if all companies grow slowly, that puts a cap on the maximum growth of the overall economy.
Yes, but not a meaningful one. For the purposes of this discussion, "slow growth" is anything under 100% per year.
I'd love to see some numbers on companies that are big but got there slowly. I suspect it doesn't happen
Interesting. I don't have any data, and I'm failing at finding any right now, but I think of Coca-Cola as being a company which reached its current size primarily through steady growth. I'm sure there are large pharmaceutical and chemical companies which have had slow growth curves -- while any one product may have a sharp growth curve, the company as a whole won't. Insurance companies and banks also tend to grow slowly, and of course Berkshire Hathaway is an example, with a highest ever Y/Y growth rate of 59.3%.
I suspect there's a certain amount of observation bias: Companies which grow slowly are boring, so we don't think about them.
All good points. I tried to find some useful data online, but I was surprised how hard it is to find a graph of revenue of a publicly traded company. All sorts of other metrics are available, just not revenue and profit. (let alone inflation-adjusted)
Yes, but not a meaningful one. For the purposes of this discussion, "slow growth" is anything under 100% per year.
I'd love to see some numbers on companies that are big but got there slowly. I suspect it doesn't happen
Interesting. I don't have any data, and I'm failing at finding any right now, but I think of Coca-Cola as being a company which reached its current size primarily through steady growth. I'm sure there are large pharmaceutical and chemical companies which have had slow growth curves -- while any one product may have a sharp growth curve, the company as a whole won't. Insurance companies and banks also tend to grow slowly, and of course Berkshire Hathaway is an example, with a highest ever Y/Y growth rate of 59.3%.
I suspect there's a certain amount of observation bias: Companies which grow slowly are boring, so we don't think about them.