The year is 1602.
The Western world is obsessed with the spices of the east, but the voyages are risky and expensive.
That confluence of risk, scale, and need is where the world's first public company was born.
Let's talk about it:
The East India Companies.
There were several East India Companies, but the two worth focusing on are the British East India Company (BEIC) and the Dutch one, named Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie (VOC).
BEIC was the first major joint stock venture, formed in 1600.
VOC was the world's first public company. After forming in 1602 they issued equity and debt to the public.
The modern public company was truly born with them.
VOC also had a sweet logo!
Everything we know - both the love and the hate - of modern public companies and capitalism generally can generally be traced back to these companies.
At the time, ventures to send ships into the great sprawling journey to East Asia were generally one time in nature. You put money in, they went, and you either got a nice pay out or you got nothing.
Feels like an NFT project!
But I digress...
In order to ensure better profits, they formed what was essentially a cartel.
In 1600 resources were pooled into the British East India Company. This allowed investors to control supply, and also bet on multiple trips at once.
Far less boom and bust.
Think of it as an ETF.
In 1602, partly in response to the British EIC, and partially in response to the Spanish desire for control of the trade (Spain was a superpower at the time), the Dutch government pulled together disparate national entities into a single form: the Dutch East India Company.
What it is that they wanted?
Nutmeg. Mace. Cloves.
And money. Always money. A single voyage returning with these spices could yield a 400% return.
And they got it.
The VOC is considered to be the largest company to have ever existed, rivaled only by their contemporary, the British East India Company.
In modern terms...
These companies had money, power, and armies that were bigger than their home country's.
I'd note that those armies were not always used well.
In fact, they weren't often used quite poorly...
Beyond doing things like controlling large parts of India, the East India Companies engaged in fun shenanigans such as outright war.
The Anglo-Dutch Wars were fought over these trade routes.
In fact, there were four Anglo-Dutch wars.
FOUR.
(We're so mature.)
But like pretty much every great enterprise, it didn't last forever. The VOC lasted until 1799, or a nearly 200 year run as an enormous and dominant enterprise.
Not bad VOC. Not bad at all.
The BEIC lasted until closer to 1858, but eventually fell as well.
Their legacies however, live on.
They defined what a modern corporation could be. Either through private joint ventures or through public offerings. Their organizational structures, their ambitions, their scale, echo into the modern world.
It even echoes on through the art. In this case, another collab between me and the prolific @degenpoet.
The birth of the public company came from a desire to sail ships and collect some nutmeg. The birth of this map is from DegenPoet being brilliant.
exchange.art/single/97UKiXcoWhUokUzc5PHTHPSEsH3JcXdKnv72xsinGwjF