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Cryptocurrency

Money without a state, and everything that follows from that.

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9:36

PayPal

Peter Thiel & Max Levchin · 1998

PayPal is a case study in opportunistic infrastructure: built on a dead-end tech idea, it succeeded only after latching onto a specific, messy, high-volume use case — eBay auctions — and charging for reliability in a trust vacuum.

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10:56

ABB

Charles Eugene Lancelot Brown · 1988

ABB is a post-merger industrial incumbent whose value lies in proven, regulated, physical infrastructure — not software, platforms, or scalability stories.

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10:50

AbbVie

AbbVie didn’t win the autoimmune market with science — it won with patents, pricing, and settlements.
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11:24

Aeroplan

Aeroplan isn’t a loyalty program—it’s a licensed data-and-redemption conduit owned, sold, and reacquired for CA$450 million.
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10:10

AGCO

AGCO didn’t invent farm machinery — it acquired its way into the top tier of global tractor makers.