Big Trees Start as Small Seeds

In South Korea, one company accounts for 20% of the nation’s GDP. Samsung does $240 billion in annual revenue and is by far the largest employer.

In the United States, the largest company is only 2.5% of GDP.

Despite its relatively smaller slice of the pie, Walmart does $611 billion in annual revenue.

Samsung was founded in 1938 by Lee Byung-chul, a Korean businessman. The company started out as a small trading company, dealing in dried fish and noodles, and. After some success, Samsung added a sugar refinery and a textile mill.

It didn’t even enter the electronics industry until 1960, 22 years after its founding.

Sam Walton started his business 1962, in Rogers Arkansas.

Walton was inspired by the early success of his dime store, and driven to bring even greater opportunity and value to his customers, he opened the first Walmart in 1962 at the age of 44 in Rogers, Arkansas.

It was a mere 2,700 square feet in size. This is significantly smaller than the average Walmart store today, which is about 107,000 square feet.

If you try to be a Fortune 500 company tomorrow, you're destined to burn out from impatience. But if you play the long game, you can have an impact beyond your wildest imagination.

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