It’s a major part of why we have anti-trust law, because the country knew where it would all go.
If you look at the top 10 companies by market cap every decade, you'll see the churn in them. The lineup in 1910:
• United States Steel Corporation • Standard Oil Company • American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T) • Union Pacific Railroad / Pennsylvania Railroad • International Mercantile Marine Co. • American Tobacco Company • U.S. Rubber Co. • Central Leather Company • Amalgamated Copper Mining Company
And today:
1. Nvidia – ~$4.57 trillion 2. Apple Inc. (AAPL) – ~$4.04 trillion 3. Alphabet Inc. (GOOGL / GOOG) – ~$3.79 trillion 4. Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) – ~$3.63 trillion 5. Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) – ~$2.70 trillion 6. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC / 2330.TW) – ~$2.14 trillion 7. Meta Platforms Inc. (META) – ~$1.81 trillion 8. Broadcom Inc. (AVGO) – ~$1.57 trillion 9. Tesla Inc. (TSLA) – ~$1.40 trillion 10. Eli Lilly and Co. (LLY) – ~$1.18 trillion
US Steel - down because of deindustrialization, but it's still big
Standard Oil - broken up almost immediately by antitrust law
AT&T - also split by antitrust lawsuit, but then bought back the split companies and it's big again
Union Pacific - lost the top position because BN (from BNSF) bought more railroads than them, but it's still the second. It's also kind of hard to grow if you have to build rail tracks... in US.
Pennsylvania Railroad - failed to compete with interstate highways built in 30s and jet airlines starting from 60s when their main revenue was declining industrial heavy freight.
International Mercantile Marine Co. - might be a valid example
American Tobacco Company - broken by antitrust laws
U.S. Rubber Co. - I don't think they were that big in 1910. There were a lot of competitors.
Central Leather Company - ran out of leather and the investors liquidated the company to buy oil and gas shares instead
Amalgamated Copper Mining Company - ran out of copper.
https://www.charts.fyi/market-cap-evolution
What happened to Sears? IBM? etc.
The idea that giant companies grow to take over the world doesn't fit the data.
Musk showed that to be wrong.