The Forever Company

Technology can help us build things that last a long time

Will Murphy
2 min readJan 18, 2018

Blockchain technologies are allowing us to create the first “forever companies”. Or a better term may be “forever ecosystems” or “forever networks”.

The lifetime of a centralized firm

Let’s set aside startups for a moment. We all know they are innovation machines that will likely burn brightly and often have short lifespans. Fortune 500 companies are our stable, bulwarks of dependability. So, let’s look at them.

According to Credit Suisse, the average lifespan of an S&P company has fallen from over 60 years to below 20 years today.

Average lifespan of an S&P 500 company

Source: Technology killing off corporate America: Average life span of companies under 20 years https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/24/technology-killing-off-corporations-average-lifespan-of-company-under-20-years.html

Decentralized lifespans

Now, let’s speculate on the potential lifetime a digital commons blockchain solution. As long as company partners and nodes exist, the…

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