Friday, September 19, 2003

The Lifespan of a Company. From The Living Company by Arie De Geus The average life expectancy of a multinational corporation-Fortune 500 or its equivalent-is between 40 and 50 years. This figure is based on most surveys of corporate births and deaths. A full one-third of the companies listed in the 1970 Fortune 500, for instance, had vanished by 1983-acquired, merged, or broken to pieces.1 Human beings have learned to survive, on aver-age, for 75 years or more, but there are very few companies that are that old and flourishing. I'll bet the lifespans of companies forms a power curve, not a normal distribution. 2:15:58 AM