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You didn’t say what kind of reports you’re looking for . If you’re looking for market research information one way to get some information is to search on Google or Bing for terms associated with the industry you need info for. For instance if you’re thinking of starting a web development company you could search for things like “web development industry statistics” or web development growth.”If you are located in the US, I’d recommend contacting your nearest Small Business Development Center or SCORE office to see if they can help you find the type of research info you are looking for. (Both offer free help to small businesses.)If you aren’t sure what you should research, the Business Know-How Market Research Worksheet will be helpful to you.

One thing I am certain about is that it was not the Dutch East India Company[1]. While huge in its time, it is not close to being “the richest company ever.” Based on my math and analysis below, it was worth somewhere between $1 and $8 billion in today’s dollars.There was an infographic[2] circulating a few years ago about how the Dutch East India Company, better known then as Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie (“VOC”), was worth $7.9 trillion in “inflation-adjusted” terms.This implied that it was worth more than the largest dozen or so public companies on the market at the time, a list that includes Amazon, Apple, Alibaba, Berkshire Hathaway, Exxonmobil, Microsoft, etc.I tried to get to the bottom of how exactly they adjusted for inflation, and traced it all the way back to a Motley Fool article from 2012[3] but I never did find a detailed calculation and explanation [see Note 1 below for further discussion].But the $7.9 trillion figure seemed awfully suspect, so I did a bit of research into VOC to see if I could triangulate to a better number by examining the financial and operating metrics of the company.Here are some relevant financial metrics for VOC:VOC was originally capitalized with 6,440,200 Dutch guilders[4]VOC’s average annual profit during its “Golden Age” period (1630–1670) was 2.1 million guildersVOC achieved a profit margin of around 18 percent (on total revenue) during the “Golden Age” period, implying annual revenue of approximately 11.7 million guildersIn 1780, VOC’s balance sheet featured total capital (net of debt) of 62 million guilders, comprised primarily of ships and inventoryVOC achieved a peak market valuation of around 78 million guilders, which was around 37x normalized earnings[5]78 million Dutch guilders is not worth anywhere close to $7.9 trillion of today’s dollars. This massive valuation yields an implied exchange rate of over $100,000 (2020 dollars) per Dutch guilder.Image Source: WikipediaIt’s always a bit tricky to compare currencies from two eras that are so far apart but if you really must do it, gold is your best bet.Indeed, “guilders” means “golden” in Dutch and we know that a Dutch guilder was equivalent to 605.61 milligrams (0.0214 oz.) of gold[6] in the 17th century. This implies an exchange rate of $38 per Dutch guilder.Re-stating these figures in terms of gold, VOC was worth 1.669 million oz. (~52 tons) at its peak. At the current (June 2020) gold price of $1,771 per oz., its implied market valuation is right around $3 billion.As for corporate profitability, using the same math VOC generates around $80 million per year in annual operating profit. This is nice chunk of change but I am not even sure if it makes the Russell 1000 Index[7] today.At the height of its operation, VOC had 150 merchant ships and employed 50,000 people. Assuming a generous 2,000 tons per ship[8] making one back-and-forth trip a year, the company could move around 600,000 tons.To put this in perspective, this is the rough equivalent to the fully loaded capacity[9] of a single ultra-large container ship, the OOCL Hong Kong, which can make the round-trip from Rotterdam to Singapore in 80 days[10]. The OOCL Hong Kong cost around $1 billion (in 2020 dollars) to build[11].Image Source: Vessel FinderBack in 17th century Holland, a typical outdoor laborer earned about 6.5 guilders per week, or 300 guilders per year[12]. This is what the typical VOC dockhand or sailor would earn as well.Taking the $7.9 trillion figure at face value (i.e. ~$100,000 per Dutch guilder) implies that outdoor laborers back then earned over $30 million per year in today’s dollars. Using the much lower exchange rate implied by the gold equivalent ($38 per Dutch guilder) yields a more reasonable annual income of $11,367 per year.Looking at it from another perspective, $7.9 trillion would value VOC’s 50,000 employees at a cool $158 million each. One of the highest market value-to-employee ratios out there today is Facebook at around $13 million/employee, less than 1/10th. Given that most of VOD’s 50,000 employees were laborers relying largely on their muscles, this is likely off by at least three orders of magnitude.A closer comparable would be Walmart which is valued at around $152,000 per employee. Applying this metric to VOC yields an implied market valuation of around $8 billion. Even this figure is optimistic, as a Walmart employee — with access to modern equipment and technology, and better educated — is significantly more productive than the average 17th-century manual laborer.In summary, we arrive at a valuation somewhere in the $1 to $8 billion range. While it doesn’t have quite the same ring as “$7.9 trillion”, this figure looks far more realistic. And by 17th and 18th century standards, this was truly an enormous sum.The actual “richest” company?If measured by market capitalization, it would be Apple, which as of last Friday (June 26, 2020), had a market capitalization of $1,533 billion, just beating out Microsoft at $1,489 billion.If we want to count non-listed companies, Saudi Aramco may be worth even more than both of them[13] — based on its claim on 270 billion barrels of identified, easily extractable crude oil reserves.VOC was a massively impactful company for its time, helping the Dutch Republic dominate global trade for nine “Golden” decades spanning the 16th and 17th centuries. But the idea that it would barely qualify for a small-cap index today illustrates just how much the world has progressed over the last three centuries.Explanatory Note[Note 1] I suspect the $7.9 trillion figure was based on an excel worksheet using an assumed inflation rate (or re-investment rate) compounded over more than three centuries. Anyone who understands compound growth over such long periods of time knows how getting this assumption even a little bit wrong could lead to wildly unrealistic outcomes.The other explanation — as brought up in the comments section — is that the $7.9 trillion figure is derived by calculating VOC’s value vs. aggregate global wealth in the 17th century and then applying that fraction to today’s (significantly larger) number. As I discuss in the comments section, I disagree with this approach, and define wealth as being very specifically based on the production of real goods and services.Footnotes[1] Glenn Luk's answer to How is the Dutch East India Company the most profitable company in history?[2] Visualizing the Most Valuable Companies of All-Time[3] A History of Ridiculously Big Companies | The Motley Fool[4] Dutch East India Company - Wikipedia[5] A History of Ridiculously Big Companies | The Motley Fool[6] Dutch guilder - Wikipedia[7] Russell 1000 Index - Wikipedia[8] Galleon - Wikipedia[9] Glenn Luk's answer to Is it true stone blocks used to build the pyramids were so heavy that humans could not lift them even with modern technology?[10] Port of Singapore, Singapore to Port of Rotterdam, Netherlands sea route and distance[11] OOCL Hong Kong Breaks 21,000 TEU Mark, Becoming ‘World’s Largest Containership’[12] Value of Dutch money in the 17th century.[13] Glenn Luk's answer to Will the world tolerate a trillionaire?

Hi, I am currently a junior at UC Berkeley and have plenty of 4.0 or near 4.0 friends as examples that you might want to emulate or jump off of.Let me spit out the brutal truth at Berkeley. Most students at Berkeley who get a 3.9-4. 0 don’t work as hard as those who are in the 3.5+ range. This could be biased, but I know/am friends with at least 20 people who have a 4.0, so hopefully variance is reduced. Most of them are CS/EECS, ditch all the classes except breadths, and watch tv shows/twitch stream/sports channels or do research in their free time. The few times they study is 3–4 days before exam where they cover all the material in one go and learn how to solve some problems. Then they go on with their A+ on midterm/final. This covers around 60–80% of the 4.0 students. These students are gifted with immense talent and have a strong potential to change the world. They often end up in big companies, like Google and Facebook, to earn stable salaries before they venture out. In fact, the ones that I know of usually go to quant firms like Jane Street or Two Sigma. This is the average trajectory of such a student. To be honest, 4.0’s rarely go on to do fulltime research and do masters instead, and they have calculated the tradeoff between $$$ and 4 years of PHD. I only know 3 4.0 students who decided to pursue PHD track. This general trajectory is sampled from the smartest people I have met at Berkeley.The second category of 4.0 students (20–40%) are the hardworkers. They are not the ones gifted with heaven-defying talent, so hardwork makes up the gap between the geniuses. Without consistent hard work, they wouldn’t do so well in academics. The typical trajectory of such student is watch all webcasts, read all slides, do all the worksheet and midterm problems on HKN/TBP, and barely get A on the exam. These people are trying too hard in academics, perhaps wanting to build a strong foundation, but this effort ought to be better invested in social skills, discovering passions/discovering yourself, or living a better/happier life. The main purpose of academics is for students to gain knowledge/specialize into one field e.g. CS or ML for research or gain a strong foundation to go into industry. Realize that as an individual, you are not controlled by market demands like that ML, but rather individual desires. Go on your own way, disregard GPA no matter how hard it is to sever that drive to get 4.0, and explore as much as you can