Hindalco Industries
Hindalco didn’t build global scale — it bought it, for $6 billion, and renamed itself the world’s largest rolled-aluminium producer.
Materials
Every era is named after one, which should be a clue.
- 4
- in business
- 9:32
- average
- 38 min
- in total
- 138
- across the network
All briefs
Adolf Dassler
Adolf Dassler built Adidas not with slogans or stories — but with spikes, shark skin, and athletes’ feet.
Kobe Steel
Ichiro Uemura · 1905
Kobe Steel is a Japanese industrial conglomerate whose name misleads: steel accounts for the smallest share of its business among major Japanese steelmakers. It grew not through market innovation but via naval technical guidance and orders after the Russo-Japanese War. Its real strengths lie in wire rods, transport aluminium, screw compressors, and wholesale power supply—three distinct divisions operating semi-independently. The gap between its identity (a steel company) and its economics (a diversified industrial group) is structural, not accidental.
Saint-Gobain
A 359-year-old company that stopped making mirrors in the 17th century — and never told anyone.