The Greatest Invention

How Inventions Happen

Inventors create inventions; the process to do so is called innovation. If you search the internet, there are countless lists of the greatest inventions ever. The one thing all lists have in common is non have the Company as a great invention.

Many books try to detail how innovation works. It's an iterative process driven by human desire. A desire for food, water, shelter, security, and happiness. People have tried to explain how individuals, groups, or companies innovate. It's always some combination of lots of iteration, creativity, and determination.

Innovations are valuable when they solve problems for people. The bigger and more common the problem, the better the innovation. Some inventions take days or weeks to come to life, while others take decades or centuries. Future inventions are made possible by today's, and today's are only made possible by yesterday's inventions. It's an intricate web of human genius that all works together. Each invention builds on the previous one, spinning the wheel of innovation, constantly creating more for everyone.

Ask a person who the greatest inventors are. They will surely name a person like Edison, Gutenberg, Ford, Jobs, or Musk. They will always list a person and never a Company. This is an interesting phenomenon that kind of makes sense. Remembering a person is easier because we relate to them. But here's the thing. No matter the invention, no matter the inventor, no inventor would be remembered if the invention wasn't brought into the world and sold to billions of people. And in order to do that, Companies are required. So a Company is a vehicle, like a car, that brings all other inventions to life.

The Invention Machine

Companies are not natural; we invented them. We invented them to motivate people to make goods and services without the fear of death or ruin. Before the modern company, you stood to lose everything, gain fairly little, and face death if you tried to invent something in the world. And so, we didn't invent much for a very long time (thousands of years). There was an overwhelming problem in ancient times—people wanted a better life—and no single person was capable of making everything everyone wanted. The invention was simple in hindsight: people needed to be rewarded for inventing and protected for taking risks.

There are thousands of types of Companies today. But the original Company, in its purest form, had two unique innovations: Joint Ownership and Limited Liability. Combined, these two ideas are the foundation for all future Companies.

Companies Make Everything

Many people work for governments. Governments provide law and order to citizens of towns, cities, and states. No matter where you go on Earth, the majority of citizens of any country work for a Company. Most work for Small to Medium-sized businesses. The Companies they work for provide an endless, always-growing number of goods and services. So you could say that Companies are what provide food, shelter, security, and joy to everyone on the planet.

Look around you. Everything that surrounds you, everything that you need to survive, raise your kids, and be happy is made by a Company. From your home to the parks you play in, to children's medicine—it's all made by Companies. Without Companies, our way of life would not exist. Without Companies, many of us surely would not be alive. While each Company may not invent what they sell, they distribute it to the people. And inventions don't matter if no one uses them.

Why People Hate Companies

From the time of the Merchant Kings and the dawn of Companies, Companies have done terrible things. Companies have raised armies to murder and enslave people in the name of growth. Companies have destroyed cities, countries, and entire environments in the pursuit of profit. The list of bad things Companies have done is long.

It is not simply that Companies do bad things. Companies have also done the most good in the world. Companies have given everyone food, water, clothing, housing, and medicine. We don't hate the person who invents knives because of the number of stabbings in the world. We don't hate the person who invented electricity because it's used to commit most crimes. We don't hate the inventor of cars because they transport all criminals.

The modern disgust for Companies comes from envy. People are naturally envious of those who have more—more money, more power, more happiness. And Companies were invented with one purpose: to produce more for people. When we see others obtaining more, we're envious. And when we see Companies generating more money, it makes us envious. But here's the problem: they are not making money because they are evil. They are making it because they created something that is valuable. So why don't we love that?

The Need for Companies

We idolize athletes, artists, and musicians despite the huge amounts of money they make. We do this because we enjoy what they create. We wear their jerseys, we stand in lineups to view their work, and we pay ridiculous amounts to see Taylor Swift perform. Yet we hate Companies for creating and selling more of what people want. A hate that comes from envy. The fault is not with Companies; it's within you.

Companies create, and creation is the purpose of life. You can create anything you want - family, art, music, iPhone, machines, software - just create. In a free world, people can create whatever they want within the rule of law. It is not for a single individual to judge the creation, for judgement comes from envy, and envy is the enemy of joy.

Our lives don't get better with less. They get better with more. More better shelter, more better health care, more better food, etc.

It used to be that we were proud when someone got a good job at a good company. We use to praise the men and women that made our cars, cured our diseases, and built our homes. Now we call them evil. We need to build monuments to them, we need to celebrate them, we need to encourage our children do create more.

Create more Companies, so they can create more goods and services, so more people can be happier and happier.

Notes

• A Brief History of Corporate From and Why it Matters - " Take a brief moment to look around at your surroundings. Ask yourself, "how much of the 'stuff' in the room is directly or indirectly related to a corporation?" 150 years ago, the answer would have been very little. But today, there can be no doubt that corporations are intimately involved in all aspects of our lives. In light of that fact, it is appropriate to consider: (1) why we have corporations; (2) where they come from; and (3) how they will impact our future."
• A Brief History of Corporations and a more in-depth examination can be found in Power Inc - The epic rivalry between Big Business and Government
• The Company: A Short history of a Revolutionary Idea - "With apologies to Hegel, Marx, and Lenin, the basic unit of modern society is neither the state, nor the commune, nor the party; it is the company. From this bold premise, John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge chart the rise of one of history's great catalysts for good and evil."
• Merchant Kings: When companies ruled the world - "It was an era when monopoly trading companies were the unofficial agents of European expansion, controlling vast numbers of people and huge tracts of land, and taking on governmental and military functions. They managed their territories as business interests, treating their subjects as employees, customers or competitors. The leaders of these trading enterprises exercised virtually unaccountable, dictatorial political power over millions of people."
• Woke Inc - Where Companies have gone wrong in modern times. How they have strayed from their original design. And why people have a distaste for them. A analysis of where peoples negative perceptions and Envy come from.
• A helpful visual of the size of 20 most powerful companies of all time.