Every time a wave of technology arrives, the company chair moves quietly
A company does not sink only after it falls into the red; it can begin to look old while still in the black. Even when the financial statements are still in order and the employees are working busily, the chairs in the conference room can somehow look cold.
What is scary is perhaps not the news of bankruptcy, but the fact that the reasons why you were chosen until yesterday are quietly expiring. It is not that someone announces the end in a loud voice, but that the customer's gaze simply shifts to a slightly more advanced era. The people there are still working, but the meaning of how they work is fading away first.
I think the Industrial Revolution is not just a beautiful story of technological progress. It is also a record of how, alongside new machines and systems, the chairs of companies that continued to sit on old ways of winning were gradually pulled back.
Under the chimney, manual work becomes thinner
In the First Industrial Revolution, steam engines and mechanized spinning machines changed the sounds of factories into something different from before. Boulton & Watt turned power itself into a business, bringing factory time closer to the rhythm of machines rather than human hands. There, not only were technologies invented, but the very places where people worked were moved from homes and workshops into large buildings.
In cotton textile factories, work that had been carved out little by little by human hands was rearranged to match the speed of machines. Factories like Quarry Bank Mill created the scenery that made England known as the workshop of the world, weaving the nation's power into cotton threads.
However, outside those bright windows, the shadows of weavers who had lost their jobs were also quietly stretching. The sound of machines being broken during the Luddite movement was less about mere anger and more like the sound of yesterday's skills suddenly losing their price tag. Behind the word 'convenience,' someone's pride was losing its place.
The factory system had both a face that enriched people and a face that rearranged them into lines. People gathered in cities, and the distance between capitalists and workers gradually became visible under the chimneys.
The more the tracks extend, the larger the company becomes
In the Second Industrial Revolution, electricity, steel, oil, and railroads changed the size and weight of companies all at once. Companies ceased to be just places to make products and became giant creatures that encompassed raw materials, transportation, and sales. Every time tracks were laid, lights were turned on, and oil flowed, the company chair moved from a small office closer to the center of the nation.
Carnegie Steel connected everything from iron ore to steel, grasping the very framework of industry. Standard Oil dominated oil refining widely, attempting to regulate even the breathing of the market in the name of efficiency.
Vanderbilt's railroads changed not only the map but also the flow of corporate power. Henry Ford's assembly line pushed the automobile from a luxury for a few into a daily tool running through the streets. There, making things fast meant delivering them cheaply, and delivering them cheaply expanded the market itself.
In Germany, Krupp, Siemens, and Bayer increased the thickness of steel, electrical machinery, and chemicals. Even if the names of the technologies were different, it was an era when the power of the nation rose from the chimneys and laboratories of companies.
However, other eyes eventually began to turn toward companies that had become too large. The fact that Standard Oil was broken up in 1911 shows that strength is not necessarily allowed to continue as is. The hand that organized the market can sometimes create the market's own suffocation.
Inside the screen, the throne changes hands
In the Third Industrial Revolution, computers on desks began to move the era more than factory smoke. Semiconductors, software, and the internet changed the way companies won from the size of their factories to occupying space within screens.
IBM was strong in the era of mainframes, but it lost its footing a bit in the wave of PCs. The stronger a company is, the more carefully it holds onto its previous way of winning, making it difficult to notice that the next entrance is open to the side. The throne of yesterday can become a chair that is a bit uncomfortable to sit in during the next era.
Microsoft captured the workplace screen with Windows, and Apple reclaimed the time in our palms with the iPhone. Google and Amazon quietly inserted search, shopping, and the cloud into the depths of daily life, capturing the entrance to human behavior.
In Japan, Sony, Toyota, and Panasonic supported the scenery of high economic growth for a long time. Factory quality and on-site improvements created the expression of Japanese companies visible to the world. However, the digital wave was not kind enough to wait just on the memory of past quality.
Kodak was caught by the memory of photography, and Nokia and BlackBerry were late to the changes in the palm of our hands. The names AOL and Yahoo still retain the scent of when they were the entrance to the internet.
However, the entrance is not always in the same place. The door to search moved to Google, the aisles for shopping stretched to Amazon, and the maps on our screens were quietly rewritten. It is not so much that famous companies of the past disappeared, but rather that the places where people enter have gradually shifted to other companies.
Beside AI, old maps fade away
In the Fourth Industrial Revolution, AI is not issuing flashy commands, but is beginning to sit quietly beside our daily decisions. In conference rooms, drafts of documents are presented first, and in factories, sensor data has begun to signal anomalies faster than humans can.
In places where people used to look and then think, predictions are now being placed first. Before anyone can make a fuss about jobs being stolen, the entrance to work shifts just a little toward the machines. The contours of a company are beginning to be measured not by buildings or equipment, but by how quickly they can read the signs of change.
GAFA and Microsoft have become even larger entities while continuing to invest in data, cloud, and AI. The center of the market has shifted from factory sites to places where data gathers and AI operates.
Alongside them, traditional manufacturing and energy companies are rebuilding their foundations. Automobiles can no longer be discussed solely in terms of engines, and energy can no longer be measured solely by fuel. Parts and equipment that were strengths yesterday are being reinterpreted in a different map today.
Japanese companies are also moving while changing their positions, such as Toyota's EVs and AI cars, and Sony's entertainment and sensors. However, global competitors do not wait, and there are increasing instances where yesterday's strengths become today's burdens.
Past giants like IBM are also looking for their next seat while changing their course toward the cloud and AI. Whether an old company sinks or not may be determined not by the size of its name, but by whether it can move its feet. Even if the company sign remains, if the customer's entrance has moved elsewhere, the scenery has already changed.
As long as sales remain, the sound of the chairs cannot be heard
With every industrial revolution, it is not the case that new companies rise and old ones sink immediately. What is more frightening, I think, is that before they sink, the meaning of their work gradually fades. As long as sales remain, it is difficult to notice that the chairs are being moved.
However, when talented young employees begin to leave quietly, the company's chairs may already be making noise. Sometimes, only the management fails to notice that sound, convinced that they are still sitting in the same place.
Large-scale companies can dominate the market through efficiency and control. But that size also becomes a weight wrapped around their ankles when heading toward the next change.
Outside the conference room, the times are moving ahead
War, regulation, panic, bubbles, and globalization have repeatedly intervened in the fate of companies from the sidelines. If you only look at technology, you will miss the direction of the wind blowing outside the conference room. A new era always arrives not only from research labs, but also from laws, logistics, finance, and human anxiety.
Where wealth gathers, a different kind of silence has always been born. Labor movements, criticism of monopolies, and the philanthropic activities of Carnegie and Rockefeller can be seen as responses to that silence.
Looking at history, it seems that winning companies always possessed new technology. But in reality, perhaps only those companies that could let go of their old chairs in the face of technology were able to move to the next room. The scariest thing might be not noticing until the very end that the chair has moved.
The sound of the chair can sometimes be heard from the backs of those who are leaving.