ABSTRACT

I n 1917, Forbes published its rst list of the one hundred most valuable companies. Here we are, almost a century later, and only een of those companies still exist (with several of them struggling mightily to endure troubled conditions). One company, U.S. Steel, which in 1917 towered above the other hundred companies, with three times the holdings of the second company on the list, today has an adjusted value just one-h of its 1917 value. True, it has entered its second century of doing business, an impressive accomplishment, whereas eighty-ve of the one hundred were acquired, went bankrupt, or otherwise sank to the bottom of the corporate sea. Still, U.S. Steel’s once tremendous might has ebbed, as it employs less than one-h the number of people it did in 1917.