How 16 Of The Oldest Companies On Earth Have Been Making Money For Centuries

Most companies live between 40 and 50 years.

So there must be something about the businesses that have persisted for 300, 500, or 1,300 years.

When we dove into the data on the world's oldest companies, a few themes became clear - like that people have wanted to eat food, get drunk, learn things, and maybe kill each other once in a while for a really long time.

Here's a list of companies with timelines that dwarf that of the U.S. itself, because startups have lots to learn from their elders.