Comment by gnfargbl

I wasn't convinced of this, so I asked ChatGPT to give me the founding dates of the top 10 companies from the Wikipedia page, with an instruction to track backwards through M&A. Here's the result:

* Volkswagen: Founded on May 28, 1937, as Gesellschaft zur Vorbereitung des Deutschen Volkswagens mbH, later renamed Volkswagenwerk.

* Shell: Formed in April 1907 through the merger of Royal Dutch Petroleum Company (established in 1890) and The "Shell" Transport and Trading Company (founded in 1897).

* TotalEnergies: Established in 1924 as Compagnie Française des Pétroles (CFP).

* Glencore: Originated as Marc Rich + Co AG in 1974.

* BP: Incorporated on April 14, 1909, as the Anglo-Persian Oil Company.

* Stellantis: Formed on January 17, 2021, from the merger of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and PSA Group. Fiat Chrysler Automobiles was established through the merger of Fiat S.p.A. (founded July 11, 1899) and Chrysler Group LLC (originally Chrysler Corporation, founded June 6, 1925). PSA Group was Established as Peugeot Société Anonyme in 1966, but its roots trace back to Peugeot's original founding in 1810 as a family industrial business.

* BMW: Traces its origins to Bayerische Flugzeugwerke AG, established on March 7, 1916.

* Mercedes-Benz Group: Resulted from the merger of Benz & Cie. (founded in 1883) and Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft (founded in 1890) in 1926.

* Électricité de France (EDF): Established in 1946 following the nationalization of France's electricity sector.

* Banco Santander: Founded on May 15, 1857, as Banco de Santander.

We could do the full list and then weight by revenue or something but broadly, I think the point that 'pembrook is making is proven.

As an aside, one feature of LLMs that I genuinely do enjoy is the ability to ask for intern-level research like this.