The East India Companies: The Firms That Invented the Stock Market and Ruled Half the World
The British East India Company and the Dutch VOC were not just trading firms. They invented the share, the stock exchange, and permanent capital, ran private armies bigger than those of nation-states, governed millions of people — and in the end both collapsed under corruption, debt, and their own hubris. This is the story of the birth of the modern corporation, the first 'too big to fail' bailout in 1773, and why the myth of 'the VOC worth $7.9 trillion' doesn't add up.
