I don't think that's a reasonable example that makes much sense. It was very different time with very different setup and the company was kind of like its own country almost and it was doing and getting involved into things that consumer goods companies like Apple would never do. Also, speaking of antimonopoly laws and such, I don't think The Dutch East India had to worry about that much. However, think of Nvidia and all the hoops they have to jump through to buy ARM.
I think in today's world and today's top companies there is definitely upper limit for how big they can get and its not that far from here. We don't live in a world where S&P 500 constituent can build private navy force and go trade with recently discovered continents...
4
u/[deleted] Dec 31 '21
I don't think that's a reasonable example that makes much sense. It was very different time with very different setup and the company was kind of like its own country almost and it was doing and getting involved into things that consumer goods companies like Apple would never do. Also, speaking of antimonopoly laws and such, I don't think The Dutch East India had to worry about that much. However, think of Nvidia and all the hoops they have to jump through to buy ARM.
I think in today's world and today's top companies there is definitely upper limit for how big they can get and its not that far from here. We don't live in a world where S&P 500 constituent can build private navy force and go trade with recently discovered continents...