
Japan's Oldest Businesses Have Survived for More Than 1,000 Years - Thevet
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/02/japans-oldest-businesses-have-lasted-more-than-a-thousand-years/385396?single_page=true
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crispy2000
Interesting: "The country is currently home to more than 50,000 businesses
that are over 100 years old. Of those, 3,886 have been around for more than
200 years. As a point of comparison, only one in every four U.S. companies
founded in 1994 was still operating in 2004, according to the Bureau of Labor
Statistics."

The "point of comparison" is nothing of the kind. There's no indication of
what ratio of new businesses in Japan survive their first 20 years. Look up
survivor bias.

~~~
matt_s
It should have been written as: "a point of comparison is that all US
businesses aren't older than 239 years." And then something about what US
businesses are older than 100.

They weren't really comparing anything.

~~~
mburns
Wikipedia lists 18 businesses in the US that have been operating since before
1776.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oldest_companies_in_the...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oldest_companies_in_the_United_States)

~~~
vacri
Technically the businesses can be older, but they can't be "US businesses" for
longer than the US existed. That doesn't take away from the spirit of your
point, though.

~~~
derefr
I'm now very curious which companies have managed to survive major ownership
changes in their nation-of-business, and whether there was continuity of
management/shareholdership in those cases or not. Hong Kong would probably be
pretty easy to study for that.

~~~
culturestate
The handover caused very little, if any, disruption to business in Hong Kong.
The city still runs itself for all intents and purposes as an independent
country, just with a new flag on the mast.

~~~
derefr
The most recent handover was minimal, yes. I'm more curious as to whether any
single organization in Hong Kong existed _prior to 1842_ that still exists
today, thus having survived _two_ sovereignty changes.

~~~
culturestate
Macau would probably be a better subject if that's your aim. There was almost
nothing in Hong Kong before the opium wars -- a couple of thousand people in
fishing villages -- but the Portuguese were in Macau for ~400 years.
Unfortunately, I'm not very well versed on the latter.

~~~
kiiski
I imagine that it would be even easier to look at European companies, as there
has been lots of border changes there.

According to a quick search into Finnish companies, the currently oldest one
(Fiskars, founded in 1649) has survived the transitions from Swedish rule to
Russian rule (1809) and to independence (1917). The owners have changed
several times. The oldest one that remained in the same family seems to be
Frenckells printshop, which survived from 1642 to 2008.

------
emptybits
Re/ "family business.."

"Unlike in the U.S., where most adoptees are children, 98 percent of Japan’s
adoptees are 25-to-30-year-old men."

Why? "In Japan, a 2011 study found, businesses run by adopted heirs
consistently outperformed those run by blood heirs."

~~~
kelukelugames
What does it mean in Japanese culture to adopt someone who in their 20s?

~~~
mikekchar
The other comment is correct, but I thought I would just point out a few
important differences in the concept of "family" in Japan than in... well
probably almost everywhere else.

Legally, "family" means that you are listed on the koseki. As far as I know,
every Japanese citizen must be listed in a koseki. Your family name is
dependent upon the koseki. When I got married to my Japanese wife, she decided
to use my name and since I am a foreigner we had to create a new koseki for
our family. I could just have easily have changed my name to her family name
and joined her family's koseki. I didn't read the linked article, but I
suspect that is what they are referring to as "adoption".

I suppose it is adoption in a way since the person is joining the family, but
when you get married one person or the other has to move to the other koseki.
Usually the woman moves, but there are many reasons why a man might be invited
to join the woman's family instead. The obvious one is that the family has no
male children and therefore nobody to continue the family (if all the female
children get married and join other koseki). Other reasons can include things
like the man being an orphan and wanting to join the other family (this is the
case of a friend of mine).

Note that gay and lesbian couples have hacked the koseki to have a form of
marriage. One of them simply "adopts" the other. Then they are in the same
koseki and legally in the same family. I don't know the details, but I don't
think this affords all the benefits of marriage, but I think it gets you quite
close.

The koseki is quite strange when you first get exposed to it, but it is really
a simple legal instrument. There are definite problems, but for the vast
majority of Japanese people it works quite well. The main problems are related
to non-citizens. For example, in my case if I were to divorce from my wife, I
would revert to a state where I was not on any koseki. This would essentially
remove a whole raft of rights that I have when I am on a koseki. You basically
aren't a legal person unless you are on a koseki. If I had children, for
instance, if I got divorced my wife would automatically get custody because I
would not legally be able to take custody, not being a person. There are
apparently some reforms coming down the pipe to handle these corner cases, but
like I said the system works quite well for the vast majority of Japanese
citizens.

~~~
mahranch
> if I got divorced my wife would automatically get custody because I would
> not legally be able to take custody, not being a person.

This isn't true. You're still considered a person but you're not considered a
_citizen_. Big difference. Koseki does not (nor should it) grant you the same
rights as a naturalized citizen of Japan. Becoming a naturalized citizen
(through citizinship) is a step which you (or anyone else who qualifies) can
take if you want, but it takes a bit of time (same length as becoming a
citizen in the U.S, ~10 years).

In your comment, you don't differentiate being a naturalized citizen of Japan
and a koseki. But there's a _huge_ difference. A koseki is something different
and apart from becoming a naturalized citizen. It _shouldn 't_ grant you the
same rights if you're a foreigner, it wasn't meant too.

~~~
mikekchar
You are correct :-) I was careless in the way I wrote. I did not mean to imply
that being on the koseki imparted citizenship. It does not, and you are
correct to point out that there is a big difference. What I meant is than in
many areas of the law, you are literally not a legal person if you are not on
the koseki. They just have no way of dealing with you. Family law is the most
obvious place where this occurs, but there are some others a well. Basically,
if the law is written to look at the juuminhyou (essentially your registered
address), then as a foreigner you are good to go. If it is writen to look at
the koseki, unless you are married, you are going to hit a brick wall. Unless,
the law has changed very recently (and I know that they were planning to
change it), the example I gave (custody in divorce) is a classic example.
There is no way that a Japanese judge can grant custody of children to someone
who is not on a koseki somewhere because it is legally impossible to do so.
Where I was wrong was to say that this is a right. It is not a right (and as a
foreigner living in any country you have to get used to the fact that you have
a lot less rights than a citizen). It is a consequence of the way the law is
written. Still, I can tell you that the difference between when I was living
in Japan before I had my name on that piece of paper and after is quite large.
Even better is to start a corporation as you then have an entity that you
control that is recognized as a legal person (houjin). But that is way off
topic...

------
yourapostasy
As others have pointed out, comparing a ratio of companies closing over a
period in the US with absolute numbers of companies older than N years in
Japan is not very useful. There is a listing of oldest companies in the United
States on Wikipedia [1] that shows companies still operating since 1819 (83 by
this count). Well over two orders of magnitude difference for the 100 year
mark, and for the 200 year mark.

I do not believe that longevity ceteris paribus is an unalloyed desirable
trait. Rather, it increasingly becomes a necessary tool as the scope of our
technology and modeling power increases, and the ability to build and
consistently, successfully sustain multi-generational business focus to
address increasingly complex market demands in the future becomes the hallmark
of a significant sector of growth in that future (for certain values of
"growth").

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oldest_companies_in_the...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oldest_companies_in_the_United_States)

------
photonic27
It's a good old ax. Three new heads and two new handles, but it's a good old
ax.

------
mazsa
My favourite 1,146 years old Japanese story:
[http://articles.latimes.com/print/2012/mar/11/opinion/la-
oe-...](http://articles.latimes.com/print/2012/mar/11/opinion/la-oe-holguin-
veras-tsunami-20120311)

------
ekianjo
Several issues with the article:

\- The first comparison between US and Japan businesses, as mentioned by other
folks, does not make sense.

\- I would not call "businesses" a enterprise that remains small for like 500
years (i.e. just a couple of folks). None of the businesses they refer to
actually made it to becoming large corporations. This is more related to
craftsmanship than anything else, and what made it possible for the line to
continue is partly because of the adoption solution as mentioned in the
article. I'd rather call that a "surviving tradition" than an actual business.

\- Building buddhist temples back in 500's was not a sure way to earn a
living. This was not the main religion in Japan then, and it was still the
early beginnings of its introduction in a largely Shintoist country. Again,
this is survivor bias from whoever wrote the article.

------
romaniv
If the new trend (towards old companies collapsing) is described correctly, it
is pretty sad. I think that a large part of why people open businesses as
opposed to just doing 9-to-5 is the desire to make a long-term impact.
Something that lasted 500 years seems like a much better candidate for this
than a hyper-successful company that collapses after 5.

~~~
jjoonathan
Is the 500 year company a dream that keeps getting better and better or is it
a dream that turns into a nightmare for the people who would otherwise disrupt
it?

------
xanderstrike
For the curious, here [1] is a non-authoritative list of some of the companies
in the US that are 200+ years old.

1\.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oldest_companies_in_the...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oldest_companies_in_the_United_States)

------
ezl
This is probably an unpopular opinion, but I don't care about creating
businesses that last 1000 years.

I have no idea what 100 years from now is going to look like, much less 1000
years.

That isn't to say that I am looking for 1 year, in and out, flip acquisition
companies but optimizing for the "way way after I'm dead" timeline is equally
ludicrous to me.

I care most about whats going to happen in my human lifetime. If I can create
something that persists 1000 years, great, but that's not really important to
me.

~~~
kagamine
I don't think the point was to look ahead at your legacy but to look back and
see what we can learn. Japan is interesting in this respect as it is a nation
that has a long and generally stable history. I remember reading in the
Guardian when the tsunami happened about a coastal town wit a shrine up a hill
and a story the townspeople told about going not to the hill over there during
the tsunami of 1000 years ago, but to the less obvious vantage point where the
shrine was. Turns out this 1000 year old oral record saved a lot of lives, 2
tsunamis a millennium apart and an unchanging landscape.

Although what this tells us about how to run an inn for 1300 years I'm not
sure.

------
mathattack
“The continuity component is surely helped by the custom of adopting (adult)
sons to carry on the business, displacing ‘natural’ sons when direct progeny
are not viewed as suitable,”

I have a Japanese friend that's part of a 400 year lineage of monks. He's
expected to go back and be the head monk when he turns 50. Unfortunately he
only has daughters. This little loophole could help him keep the lineage
going.

------
saganus
While interesting, I think journalists should try to avoid doing comparisons
that are meaningless.

I stumbled upon:

"...Of those, 3,886 have been around for more than 200 years. As a point of
comparison, only one in every four U.S. companies founded in 1994 was still
operating in 2004..."

What is the relevance there? To me it sounds as useful as saying "as a point
of comparison, only two in every 6 companies founded in 1978 where still open
in 1986". Why that range? how does a company opened up in 1994 and closed in
2004 have to do with the 200-year companies? Wouldn't it be more useful to say
"as comparison, only 4 US companies are 200-year old or more"?

Did I miss something here?

~~~
precisioncoder
I agree, in fact to go even further the upper limit would also have to be
specified. For example 3886 of the 1000000 companies founded in the past 1500
years in Japan have survived giving a 0.3886% survival rate. Since we have no
idea how many companies were founded, the survival rate is completely unknown.
It would be better to compare a country with a similar age such as China if
they want to make an interesting comparison.

------
discordance
There's a short documentary on this Ryokan on Vimeo:
[https://vimeo.com/114879061](https://vimeo.com/114879061)

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vince_refiti
Some religious institutions have been owning and leasing out property for
centuries.

------
IndianAstronaut
Imagine if those companies had pursued a policy of innovation and
technological progress from the start.

~~~
wmf
They probably would have suffered from creative destruction and not survived
for hundreds of years. Maintaining innovation over multiple technology
generations is a unicorn's unicorn.

------
JohnLen
In business, we need to accommodate to the changes and needs of the customers.
By just sitting in the same comfort zone will eventually lead you to nowhere
and risks of losing customers to other new and innovative businesses.

------
MatthewWilkes
I have to say, I find it rather strange that this is worthy of mention. I'm
sure all European countries have business entities that sort of age. I'm fact,
I've had two clients in the last year that are over 900 years old.

~~~
jpatokal
The top 6 oldest companies in the world are all Japanese. A brash European
upstart, namely an Austrian restaurant founded in 803, sneaks in at #7.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oldest_companies](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oldest_companies)

Note that all lists of this kind have to be taken with a fistful of salt
though, since usually the claims are along the lines of "this ancient document
written in the year X mentions that there's an inn next to the hot spring;
there is still an inn next to the hot spring; therefore _this_ inn has been
operating here since X".

~~~
msh
I wonder how good that list is. The oldest danish company it lists is Munke
Mølle from 1135 but it have actually only been a private company since 1881,
before that it belonged to the state and earlier it belonged to the catholic
church so I am wondering if the rest of the list is just as faulty.

