y

7 companies

Y Combinator

Venture Capital / Startup Accelerator

Y Combinator doesn't just fund startups. It creates resource-sharing networks that function like underground fungal syst...

Yahoo

Internet / Media

In 2008, Microsoft offered $44.6 billion to acquire Yahoo. CEO Jerry Yang said no. In 2017, Verizon bought Yahoo's core...

Yahoo! (Decline)

Internet

Yahoo's decline from most valuable internet company to Verizon salvage sale demonstrates how portal models died when sea...

Yalla Group

Social Media

Yalla Group is a leading voice-centric social networking and entertainment platform in the Middle East and North Africa....

Yara International

Chemicals & Agriculture

The Norwegian state owns 36.2% of a company that does for agriculture what rhizobia bacteria do for legumes: fix atmosph...

YouTube

Video Platform/Technology

Video platform hosting hundreds of millions of videos, enabling micro-niche content where even videos with dozens of vie...

Yum! Brands

Fast Food

Yum! Brands generated $7.55 billion revenue in 2024, up 7% with worldwide system sales growing 8% across 55,000+ restaur...

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1 companies

Ÿnsect

Alternative Protein / AgTech

French insect farming startup that raised over $600 million to produce insect-based protein, placed into judicial liquid...

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15 companies

+ 7 more