Growth Can Be a Company's Downfall

The story of Kongō Gumi, the world's oldest continuously run business for 1,428 years, is a cautionary tale about the dangers of prioritizing growth over stability.

For centuries, the company thrived by focusing on its core business of building temples. But in the 1980s, it got caught up in the Japanese real estate bubble and expanded rapidly into a new and unfamiliar market.

When the bubble burst, the company was left with a mountain of debt and was eventually liquidated. It had survived wars, political crises, and even atomic bombs, but it could not survive the cost of rapid growth.

This story is a powerful reminder that growth is not always the best course of action. Sometimes, the smartest thing a business can do is to stay small and focused on what it does best.