{"id":259011,"date":"2026-05-29T13:09:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-29T17:09:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/29\/how-new-technology-created-a-special-generation-of-companies\/"},"modified":"2026-05-29T15:20:36","modified_gmt":"2026-05-29T19:20:36","slug":"how-new-technology-created-a-special-generation-of-companies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/29\/how-new-technology-created-a-special-generation-of-companies\/","title":{"rendered":"How New Technology Created a Special Generation of Companies"},"content":{"rendered":"

How New Technology Created a Special Generation of Companies<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.chicagobooth.edu\/review\/2026\/may\/how-new-technology-created-special-generation-companies<\/a><\/p>\n

Publish Date: 2026-05-29 13:09:00<\/a><\/p>\n

Source Domain: www.chicagobooth.edu<\/a><\/p>\n

Narrator: <\/strong>Today, the largest 1,000 US companies generate nearly half of US private-sector output, giving them enormous influence over the economy and our daily lives. Their size and staying power raise a question: Can any company become a superstar business or are other external conditions beyond a company\u2019s control needed in order to reach a level of dominance?<\/p>\n

Yueran Ma: <\/strong>In this research, we hope to understand the life stories and the evolution of the largest American companies.<\/p>\n

Narrator: <\/strong>That\u2019s Chicago Booth\u2019s, Yueran Ma. She and her coauthors pieced together records from the largest companies stretching back more than a century.<\/p>\n

Yueran Ma: <\/strong>First of all, we need to know what these largest companies are\u2014not just for now, but also over time. Right now, if you want to find out about the largest American companies, you can look up, for example, the Fortune 1000 list on the internet. And the Fortune list started in 1955. So that gives about half a century of coverage. But we also wanted to know the largest American companies going back further\u2014and the earliest list we can find so far is the largest 500 American companies in 1917. And then once we know who they are, we want to look up their stories. We want to know when they were founded in particular. And for that, we first look up companies\u2019 websites. Many companies, about 90 percent of the largest US companies now, have company history websites dedicated to tell their story\u2014when they were founded and for what reason.<\/p>\n

Narrator: <\/strong>In manufacturing, a clear pattern stands out. Many of today\u2019s largest US companies were founded between 1880 and 1920. The same cohort dominated the rankings in the 1950s, and even in 1917, when those leaders were only about 30 years old on average. Today they\u2019re roughly a century old. This special generation has persisted even as the specific names at the top have changed.<\/p>\n

Yueran Ma: <\/strong>Among the largest 500 US manufacturers in 1955,…<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How New Technology Created a Special Generation of Companies https:\/\/www.chicagobooth.edu\/review\/2026\/may\/how-new-technology-created-special-generation-companies Publish Date: 2026-05-29 13:09:00 Source…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":259012,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.chicagobooth.edu\/-\/media\/project\/chicago-booth\/chicago-booth-review\/2026\/may\/chicago-booth-special-companies.jpg?w=1920&h=800&hash=7A06FDE8E9CF42614863BD882C2AF43D","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-259011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259011"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=259011"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259011\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":259013,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259011\/revisions\/259013"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/259012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=259011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=259011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=259011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}