If a company is old, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s antiquated or out of date in any way. But it also doesn’t have to indicate its credibility. Actually, the age itself doesn’t present any value at all. However, we can suspect one thing – if a certain company managed to survive for a long time, it may mean that they’ve actually been doing something the right way.

Of course I’m not going to tell you how you can make your business last for centuries – I’d have to be a prophet or a charlatan to do this. Besides, who’s really interested in all those centuries? All we may expect is to make our business work well for us and to leave it in good condition for our children. We don’t care what will happen 5 or 10 generations later. We’ll be already gone, buried and forgotten (sorry for saying it so directly, but that’s just the truth).

Anyway, instead of advising, I’d like to do some analyzing. Let’s get a closer look on some examples of those businesses that are really, really old.

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