businessbriefs
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Mining

Where the materials actually come from, and at what cost.

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9:32

Alfa Romeo

Nicola Romeo · 1910

Alfa Romeo was not founded by Nicola Romeo. It was founded in 1910 as A.L.F.A. to acquire the assets of the failing Italian Darracq subsidiary. Romeo acquired it in 1915, took full ownership by 1918, renamed it in 1920, launched the first Alfa Romeo-branded car in 1921, won the inaugural 1925 World Manufacturers’ Championship, faced near-liquidation in 1927 due to poor investments, departed formally in 1928, and was taken over by the Italian state in 1933.

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9:02

BHP

BHP ceased to exist in 2001 — not as a failure, but as a brand absorbed into a dual-listed merger.
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10:51

De Beers

Cecil Rhodes · 1888

De Beers is a case study in artificial scarcity — built not on geology or technology, but on merger, capital, and contract.

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8:50

Hindalco Industries

Hindalco didn’t build global scale — it bought it, for $6 billion, and renamed itself the world’s largest rolled-aluminium producer.
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10:46

Sasol

A state-built coal-to-liquids project became a global mining and chemicals giant—not by pivoting away from coal, but by scaling it.
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11:10

Hitachi

Namihei Odaira · 1910

Hitachi’s origin was not entrepreneurial mythmaking — it was applied engineering inside a single mine. Its revenue came from selling hardware that replaced steam, muscle, and manual control with electrified motion. It succeeded by staying embedded in physical infrastructure — not by pivoting to services or software. Its independence in 1920 marked a shift in legal structure, not strategy. Odaira’s leadership lasted until 1947, but he never owned the firm he built.