The Study of Asian Tycoons

Cedric Chin recently started a series on The Study of Asian Tycoons. How are Asian conglomerates different from Western businesses?

[…] Asian conglomerates are useful to study because they represent an older form of business still present in Europe and the West — if only less prominent. Notable Western conglomerates of this type include Koch Industries, Mars, Incorporated, LVMH, the Wallenberg family businesses (with a holding company hilariously named Investor AB), the Burkard-Schenker family, which owns chemicals conglomerate Sika, the Graham Holdings Company (formerly the Washington Post company), and the Ochs-Sulzberger family, which controls the New York Times Company, which in turn holds a variety of (mostly) media businesses.

In the late 2010s, a typical Western founder will say that they intend to build the next Google, or Facebook. In the 1980s, they might say Xerox, or Kodak. Far fewer from any period will say that their goal is to build a diversified family-controlled holding company with interests in a variety of industries, such that the conglomerate may persist over generations, through recession and war and general geopolitical instability. And yet some do aim to do exactly that, and they accomplish it.

By studying these different business environments and the factors that drive them, we can expand our own conceptions of what is possible and how things might be achieved.

The rest of the article touches on a few Asian tycoons, how they started and expanded.

If you want more, the Acquired podcast would be a good complement to this line of inquiry.