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EUIJEONG HWANG's avatar

The Lindy framing is neat, but survivorship bias is doing some quiet lifting here too — the graveyard of 200-year-old companies that didn’t make this list isn’t in the chart.

Compounding Quality's avatar

Correct, but that’s exactly the point of the lindy effect: the companies mentioned in this list are very likely to stay around for the next few decades going forward.

Mark Pizzini's avatar

I like the Lindy affect concept, kind of like Terry Smith’s the winners keep winning approach. I believe Pharmaceuticals used to be in the Lindy class but not today. Pharma revenue streams end with certainty when patents expire so they must make very large uncertain investments in R&D to discover and develop new medicines that can meet the always rising bar for marketplace acceptance. Remember, when a great drug goes off patent, a new drug must be significantly better for it to be approved and reimbursed by Insurance. These structural dynamics make Pharma one of the most challenging businesses to run.