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Entrepreneurs who never sold
Micky Malka built and sold five companies before Ribbit, with real successes among them that changed many people's lives. He still considers himself a failed entrepreneur, because the best entrepreneurs never have to sell and he had never found a vehicle he could keep for good.
It took 20 years to learn how to design the structure, the culture, the team, the knowledge, and the brand so that all of it could compound into something that lasts. In 2012 he started Ribbit, which he does not think of as an investment firm. To him it is a company built to go on indefinitely.
How do companies last hundreds of years?
A 2008 report by the Bank of Korea found more than 3,000 companies in Japan that were over 200 years old, far more than in any other country. Kongo Gumi, a Japanese temple-building firm founded in 578, operated for about 1,400 years before becoming a subsidiary of another construction company in 2006. Many of these long-lived firms are small, family-owned, and narrowly focused on a single craft.
How do funds with no end date work?
Most venture funds are structured as limited partnerships with a life of about ten years, after which they must return capital to their investors. An evergreen structure has no set end date, so the manager can hold investments for as long as it chooses. Berkshire Hathaway is the best-known example of permanent capital.
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